Social Media From The Eyes Of A Blogger

Last spring I was at a small local blogging conference. One of the speakers was a pretty big blogger with traffic in the thousands per day. She came up to me and told me that she had been looking forward to meeting me, that I was HUGE.

In shock, I could only just stare at her. I was fairly sure she wasn’t talking about my butt. Surely she had me mistaken for someone else. I have hardly any traffic, I’m lucky to have a couple hundred unique visitors a day. On a good day. And I’ve been around for almost 4 years which, in internet years, I’m as old as the heavens.

We chatted for a few minutes and I laughingly told her how awful my traffic is. She responded “Well, I don’t know who does your PR but EVERYONE knows you and your blog.”

Everyone knows who I am?

Really?

That’s incredible because no one does my PR, or in the case of blogging, my social media.

It’s all me.

She told me that whatever it is I’m doing is working.

Interesting, because up until recently, I thought she was nuts.

But I realized after reading the Unmarketing by Scott Straten and then this post which I caught tweeted from Shannon Paul(who is pretty awesome), I’m ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ON in my approach.

Which really? Isn’t even a complete approach.

I just do what feels right. Which,…is just being myself. Transparent. Open book. And, without worrying about sounding arrogant, I’m apparently likable and relatable.

I tweet from the heart and sometimes from the head. Although, for business, it’s opposite.

That is what is working.

I may not get a lot of blog traffic but when I hit the social media circuit, I have a decent amount of people taking notice of what I’m saying. I know, right?!

Recently my friend Nicole and I started a social media company. You may have seen Facebook and Twitter updates about it already. We are simply called Barrett and Brodsky Media. It’s our tagline that says it all though.

Being social is our business.

Social media, to me, is about being social. Period.

I’m not smart in the ways of talking like a internet guru techie. You aren’t going to get a cerebral, mind-blowingly quotable post about how I think social media should be. I don’t have that type of mind. I can write a mean short story though. 😉

I can only tell you what works, from what I’ve seen. And that is taking that company you are doing the social media for and turning it into an approachable, personable, somewhat knowledgeable online personality. Think Ford’s Scott Monty, and GM’s Chris Barger. And how about WXYZ’s own Stephen Clark with #backchannel.

These are true social media GURUS. Taking the medium and transforming it into a true social, interactive platform. When they Tweet, people retweet. (That should be E.F Hutton’s NEW tagline, when we tweet, people retweet. I maintain the copyright, call me, we’ll talk).

There are so many companies and individuals out there who are doing social media for business but you would NEVER know it. They become friends, people you look forward to talking to online and hopefully, someday, in real life.

That’s what works.

What doesn’t work, in my little opinion? The social media “consultants” that don’t do what I just said.

Most of the individuals that these companies are trying to reach, after awhile, tune out the tweets, status updates and blog posts that are nothing more than links. Personally, I stop following those social media tweeps.

I also go through my twitter followers/following and clean house. I’m not going to keep you in my stream when you don’t interact with me (or anyone else, for that matter).

DELETE.

There is NOTHING social in that type of social media marketing/consulting.

The beautiful thing about the internet, especially for businesses, is the interaction you can have.

I mean, c’mon, it’s so obvious.

Use it.

Take maximum advantage of it.

Forget the media part for a moment and concentrate on the social aspect.

Stop taking yourself so seriously.

Have fun with it.

Social media is the most incredible and effective way to say what it is you want everyone to hear.

It would really stink to realize that no one was listening.

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