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Social Media Has the Power to Change Lives

January 16, 2014 by Rosemary Leave a Comment

By Robert Derington

There are many people who need help, and many who set about helping them. In this day and age, social media goes a long way to getting the word out. As a resource it can reach huge numbers of people all across the world, and greatly increase the success of any fund raising that needs to be done. With sites such as Facebook and Twitter, where millions of people can be reached, the potential for achieving goals is raised dramatically.

Social Media has a powerful ability to inform people of worthy causes, based simply on the fact so many people use it. But getting the word out can still be difficult. It takes commitment to see a cause through from first posting to its goal. Constant updates to remind people, sharing and reposting the information all helps keep it in the public awareness. It’s not enough to just state your target, you must keep the impetus going to achieve what you want.

But the power of social media to change lives is not just theoretical. We are currently involved in helping restore a real person’s life. On December 12th, Cireena endured a tragic event. Her apartment caught fire and was burnt out. She lost everything in the fire. It wasn’t just her possessions that were destroyed, but also those things precious to her that she had inherited from her parents. Photos and other items that are literally irreplaceable are gone, as has anything she had hoped to one day pass down to her children.

Cireena escaped the fire with only the clothes she was wearing. In the immediate aftermath, friends and relatives have rallied around her, collecting what they can for her most immediate needs. However, Cireena has been made homeless by the fire, and finds herself living in a homeless shelter for the immediate future.

At this time of great emotional upheaval, the best Cireena can do is think positive. She is grateful she wasn’t harmed in the fire, and still has her health. However, this is not going to help her get her life back on track. Even the strongest people need a little help sometimes, and it was this desire to assist her that resulted in us deciding to use Social Media to highlight her cause.

Social media is the surest way we could think of to not only raise funds but also raise awareness. Even though there are support agencies that can help, these can take time, and will not provide everything that is needed. Getting the word out via Facebook and Twitter, as well as through any other form of mass communication, increases the chance of success in the fundraising arena, as it draws attention to these issues, and people to the website.

It can be hard knowing which issue is worthy of your donation. That must be a personal choice. But if you have a few spare dollars, I urge you to look through your favourite social media sites. You are sure to find a cause that inspires you to click the “donate” button.

As you do your search, please keep an eye out for “Cireena’s House Fire Fund”, and consider a donation. Anything you give will go a long way to helping someone keep smiling.

Author’s Bio: Robert Derington is the Manager of Mosaic Magazine, the Writer’s Magazine online.

Filed Under: Community, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, Community, social causes

You’re Only A Stranger Once

December 5, 2013 by Rosemary Leave a Comment

The tagline for this blog jumped off the site at me the other day.

Liz says, “you’re only a stranger once.”

You're only a stranger once

The first time you encounter someone, whether it’s online or offline, you have a lifetime of possibilities floating between you. There’s no messy experience to muddy the waters, no shared history. As strangers, you are just two molecules floating around.

Kaboom.

The molecules collide.

Now the possibilities start to develop.

Will you share a laugh in your first meeting? Will the other person say something that violates your personal code, and immediately cut off the possibilities? Will you decide to have a second experience together?

I recently had the great pleasure to welcome a new customer who arrived via a two year long, circuitous series of molecular collisions both in real life (at conferences) and online. And the most wonderful thing is that, when each of the encounters took place, neither one of us had an “endgame” or “agenda” in mind, other than being open to meeting new people.

If you’re open to the possibilities, then the happy accidents can happen. And they happen more frequently, the more you put yourself out there. Magically, the byproduct of this open intention is that you can become a “super-collider.”

The beautiful tagline at the top of this page means something. Whether it’s your first comment, your first submission of a guest post, your first time attending a SOBCon event, your first time reading this blog, you’re only a stranger once.

Everything after that is possibilities.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Photo Credit: pshab via Compfight cc

Filed Under: Community, Motivation, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, Community, connections, networking

The Official Liz Strauss Fundraiser is Finally Live

June 11, 2013 by Rosemary Leave a Comment

We’re happy to announce that the official fundraiser for Liz Strauss is finally live! We think we’ve put together some unique items and consultations for you to bid on. The fundraiser will run from 6/11 until 6/25. It will run in two parts with a new set of auction items each week. This week’s auction items include:

  • Signed Guitar by ALL 5 Members of Twisted Sister
  • One Ticket to the SOLD OUT World Domination Summit
  • One-on-one consultations donated by: Jonathan Fields, Gary W. Goldstein, Chris Brogan,Lewis Howes, Jeannie Walters, Andy Crestodina, and Terry Starbucker

Next week we’re featuring such items like a consultation by Steve Farber and a business library put together by Scott Stratten! The auctions on those items will start 6/18. More details soon!

Want to help but would like to donate directly to Liz rather than bid? You can do so directly through Paypal here: Donate

Please help us spread the word about the fundraiser by sharing this post and using the hashtag #LizFund on Twitter.

Again, thank you all for the support and know that Liz appreciates all the many kindnesses that have been sent her way in the last few months. Thank you so much for participating and helping us give back to Liz. Have fun and good luck with the auctions!

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: bc, Community

Five Lessons Small Businesses Can Learn From Liz Strauss

May 17, 2013 by Rosemary Leave a Comment

By Shonali Burke

Like many bloggers in the PR and marketing realm, I’ve been in awe of Liz Strauss ever since I became aware of the “name bloggers” in my professional world. When I started my own blogging journey, four years ago, Successful Blog was one of the first to become a regular stop; always for inspiration, and sometimes as I asked myself the question, “Will I ever be able tolike that?”

I met Liz fleetingly a few years ago, when she spoke at a DC-area event. Our meeting was brief. She was standing outside the event venue and, spying her in a rare moment of solitude, I couldn’t help but go up to her and tell her how much I admired her. She didn’t know me from Eve (probably still doesn’t), but that didn’t stop her from graciously thanking me. Later, she was kind enough to connect with me on various social platforms, even though the benefit was certainly skewed towards me.

As Liz recuperates from her illness, I couldn’t help but think of five lessons small businesses could learn from Liz Strauss.

1. You’re only a stranger once.

This is the tagline of Successful Blog, but is applicable to your business if you approach your customers as people first. Sure, customers come and go. But a successful business will convert first-timers into repeat buyers, and repeat buyers into evangelists. I don’t care how large or small your business is, this is possible and applicable…if you treat them as people first.

How do you start doing this? By using today’s myriad two- and multi-way communication channels to build relationships instead of email lists.

2. Building relationships takes time.

Especially with the number of (how many? I don’t know! Too many to count!) social media/self-help/gurus shilling their wares, I am not surprised at how many small businesses that think the way to use social media is this:

The path to social media failure

After all, once you have a presence, the rest will fall into place, right?

Wrong.

Connecting – i.e. following/being followed back – on a social network does not automatically translate into a relationship. All that that first connection means is that a door has been (slightly) opened to you; how you now conduct yourself will determine whether that door opens more fully or slams shut in your face.

How do you start doing this? Be a human super-collider. Find out what makes the people you meet, whether they are customers, or prospects, or business professionals you come across at networking events, tick.

3. When you build relationships, your community steps up when you most need it to.

Look at the way this blog has been running for the past several months. Liz’ health situation was announced at the beginning of 2013. The last post I read, as I drafted my own, was dated May 10, 2013. That’s a full five months later.

Had Liz not spent several years genuinely building her community via real relationships, do you think she would have had people like Rosemary O’Neill step up to manage the blog in her absence?

No way, Don Juan.

How do you start doing this? Part of the answer is in #2 above, so first I will say, “Read above, lather, rinse, and repeat.”

4. Educate and empower your community.

The second part of the answer is to educate and empower your community. Tell them, as you engage with them over time, what’s important to you… and why (and if your business is community-centric, chances are it’s what’s important to them too).

How do you start doing this? As you continue to engage with them, find people who can become your de facto or de jure community managers, and empower them with enough know-how – such as your engagement goals and guidelines, and your content needs – so that they can step into the breach if and when they need to.

The great thing about this approach is that you may never need them to fill a void in your absence… but if you do, they are ready and willing to do so.

5. Focus on what works.

A recent Constant Contact survey reported that 66% of small business owners use mobile technology. Continue reading, though, and you’ll see: “… it’s important to note that, of the 34 percent not using any mobile device or solution for their business, a resounding 65 percent have no plans to do so in the future, mainly citing a lack of customer demand.”

I don’t think this 65% of the 34% is necessarily behind the times. Being a small business owner myself, I know the conflicting demands placed on small businesses.

What will you pay attention to? When? How? Who’s going to do it?

It isn’t a question of never paying attention to technological advances, it’s a question of being attuned to the technologies your customers are using or expect, and providing the appropriate platforms, while planning for the future. Just as Liz does here on Successful Blog, by maintaining a framework visitors are familiar with, but by keeping an eye on what’s to come.

How do you start doing this? Stay on top of technological and industry developments. But don’t jump on the bandwagon until your business can sustain and recoup the additional investment… and don’t let anyone pressure you into doing so either.

I’m sure there are many other lessons you have gleaned, on a business level, from Liz’ incredible contribution to the blogosphere and our time. Would you share what you have learned, so that we can salute her collectively?

Author’s Bio: Shonali Burke takes your business communications from corporate codswallop to community cool™. She also blogs, teaches, and cooks. You can find her on Twitter as @shonali.

Thanks for the shout-out, Shonali! I was honored to be able to give back a tiny bit to Liz, who has shown her generosity and kindness to so many over the years. She is the nougaty goodness at the center of this amazing community.

Rosemary

Filed Under: Audience, Community, Motivation, SOB Business, Successful Blog Tagged With: audience, bc, communication, Community, relationships

Our Top 15 Posts Ever

April 25, 2013 by Rosemary Leave a Comment

By Andy Crestodina

Since the beginning, this blog has helped more than a million visitors learn hundreds of important lessons. You, the readers and writers, have shared your experiences and techniques through more than 1000 posts and nearly 100,000 comments.

In this post, we’ll look back the 1000+ posts on Successful Blog and review. All of these, of course, were written by our beloved Liz. Some of these were instant classics. Others were their own mini-viral events. Each is an example of great writing on relevant topics.

So here they are, the top 15 posts in the history of this website…

1. The How to Happiness – Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life

“You don’t need to get a life, you’ve already got one.“

2. 10 Reasons Readers Don’t Leave Comments

“It seems that we have the same secret reasons for not leaving our calling card. We want to leave our thoughts, but things get between us and that comment box.”

3. How To Make Your Dream Come True – Through Thought, Strategy and Action

“Wonders, wishes, and waiting without commitment are a whole lot of nothing happening.“

4. 5 Reasons People Don’t Get Hired and the Only 3 Questions that Count

“An interview or a client presentation is a test. It’s like an oral exam in which the subject is you.”

5. Ideas? 20 Questions to Kickstart New Thoughts

“Imagine you just landed on this planet. You’d have a passel of questions and a totally beginner’s view. The key is not to fix things, but to find new reactions to what you encounter.”

6. Are You a Writer? 7 Traits that Writers Have in Common

“Every person is struggling to find a meaning that makes sense. It’s not about money. It’s not about volume of work. It’s about meeting a self-defined goal of becoming a writer.”

7. How to Receive a Compliment Without Being a Self-Centered Idiot

“Focus on the speaker and the value of the speaker’s words. That guarantees your response will be graceful, respectful, and not about you.”

8. 25 Outstanding Links to Help You Write a Compelling Tagline

“How do you pack all of that promise into four or five simple words that will resonate with the folks you want to reach?”

9. Conan’s Good-bye: 10 of 10 in Leadership, Reputation, and Community

“Corporations, small businesses, every one of us could learn a lot from how Conan said good-bye. His words were the careful words of a leader delivered from the heart in a difficult situation.”

10. What Is Humility?

“The funny thing about humility is the second you think you have it, you don’t.”

11. The Problem with Writing… 25 Things to Know BEFORE You Write for a Living

“Writing communicates through across the world, through time, to people I have never met. It captures ideas, inventions, and information. It’s worth it to be even a tiny part of that.”

12. What Is a Social Community

“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.“

13. 10 Reasons Creative Folks Make Us Crazy

“What are the traits that creative folks have in common? Are we all creative? Is there anyone who’s not? Can I boost my creativity? Am I a creative freak?”

14. 27 Things to Know Before You Work in Social Media

“This is not a rant, simply a set of observations which are quite similar to the challenges of any communication-based, people-centered endeavor.“

15. 10 Ways to Live In the Moment Every Moment of Your Life

“Ever talked with a guy who’s passionate about his life? He doesn’t give one kind of energy during the hours of 8 to 5 and another when play time arrives. His moments are filled with enthusiasm and determination for being part of everything that he does.”

We hope you enjoyed this round-up. Hopefully, this was a discovery of some of the great posts you missed. Or perhaps it was a rediscovery of posts you read and loved. So many classics.

Feel free to reshare the greats. Better yet, leave a comment and tell us which of these you loved most …or perhaps which of your favorites we left out!

Author’s Bio: This list was compiled by Andy Crestodina, the Strategic Director of Orbit Media. Andy is on Google+ and Twitter.

Filed Under: Community, Content, SOB Business, Successful Blog, Writing Tagged With: bc, blogging, Community, strategy, Writing

What is SOBCon?

March 19, 2013 by Rosemary Leave a Comment

By Glenda Watson Hyatt

SOBCon is so much more than the brilliant speakers who co-founders Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker hand pick to create a particular message, theme or flow.

SOBCon is the equally brilliant individuals sitting at your table who willingly and freely share their expertise and experience during the Mastermind sessions.

SOBCon is the interactions during breaks, lunch and after hours. Oftentimes those interactions are as valuable, if not more so, than the speakers sharing their content. Those interactions evolve into friendships, collaborators and partnerships that last long after the 2.5 days in Chicago. Those interactions and subsequent relationships are the glue that holds SOBCon together; dare I say the SOBCon family because that is what it feels like.

Having attended four SOBCons, I have benefited immensely from the interactions, both during the SOBCon weekends and afterwards. I have been fortunate to be part of an invaluable brain trust group with Becky McCray, Deb Brown, Paul Merrill and Jon Swanson – all part of the SOBCon family – who are always only an email away for brainstorming, advice and encouragement. Because I am surrounded by people who will not let me fail, I have recently launched my motivational speaking career.

Glenda Watson Hyatt and Mark HorvathNow, my friend, my hero Mark Horvath needs to tap into the brilliance of the SOBCon family. Once homeless himself on Hollywood Boulevard, he now uses social media to shine the spotlight on those individuals living on the streets – who most of us try to ignore as we walk past. Mark shares hundreds of heartbreaking as well as uplifting stories on Invisible People TV to raise awareness about homelessness.

However, this past year has been rough and Mark has plowed any money he received back into Invisible People TV to help those he serves. That is how dedicated Mark is to the issues of homelessness.

He needs to be at SOBCon in Chicago in May to be amidst those with ideas, insights and connections to take Invisible People TV to the next level so that he can earn a paycheque and continue to do this selfless work.

To assist Mark to be at SOBCon in May, please give your financial support at the Invisible People TV donation page. Then let Mark know that your support is for him to attend SOBCon. Mark can be reached via Twitter (@hardlynormal) and Facebook.

Thank you for backing one of our SOBCon family who makes the biggest difference for people who get noticed the least.

Author’s Bio:
Glenda Watson Hyatt, Motivational Speaker –http://www.glendawatsonhyatt.com/
Author of bestseller I’ll Do It Myself – available on the Kindle at http://amzn.to/RlP5Qj

Filed Under: Community, Motivation, SOB Business, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, Community, interaction, sobcon

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