Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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November 24, 2008

How to Wear the Hats of a Social Media Champion — 5 Key Traits of Credible Social Media Champions

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 10:01 am

It Starts with Amber’s Hats

The Living Web

Last week Amber Nashlund wrote post about the hats a social media champion wears. Whether we’re working inside a company or independently, anyone who offers new ways to do anything knows the challenge is not meant for the faint of heart. Knowing which of Amber’s hats to wear and which skill to call on for each situation is part science and part art. That’s the expertise of a social media champion — it’s the key leadership trait of any business manager leading change.

The proverbial hats — the know how, the expertise — won’t get far with a group that doesn’t know and trust the person wearing them. I know that Amber agrees. We’ve talked about this on other projects we’re planning together.

Remind You of Anything?

In the early years of educational publishing, dedicated teachers wanted more authentic materials than those offered by big publishers. So they made their own tools, activities, and classroom materials. Soon other teachers noticed and asked to use them. A business was born. Teachers made products and sold them to other classroom teachers they knew. The products were handmade, bound with plastic, and copied somewhere like Kinkos.

Rough edges were a mark of authenticity. Hand drawings and low-design meant the quality was in the content. Those qualities said “A real teacher made this.” New customers knew the books were good because they knew the teachers who made them.

The best of those dedicated teacher-publishers gained experience and perspective. Some left their own classrooms to serve more classroom teachers full time. However, they found growing their business wasn’t as easy as starting their business had been.

Our dedicated teacher-publishers saw other dedicated teachers offering homemade products for individual classroom teachers. Inexperienced copycats and opportunists were selling look-alike products that made empty promises and offered bad practices. Big educational publishers began to make books for individual classroom teachers too.

Classroom teachers had trouble discriminating the value from the noise.

When their customers knew them, the “rough edges” had been a certain kind of credibility, now those same homemade values made their products look shabby. Dedicated teacher-publishers needed a new way to connect their expertise with the classroom teachers they served.

Remind you of a situation anywhere near us right now?

How to Wear the Hats of a Social Media Champion

In the early days of blogging and social media, people learned by trial and error and then taught other people. We read their blogs or worked with them personally. Only so many sources existed. Someone new could recognize a wise teacher from a fool by seeing what the wise teachers had in common. We knew who was credible.

Then the blogopshere and the world of social networking exploded. Whole populations exist that have no contact with each other. Anyone can put on the social media hats. It’s hard to discriminate the value from the noise. We need to find new ways to connect with the people we want to serve.

When faced with the same challenge, those teacher-publishers shifted their thinking. They took their expertise out of the handmade package. They raised their production values to match the market. The successful dedicated teacher publishers made careful choices to convey their shared values with their classroom-teacher customers.

They offered the same solid expertise, the same content, in a new presentation.

In any noisy market what newcomers first encounter is presentation. Presentation is more than first impression. Presentation lays the groundwork for connection and relationship.

The way we wear the hats of a social media champion — our presentation verbally, visually, in text, in tone, in personal relationships — is a vital part of the expertise those hats represent.

A social media champion is a living presentation of his or her social media expertise.

Our presentation shows whether we understand who we’re talking to and what they value. From the choice of the photos and the type on a blog — new design in the works — to the choice of whether to wear a grunge jeans to visit a lawyer client, the way we “package” a message communicates even before our first word is offered.

5 Key Traits of Credible Social Media Champions

I’m not thinking we should change our identity. Just the opposite. What I’m proposing is that we make our best traits visible — that we walk our talk in the following ways. I see 5 key traits of in the social media champions I most admire and so I recommend them here.

Long before they offer us a chance to speak or show off our social media hats, people evaluate our credibility. By the time we talk, they’ve already decided whether they will listen. Jason Falls says it best,

“Social media, you gotta live it.”

It takes quite a skill set — and several hats — to be a social media champion: listening, understanding, building on what went before, showing proof of success, engaging skeptics in meaningful conversation, inviting them into new ways of participation, planning action appropriate to their history, demonstrating ways that make jobs easier, more effective, and more efficient, helping keep the focus, and cheering people on when they lose the faith.

That’s why it’s a called champion, not a manager.

What traits do you see in the social media champions you trust? Who’s earned your credibility?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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19 Comments to “How to Wear the Hats of a Social Media Champion — 5 Key Traits of Credible Social Media Champions”

  1. November 24th, 2008 at 10:16 am
    Tiffany said

    Liz,

    Thanks for the great read and the link to Amber Nashlund’s post. I try to submerge myself in social media to learn as much as possible. Before you know it a new product is making its way onto the market and becoming popular. It takes a strong commitment to become a social media champion.

    @TiffanyWinbush
    http://www.womenmakingmoves.org

  2. November 24th, 2008 at 10:22 am
    Bloggeries said

    Good post Liz. Particularly liked the “Be a person, not a personal brand.” and “Know what you stand for”.

    You’ll never have everyone agree with you but as long as you make some sort of stand for what you believe in others who feel the same way will recognize and appreciate that.

  3. November 24th, 2008 at 10:43 am
    Web Success Diva said

    I completely agree with your statement that one of the best ways to tell a social media expert is by what they are actually doing in social media. Such a critical point, too many miss this entirely and then get burned.

  4. November 24th, 2008 at 11:57 am
    Betsy Wuebker said

    Not only be authentic, but instead of trying to sell me something, let me buy into it when I’m ready. I’m looking to see if the walk is being walked.

  5. November 24th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
    Feedback Secrets said

    Your right, as more people enter the social media marketplace, strategies to “stand out from the crowd” become increasingly important.

    Thanks for the tips.

    -Phil

  6. November 24th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
    Richard Reeve said

    Love the emphasis on both the tangible AND the intangible. I think of your sharing about your recent dental work, and me the ticket for no seat belt while driving to NYC a week or so ago. These incidents develop a sense of the real, the commonplace aspects of our lives, and render a portrait that is not manufactured in some marketing committee board room. In a strange way they tie us into the mainstream fixation with reality TV, but bring it down out of mass media into the realm of one to one, or one to a few dozen.

  7. November 24th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
    Derek Halpern said

    @Richard Reeve - I’m going to have to agree with you. She does a great job emphasizing the tangible and the intangible.

  8. November 24th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Tiffany,
    I social media world it’s gotta be one tool at a time. Get to know the ones that work for you, so that you have a baseline — then compare the new ones to the ones you know.

    Most importantly, let the needs determine the tool — then go find the right fit. :)

  9. November 24th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Bloggeries,
    You’re right not all folks will agree and the ones who don’t are probably the ones that we wouldn’t be a match to work with. So we find like-minded clients that way. :)

  10. November 24th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    WebSuccessDiva,
    If we’re not walking our talk, we shouldn’t be trying to teach folks how get there. You’re right, though, lots of folks are playing without ideas or view.

  11. November 24th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Yeah, Betsy,
    Nothing’s worse than telling me I need something before I’ve even decided I’m ready to listen to what someone has to say. I like to do my own thinking. Sounds like we agree on that too.

  12. November 24th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Yeah, Phil,
    The best way to stand out seems to be to actually listen then offer the value of own thinking to find a unique soluion that the client has.

    Go figure.

  13. November 24th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Richard,
    I think as I see social almost bifurcating — I hope the folks who become more “efficient” don’t lose sight of the difference … that real relationships with real people have been made. It takes care to change the deal now.

    The intangibles are in some more important than we realize.

  14. November 24th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Derek!
    Thank you for your IM and the stumble as well as this comment. I appreciate your support in so many ways. :)

  15. November 24th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
    Lin Burress said

    Liz, I appreciate very much your mention of building credible relationships. When I first began blogging, I read time after time the importance of “building personal relationships” with other bloggers and writers.

    That’s one big reason why I enjoy Twitter so much, because it allows me the opportunity to engage and build relationships with others such as yourself over time. It doesn’t happen overnight.

    A few people I can think of off the top of my head that I feel are social media champions are Jason Falls, Jonathan Fields, Derek Semmler, David Finch and Guy Kawasaki just to name a few.

  16. November 24th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Lin!
    It’s the people to people connection that makes all the rest of it work. Yeah. Twitter is good for that. I think so too. Thank you for including your list. Some great champions there. :)

  17. November 25th, 2008 at 8:42 am
    Karen Putz / DeafMom said

    Social Media Champion? Why, Liz, of course. (You are wearing your tiara today, aren’t you? ;))

    Authentic people shine through in social media. I enjoy following Robert Hruzek, Chris Brogan, Joanna Young, Brad Shorr, Darren Rowse, and Terry Starbucker, to name a few.

  18. November 25th, 2008 at 11:26 am
    Geoff Livingston said

    I really see team building and consensus skills as critical for larger cos.

  19. November 30th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
    Social Means More than One » The Buzz Bin said

    [...] wide variety of two-way conversational media forms — involves more than one person or entity. Great social media from organizations and marketers engages the larger whole on topics that are more diverse than simple product discussions or contrived [...]

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