Successful Blog

What Are You Doing to Keep Your Garden Growing?

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Gardening and Social Media

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I didn’t start gardening until I moved to Austin.

That’s me I waited until I left the rich black dirt and found the wet brown clay and hot dry sun to figure out growing things could be soul building. By the time I got to Massachusetts I was a regular flower farmer. I spent a hours, days, seasons living in a dormant three-acre spread. In the fifth year I was rewarded to a winding, spectacular show of color.

What Are You Doing to Keep Your Garden Growing?

As a beginning gardener, I learned that just plopping pretty plants into the ground got pretty darn expensive — not to mention time-intensive — It didn’t make lasting beauty. The scratches and the itching sometimes lasted longer. Plants that don’t have the right nutrients or climate are hard to keep thriving.

Soon I was learning what made solid ground for things to grow. Gardening takes strategy and strategy is knowing what you know and knowing what you can and can’t control.


Gardening and social media have a lot in common.
What are you doing to keep your community growing?

I make connections.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Change your thinking with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn listening.

Could You Be a Chief Executive Social Gardener?

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Enter the Chief Executive Social Gardener

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Recently a friend asked me how we might get big brands to think more like entrepreneurs. I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe we should get the C-suite executives to start a gardening community.

Gardeners follow time-tested strategies and tactics. Gardeners

  • have a goal — whether it’s a garden or community we’re building, we know what we’re setting as the mission.
  • know their field — we need to understand the qualities of the playing ground, the terrain, and the creatures who live there.
  • understand the systems and cycles, rhythms and patterns — we see our own habits, the natural paths of outside factors, the effects of climate, the weather, and unexpected events
  • consider the units (plants or people) that match those circumstances, how they work and compete, and which of those we can manage most easily
  • determine what we know, what we want to know, and watch out for what we need to learn

Gardeners talk to each other about what works and what doesn’t. What you know about anything is what applies to making plants happy and thriving. If you’re good at that, you’re gold.

Gardeners also:

  • watch and listen. We are constantly testing the information we think we know. We talk. We listen. We read everything. Not a gardener with any experience thinks that he or she can outwit the variables that nature can bring together.
  • remove weeds, trolls, and competitive threats, while finding opportunities. When gardens fail, great gardeners look for learning and new solutions, when they thrive we look for the same things.
  • amend what’s failing and care for what works — so that threats can’t take hold. Gardeners know that little problems grow, in the same way as beautiful fields do.
  • know that life cycles peak and know what works to extend them. We’ve been watching our gardens. We get to know when they need boosting and when they don’t.
  • realize what we don’t control and we’re careful about when and how changes and new ideas are introduced.

Every enterprise should have a Chief Executive Gardener to be a true partner in getting the Chief Bean Counter more beans to count.

Could you be a Chief Executive Social Gardener?
What seeds are you planting now?

More about social media gardening tomorrow …

I make connections.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Grow your community with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn listening.

Provocative vs. Genuine

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sealionI’ve been thinking about the difference between being provocative and being genuine lately.

We all read stories or see ads that are “provocative.” They are fun to read and see from time to time. But I wonder… do you trust a provocative story or would you prefer genuine writing?

There have been a few blog posts going around this week about being provocative in your blogging, marketing or overall strategy. I read that being being provocative has value in challenging people and pushing them to think.

Sure, I can agree with that.

Another blog I read suggested, “Being provocative isn’t about being controversial. It’s about being ahead of your time, solving problems in new and interesting ways, and creating awesome brands and products.”

But what does the word “provocative” really mean, I wondered. Here’s one definition that seems to be generally accepted: “Making people angry or excited: deliberately aimed at exciting or annoying people.”

Being provocative to me means trying to get people to react emotionally, quickly, instead of giving them something to think about, and respond to in time. It can mean prodding someone’s emotions instead of challenging the way they think.

If you were talking to a person face-to-face and you could tell they were being “provocative” or controversial just to get a reaction out of you, how would you feel? Would you feel challenged intellectually, or emotionally annoyed?

Every now and again I catch myself getting incensed by something I read which *I* know is “wrong.” I start a post and am writing away but I stop myself because what I am in fact doing is reactionary. I’m not carefully considering the points put forward and formulating an intelligent response.

That could very well be because in many provocative ads or blog posts there are few ideas to think about, only phrases to react to. I’ve read that writing like this is like the loud person at a party who swears a lot and is “controversial” just because he or she has nothing intelligent to say.

Do you read “provocative” blogs and enjoy “provocative” marketing strategies because you are enriched or learn from them, or do you just enjoy the controversy?

By Kathryn Jennex
www.kathrynjennex.com

The Mic Is On: We're Talking with Michelle Lamar

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Social Media and Book Deals with The White Trash Mom

So you don’t have to be trashy to write a book called “The White Trash Mom,” but it helps if you know a little about how to get down. It also helps if you can find your way around social media if you want to get the book sold.

Michelle Lamar did both. We’ll be talking to her about just those things tonight.

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And, we’ll talk about whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey . . . and flamenco dancing (because we always get off topic, anyway.)

Oh, and bring example links.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
image: michelle lamar
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What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Writing Project: 25 Words of Social Media Wisdom

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Share What You Know

The Living Web

We’ve done this before … Inspired each other with our thoughts — each expressed in 25 words.

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It starts with ideas
clicking keys, words in text,
audio, images, and video
connecting like minds.
Then we find
we’re connecting
online and offline communities.

Would you add 25 words of your own?

The 25 Words of Social Media Wisdom Project

Will you accept my invitation to put 25 words of Social Media advice or wisdom into a blog post? Here’s how you might go about it.

  1. Look for some social media thing you see too much or too little of.
  2. Write a sentence about it.
  3. Count the words you have written.
  4. Edit the sentence until you have 25 words exactly. Notice how your idea changes as you edit and how your feelings change with each rewrite.
  5. Add a picture if you can.
  6. Post your 25 words on your blog by July 31st.
  7. Link back to this post or leave a link to your post in the comments section. I don’t want to miss yours when I compile all of them.

It will be my challenge to a creative way to connect all of the ideas together. In a giant “25 words of Social Media Wisdom” blog post, featuring what you wrote.

Are you in? Surely you have 25 words to spare for this one.

You might remember that we’ve done this before …
25 Words of Work / Life Wisdom
25 Words that Connect Us

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Open Mic Tonight 7pm Chgo Time: We're Talking to Michelle Lamar

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Join Us Tonight

JOIN US TONIGHT AT 7PM

Social Media and Book Deals with The White Trash Mom

So you don’t have to be trashy to write a book called “The White Trash Mom,” but it helps if you know a little about how to get down. It also helps if you can find your way around social media if you want to get the book sold.

Michelle Lamar did both. We’ll be talking to her about just those things tonight.

Oh, and bring example links and bring some perspective!

The rules are simple — be nice.

Do be nice. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?