Successful Blog

Credibility: How to Connect with New Arrivals to the SocialSphere

by

What We Do Well

Susan Reid’s thoughts on women entrepreneurs got me thinking about the SocialSphere and what makes us all successful when we are. It’s no surprise that those entrepreneurial traits that she outlines are found in familiar places online.

Susan points out that successful entrepreneurs have several traits in common. I found those traits alive and well online.

She added business leadership characteristics that seem to be found more often in women — an affinity for balanced, life-style businesses; a bias toward service-focused, customer care; values-led business leadership; faith in intuition, trust, and holistic decision-making; and a success definition that includes relationships. Great social media practitioners — men and women — work toward those same people-centered values. . . . This framework for measuring social media from Peter Kim points to the core of that likemindedness. The very word social in social media and social networking seems to make that people-centeredness an obvious trait.

When I read the last section, Top Five Mistakes Made by Women in Business, I began looking at our online conversation and and how we might handle it best for new people arriving in the SocialSphere. .

How to Connect with New Arrivals to the SocialSphere

Credibility comes from the “context and content.” People meet us and try to place us among what they already know. They use their experience and our first impression — how we look, what we say, what we do — to recognize signs that might validate our consistency, integrity, competence, and trustworthiness.

Every person measures those qualities based on measures of content and context they have used in the past. Note this example and the differences in context.

When did you start using social media tools beyond blogs?

Three years of experience with social media tools can be a lot.

Three years ago, social media wasn’t discussed.
Three years ago Twitter didn’t exist.

Three years experience is still entry level in offline contexts.

It’s a contextual gap.

To establish an authentic relationships, we need to communicate within their context. If, for example, we want to do business, a first impression needs to convey credibly that three years of social media experience is more than entry level. Credible first impressions are crucial to authentic relationships. Authentic relationships are crucial to strong reputations.

Here are six ways to credible first impressions and authentic, lasting relationships.

  • Never let ’em see you sweat.
    When we’re at our best we’re authentic without the gory details. After they’ve been processed, we debrief on learning situations with appropriate distance. When we greet new situations with confidence and direction, it’s natural to invite colleagues into partnerships and collaborations. Our ability to deliver with speed and accuracy increases. That’s visible and professional authenticity. When a job is being well executed, the amount of sweat is irrelevant.
  • Positive beats negative.
    When we’re positive, we naturally gravitate toward supporting common goals and positive outcomes. Positive situations and positive emotions are attractive. Social media tools are made for building connections. Connections happen when we take positive action, offer solutions, and raise others and their work above us.
  • Show up and take ownership — even when it’s not easy.
    When we make every promise, even those to ourselves, unbreakable, we build integrity and credibility. Things as simple as returning phone calls and emails elevates a relationship when everyone else is too busy. Showing people that you value them and their time is respectful — respect is a core component to thriving relationships.
  • BE a product of the level playing field.
    When we’re level — outside of a hierarchy — it’s easier to be calm, assertive, and personally invested without taking things personally. On a level field, every point of view is worthy. It’s a matter of making space to step back to listen actively and responding with integrity.
  • Think and answer for the long-term.
    When we give our best response, not our “first response,” it takes longer, but we show confidence, courage of conviction, and reflective wisdom. Slowing down to allow our best ideas to catch up identifies us as a professional.
  • Make everything about them.
    We do our best when we make a space and make it easy for folks to be themselves, be successful, and connect with other folks. People remember most how we make them feel and how we offer a chance to find purpose or meaning in their lives.

  • Value their experience.
    When we invite people in and find ways to align their goals with our own, we ignite the power of community. Communities accomplish what individuals cannot do alone. The opportunity to share ideas and learn from new arrivals is thrilling. If we listen to learn as well as teach, the potential is only limited by our ability to dream. When we invest in other people, they invest back.

We’ve built a highly collaborative social media culture — one that thrives on learning from each other openly, honestly, and with minimal hierarchy. We know how to meet, interact, and build communities with our customers / readers. That culture is what we value. It’s also what we have to offer.

New folks coming are potential. They will change a culture, just as we did when we got here. If we reach out in the best ways possible, they’ll be our new readers and our new clients. They’ll be the new members of our communities, and we’ll be theirs.

How can we help each other make credible connections with new arrivals? If you’re new to the SocialSphere, what advice do you have?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Thanks to Week 159 SOBs

by

muddy teal strip A

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

muddy teal strip A

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

deep purple strip

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

What Rick Cockrum Said . . . about Dreams and Roadmaps

by

A 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.
Wherever a community gathers, we aspire and inspire each other intentionally . . . And our words shine with authenticity.

Dreams and Roadmaps

Some dreamers put their dreams on the horizon and talk about what they wish. Dreams require a life to be more than a wish. If we only look at our dreams, we’ll see them fade into nothing. What does it take to live a dream into reality?

Here’s what Rick Cockrum said . . .

The most important thing I learned in school was how to learn, Leon. What your degree is in doesn’t matter. Dreams are NEVER smashed, though the implementation may have no resemblance to the original.

The best thing about having a roadmap and a strategy isn’t to stick to it slavishly, but to have taken the time to consciously decide where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, then how you’re going to act on the inevitable changes that have to be made, rather than just reacting to circumstances occurs.

Rick Cockrum from a comment on March 20, 2007

A successful and outstanding blogger said that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

SOB Business Cafe 11-07-08

by

SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Copyblogger describes how to move people to action.
The right message at the right time can start a movement that changes the world, in both big and small ways. And social media has the ability to spread that message and organize that movement in ways not possible in the recent past.

davidbullock describes the key factors that made success. Be sure to follow the link inside the post to Using Social Media As A Promotional Strategy.
To learn any new skill, I find it is best to follow those who are actors in the marketplace. These are the ones who have uncommon practical experience that will never be found in a book and most times will never be documented and you have to engage them in the moment because it is easy to forget the details and thinking that surrounds a successful project.

Seth’s blog describes how to turnaround your life.
And for everyone else, effort is directly related to success. Not all the time, but as much as you would expect. Smarter, harder working, better informed and better liked people do better than other people, most of the time.

Confident Writing describes our resposibilities.
When thinking about writing and responsibility, let’s not forget this part. Your responsibility to shine. To lift the lid off. To write your most brilliant, sparkling stuff. To move mountains, and soften hearts. To write the words that’ll make the difference.

Related ala carte selections include

And BeingFive introduces

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

A Barn Raisers Guide: 7 Ways to Leave the Field of Dreams to Build a Thriving Reality

by


Field of Dreamers and Barn Raisers

For quite a while, I’ve been working with businesses who have or are preparing to build or expand a web presence or social community. They ask me to help focus their strategy and to help bring people to their communities. They want to attract, impress, and ultimately engage fiercely loyal participants.

If you’ve been online for a while, you’ve probably noticed that a percentage of new arrivals get a key strategic point of community sites out of order. Field of Dreamers are sure if they build their idea their way the people will come. Except the people don’t necessarily see the same thing.

More strategic folks Barn Raisers avoid the risk by building the community as they build the site. They believe that people will help build a powerful idea. Barn Raisers invite collaboration from the people they’ll be serving and so what they build is often a gathering place for people even before it’s fully finished.

A Barn Raisers Guide

Here are 7 ways to leave a field of dreams and get people to help you build a thriving reality.

  • Look for similar dreams and listen to everyone who knows about them.
    Ask, search, and explore to find every reality that has the slightest things in common with your dream. Spend some time at each site you find. Meet the people there and see how they use each site. Hear every other guy’s dreams, wishes, needs, and point of view. Get curious. Ask questions constantly. Wonder about what people think of what’s old, what’s new, what’s in every space in the market. Have some ready questions such as this one: If you were going to build a space for people who like to imitate frogs, what features would consider important to include?
  • Turn your dream into promise to do one thing better than anyone else.
    Be able to articulate exactly what that is, why it’s important, and how fits in to a person’s life. Check back with those you spoke to and tweak your promised offer until the folks you’ll serve say it’s relevant to them and fits their lives.
  • Plan from conception to launch.
    Invite people from your outside usual circle to check in on what you’re doing along the way. Weigh their comments for value, sort them, and remember to put the good one to use. Thank everyone of them.
  • Turn your promise into a space for conversation, interaction, creation, and sharing.
    Build a connection conduit. If your promise becomes a blog, keep it sleek and without barriers. Make it easy to see and interact with you. Offer variety in resources and multimedia. Find ways to interact through events. If you’re building a community site, go easy on bells and whistles, execute your promise clearly, and better than anyone has before. Then use extra resources to find more ways for people to converse, interact, create, and share while on your site.
  • Be obsessed with easy.
    If you think something is easy, make it easier. When you’ve done that all you can, ask your grandmother or someone who’s never seen it to try using it without directions. If they don’t breeze through it, go back to the drawing board to make it easier.yet
  • Ask visitors for feedback and ideas on new ways to use the site.
    Let the rule be that everyone gets to pick their best way to do things. That develops into the kind of space that has the climate for relationships.
  • Build ways into your site to link out to and to celebrate your participants.
    Showcase your heroes. Begin with the folks who help you build the site. Give away five great referrals every morning and five more in the afternoon or evening. People notice folks who appreciate others.

If you invite folks to be part of a powerful idea, you’ll find that you suddenly have a knack for making spaces where people collect, connect, and start conversations. It might have something to do letting people help form the environments that they’re going to inhabit. It’s like painting a house that we’re going to live in — pride of ownership.

Barn raising has always been a brilliant strategy — building the relationships while you’re building a site.

It takes a little practice. And it takes leadership to let go enough to get the good stuff without getting the chaos. The best results always calls for the best from each of us.

I’m hoping as we build barns we might bring some Field of Dreamers to work with Barn Raisers on a community site. I thought maybe they might like the process. Do you think the two together would have a chance of success?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

It’s Time to Reach Our Best Hand Out to the Folks Coming In

by

Did You See the Discussion?

Yesterday’s discussion about playing for keeps was a peek at a the idea it’s important to our best selves to what we do. The best people connections in life and business happen when our inside values are visible on the outside. Or as John Haydon said in the comments:

… whenever I am being honest with myself and authentic with others, I don’t even have to ask if I’m walking the walk.

Why Here? Why Now?

Each wave of new bloggers and social media practioners finds a different socialsphere. They arrive a little further from where it all began. The information, tools, and practices change and move from hands to hands. People find new uses for the tools. People use the tools and application in unintended ways.

The socialsphere changes a little with the integration of each new group.

It’s getting harder to tell the authentic practioners from the frauds. One cause could be that not enough of us are clear about the expertise we offer or how competent we are.

Soon the waves will be larger — more in the form of companies. The companies will come with goals / plans, money, and their own traditions and histories. Some wlll learn the tools, join communities, and understand the cultural shift the tools were made to facilitate. Some will learn the tools, but succeed by applying them in old culture ways. It’s likely some will try the tools and fail miserably.

And a new generation is arriving who’ve been using and testing the tools while they get their degrees. What changes will they bring?

We want mainstream arrivals to succeed and to grow what we started rather than accidently knock it down. Yet, it’s almost as if we’re the company and they’re the customers now. Like customers responding to a product, they’ll decide whether social media works for them.

Mainstream definition of social media and its success or failure will define the culture of the Internet.

In an apprentice environment such as this, new arrivals are only as good as the one who teaches them. It’s natural for people to study the folks they connect with most quickly and trust the most. That would be the first people who look competent, who talk with intelligence and confidence, and if at all possible, who already know their friends.

Right here. Right now.
It’s time to reach our best hand out to the folks coming in.

4 Steps to Raise a Barn and Build a Bridge

The plan that is unfolding begins with this model project. It’s planned to be the first of many projects for many people on the Internet. If you have a dream project on the shelf, you might start yours and track it alongside this one of mine.

This project that I’ve named “Don’t Tell ’em, Show ’em” involves bringing out the best of this blog, of myself, of the SOB list, and in a second part, help for others to do the same. It’s a barnraising and a bridge building endeavor that has these four traits.

  • The project is a business and community idea.
  • It’s a barnraising in that the community is invited to participate in building the space made for them.
  • It’s a bridge building in that businesses and individuals offline and outside the community are invited to participate. It’s a natural way for new arrivals to learn culture of the social web.
  • The project will have a date upon which it will be complete so that everyone gets the payoff of feeling and seeing success.

Then the folks who can will raise more barns and build more bridges on the next projects.

The process will be open. I’ll keep you in the plan as it unfolds. I’ll tell you what’s happening. I’ll ask for help when I get stuck. I plan to get attention, raise the bar, and show the value of what we’re about. If you have ideas how to do that better, faster, louder, or more efficiently — where to go what to start — if you have skills to volunteer, or if you want to track a project of your own, I’ve a comment box below. C’mon let’s talk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related:
Why Play the Game, If We Aren’t Playing for Keeps?