Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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The Only Way to Attract a Vibrant, High-Trust Community

Filed Under Comments, Community, Design, Inside-Out Thinking, Liz Talks Corporate, Marketing, One Way to CC It, SEO, Successful Blog, Tech/Stats, Tools | 35 Comments

Last summer at AdTech, a VP at huge corporate brand extended her arms completely — way out in front her — and used her hands to gesture as she said something close to this about her goal for building a community:

I want to build a community in which peers are talking to peers openly.

I’m sure she didn’t mean it the way it looked … Her hands were so far away from her. — or sounded … peers talking to peers?

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I couldn’t help thinking … Where will YOU be? Studying me? Is that what you think of me? I’m not a peer. I’m a person. I only do well in places where people “get” me.

Users. Consumers. Buyers. Customers. Leads. Eyeballs. Peers. Those are faceless, flattening labels. They come from the time of one-size-fits-all.

People are individual human beings complete with aspirations, intentions, ideas, opinions, habits, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.

Which community would you join?

More Communities and More Time for Them

Online social communities aren’t a new thing. People have been linking and sharing via blogs since the 20th century. Organized social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn have become a part of our lives.

Our communities are becoming more about communicating and being creative about what interests us. It’s all about making it relevant to the people we want to attract. As this Pew Internet Slideshare describes …

Social Media – Making it Business Relevant
View more presentations from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.


We’re participating more. We’re spending more time in communities. We’re building more of them. How do attract people to the communities we’re building that are perfect for them?

The Only Way to Attract a Vibrant, High-Trust Community

Just as a building is not a business, a community is not a collection of profiles or a url. People won’t visit our community because it’s pretty. People will come because it offers them something they value.

From two people to more than plenty, a community is a social structure that shares personal values, cultural values, business goals, attitudes, or a world view. What binds it is a culture of social rules and group dynamics that identify members. In the most concise terms, an online social community is a group of like-minded individuals connected by relevant interactions and protected by a high-trust environment.

A high-trust community is an agreement, a pact or contract, like love or friendship. We can’t order, build, or wish our way to one. What we can do is attract people who want to join what we’re doing. The only way to do that is clear passionate commitment, obvious generosity, trustworthiness, and a touch of intentional serendipity … which looks something like this.

  1. Be a person (or people) who likes people. People work with, talk with, and relate to other people not a business.
  2. Articulate a clear and passionate vision worth investing in. Live your commitment. Get your hands dirty.
  3. Seek out people who would love what you’re doing. Find them where they are already gathering and talking. Join THEIR conversations. Get to know them.
  4. Be a beginner, but keep the vision. Learn from everyone who’s been anywhere near where you’re going. Learn to sort wrong from unexpected or different. Ideas that jar you could be the best ones.
  5. Invite everyone who “gets” the vision to help build this new thing. Look for ways to include their skills and their passions.
  6. Keep participation efficient and easy. Curb the urge to add cool things that get in the way of conversation and sharing.
  7. Let trust sort things. Model the standards of behavior. Keep rules to a minimum.
  8. Be visible authenticity. Lean toward full disclosure, but avoid over-exposure. Most of us look better with our clothes on.
  9. Protect everyone’s investment. Forgive mistakes. Ignore little missteps. Eradicate what is destructive. Know the difference by holding thing up to trust, values, and the community vision.
  10. Stop doing what isn’t working. Be lethal about keeping things easy, efficient, and meaningful.
  11. Promote your members … and honor your competition! Secure communities need both to thrive and get new ideas.
  12. Encourage mutation. Let the environment change to meet the changing needs of the people it serves.
  13. Celebrate contagion. Make it heroic to share what’s going on!
  14. Be grateful and always about the people. The community wouldn’t be a community without them.

An online community isn’t built or befriended, it’s connected by offering and accepting. Community is affinity, identity, and kinship that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions. –What Is a Social Community?

We create vibrant, high trust community by letting other folks raise the barn with us, by being their first offering trust and a passionate vision, and valuing the trust and energy they give us.

What attracts you to a community? What keeps you coming back again?

-ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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How Grandma Inspired a Geeky Amazon Gratitude Gift Guide

Filed Under Comments, Great Finds, Marketing, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

Wishing, Buying, and Don’t Forget the Wine for a Cause

The Living Web

Every year, grandma gives me a list of holiday gifts to buy from my Amazon Affiliate Store. She wants a few pennies to come my way too. Thanks Grandma. I’m grateful for your thoughts.

Every year while I shop, I’m always distracted by thoughts of the people I wish I could be buying for. I see the laptop that one friend could use and that Kindle that one reader can’t quit talking about. My heart gets filled with gratitude for the folks who’ve made my life, my business, and my blog so lovely all year and I want to demonstrate in a very real way.

And after my unexpected hospital vacation this year, the feeling is huge.

Of course, it wouldn’t be wise, practical, or even possible to share the gratitude we all feel by buying everything we might. But the good thoughts of the giving are still awfully nice.

So here’s to dreaming of the recovery, the new clients and new jobs in 2010, or the new ideas we come up with venture and partner to raise each other up again. Here are the things I would love to get for my friends with my wishful big spend.

Maybe this list will give you some ideas and great thoughts of those closest to you.

Take a Peek and Wish

Of course the list starts with books and social media gifts, you can find lots of my favorites – including everything Twitter — at my Blogger and Social Media AStore.

I’ve tried to feature there all of the contributions by my incredible friends — if your Amazon products aren’t there, please email me so that I can include you. What fun to have a store filled will products by people I know and trust. I recommend those all to you.

And here are some other fun things I’d love to put in my “big spend.” Soon … maybe soon …

Okay, my wishing for what I would get my friends is over. What would you do with your wishful big spend?

We’ll Be Together on the Holidays

Don’t tell Grandma, but she’s getting the book she wanted and another. I thought a movie and some snacks to share while watching might also be good. Meanwhile, I’m bringing over our favorite OneHopeWines … it’s always a good choice and a great cause.

Most of all, we’ll be together on the holidays. I hope you will too.

PS. If you get underwear and socks, before you return them … consider offering them to the nearest homeless shelter. Cold weather makes them a priceless gift.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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What Cool People Can You Tell Me About Today?

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With social media and social networking everything changed.

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Some say the playing field is leveled. I’m not so sure that’s the analogy. First of all it’s not a game. What’s happened is that everyone who has a voice has a chance to put their signal into the stream. Whether it’s a blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or the smallest, most targeted social site you’ve ever seen, every business needs to seek out where our customers are and start talking with — not to — them.

Why? If we’re not talking to them, something else is happening …

How can we improve that situation? Certainly asking people to say nice things about us might be one way, but it’s not the best way to start.

Social networking is best when we learn, listen, and engage — telling great stories other people and businesses (not about ourselves). Find good things that great people and businesses are doing. Find people who are making strides doing things that relate to what you do. Help those doers tell their valuable stories. People will notice.

The best form of networking is telling folks about the great people you know and what they are doing. Sharing the news of cool people is a great way to show our own values.

What cool people can you tell me about today?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Why People Pay Attention…

Filed Under Comments, Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, Writing | 37 Comments

A Hospital with ADD

relationships button

In the ER
It was a long flight home from Amsterdam through Madrid to Chicago. I expected to be tired on arrival, but the day after I arrived something terrible was wrong. I felt like I was shot in my left side. The pain was constant, strong, and worse than childbirth. Five hours in, I knew I needed to find out what was going on.

My husband had H1N1. No way he could come with me. I went to the ER alone. In a short time they found me a place. set me up for a x-ray and a CT scan. A friend caught up with me via text and came to sit by me for hours while I waited. My cell phone didn’t work so I couldn’t call home.

My mouth was dry, too dry to talk. They gave me ice chips when they remembered. They never gave me a way to call for more. On the way back from the x-ray I asked for more ice or water. An hour later, I was still without.

When the tests were over, they said I had a mass in my lungs (pneumonia), a blood infection (ecoli), and kidney stones. Maybe and hour later or so, they said were going to admit me. My friend went home.

After being alone for a long while, I sent a note to the ER desk asking someone to call my husband or my son before they admitted me to tell them what was going on. The Dr. in charge of ER that night pronounced that he didn’t have time to make such a call. He spoke loud enough for me to hear him, but couldn’t walk the ten steps over to tell me himself.

I’d now been gone from home almost 6 hours. My husband had no idea what was happening with me. By then what the doctor had told me was a faint memory. I wasn’t able to answer questions about it. The pain was still there despite the pain meds they’d given me.

In the Room
The first doctors I saw were residents. They didn’t introduce themselves as such they just started asking questions about what medications I take. One took notes and took the name of my pharmacy wrote both in my chart

She told me to keep taking those meds.

I asked three times to be sure that was what she wanted, explaining that I have gone as long as week with out those meds and she said keep taking them.

Apparently this information was not important enough for other doctors to read.

This proved a serious mistake when they put me out for the procedure to remove the kidney stone. Because my meds interacted with the meds they gave me for procedure.

My oxygen level dropped deadly low — well below 80, I heard as low as 60 — causing me twice to have seizures on the table while they were getting me ready to go for removal of the stone.

I didn’t die, but I could have.

Back in my room I was on oxygen and a monitor now. Some help that monitor was. If I moved a certain way, the alarm on the monitor would show zero and sound an alarm. No one would come. We timed it once at 20 minutes without a response. Another friend who was there every day to watch over me knew how to turn off the noise.

I asked the charge nurse why bother with a machine if they weren’t going to come. The answer was a weak smile, a look away with her eyes, and a blanket apology.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You are not.”

I can’t help but wonder what was more distracting or important than reading the charts and answering alarms?

What was more worth their attention?

Some people don’t pay attention even when it’s their job.

A Community Who Paid Attention

I was released after 8 days. The surgeon who performed the procedure hadn’t been to check that all was well with the stent he’d left in. I’d not seen him since 5 days before. I went home with about half as much pain as when I had arrived.

Then something beautiful, embarrassing, and unexpected happened. People started to tell my simple story of how hospital stay had knocked me low. They shared it on their blog and on Twitter and in messages to me that are unforgettable. Thank you, Deb Ng, Lucretia Pruitt, and Jenn Fowler for thinking of me. Thank you everyone who chipped in. And thank you to Kathryn and everyone who guest posted for all of the work you did keeping my blog going on.

People pay attention because they care.

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I am grateful this Thanksgiving for every second of your attention.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

How Do You Transition or Repurpose Content for the Web?

Filed Under Comments, Marketing, Successful Blog, Writing | 11 Comments

Don’t Endow Me

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Anyone who has had to give a demonstration, deliver a report, or teach a class knows the importance of tuning the information to the audience. Anyone who been to a class that involves learning software knows that students is likely to include folks new to the subject and the most savvy experts who want to refine their skills.

Sharing information with people is easier, more efficient, and more meaningful …

It’s hard to do these when we’re working with a group that is all in the same room. This problem becomes even more difficult on the web. Here, we’re tasked to share information meaningfully when we’re in a new genre and blind to the audience. We’re writing for an unknown number of people who could be from anywhere and know absolutely nothing on our subject or have significantly more experience than we do.

How Do We Write Meaningful Content for People We Can’t See?

Writing for the web gets easier when we realize the words carry a different load than words in print. Words online are lit and hit the eye differently. People access them with a different intent. It’s a different experience to read a device than to read a book. It’s different experience to read and respond to a blog than to read a newspaper and write an email back.

I’ve been repurposing content and publishing online and offline since the 20th century. Here are some tips about transitioning and writing content for the web.

Great titles, short paragraphs, small words, subheads for navigation, a learner’s voice, and content leveled and chosen by you as a partner with the audience <-- that's a formula for transitioning content to the web.

Have you repurposed content for the web? What have you found works best?

--ME "Liz" Strauss

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