Successful Blog

Bloggy Question 79: What's a Social Media Expert?

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Do You Want a Buzz Word on Your Business Card?

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .

A friend of yours has begun a new business.

You’ve noticed that — like so many others — she’s put the title “Social Media Expert” on her business card. You ask her what this means. What does this offer?

She says that in today’s world “marketing” doesn’t do it.

You wonder . . . You’re thinking buzz words only bring people down to the lowest common denominator. How many “social media experts” are out there? She is, after all, great at interweaving a web presence into an overall marketing effort. You don’t really think “social media expert” says all that she’s good at.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Bloggy Question 76: Where Are My Clients?
Bloggy Question 75: Stop Thief!
Bloggy Question 74: Will Good Looks Get You the Job?
Bloggy Question 73: Vacation in Your Head

Critical Skill 8: How to Know When to Act on Your Worries

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The Tiniest Bits of Information Don’t Come with Words

Future Skills

It was a huge boardroom with recessed lighting and a mahogany table. Beautiful bookshelves surrounded us on three walls. We were called together on serious matter. A huge print run of books was about to be burned. The question at hand was how the unacceptable feature made it into print. I had the luck of being only an observer.

The questions that were asked were designed to fix the process, not affix blame. Because of that, the meeting moved forward in a team fashion with everyone genuinely invested in finding the process flaw. One person, the newest and least experienced in the room, finally spoke when directly asked what she thought. With her words the answer came. “I always thought that was a little off, but I couldn’t say why.”

I learned a lot from that sentence that day. She knew all along, but thought that her viewpoint was naive. She didn’t credit her worry as a valid one.

How to Know When to Act on Your Worries

What I learned from my colleague that day has proved out over the years. Every time a book had a problem, the people who were working on it, always had some “feeling” that something wasn’t right. Just the act of doing something gives us information, not all of which we can express in words.

We gather intuitive detail from every experience. Every move that we make is stored in our bodies and our brains for us to use later. Trainers call the familiarity that our muscles get with certain movements muscle memory. Our unconscious also carries experiential memory of our lives. That information is useful in thinking things through, because it’s a true reflection of what we know and who we are.

Intuitive information can add valuable depth to a decision process. The problem is knowing when we’re working with intuitive information and when we’re working with a simple personal, emotional response.

One of the best ways is to listen while we give ourselves time to think.

  • Pay attention to random thoughts when you’re away from the problem or situation. Often our worries when we’re inside a situation don’t seem quite so huge when we’re away from the “maddening crowd” of tasks we have to do. The worries that pop into mind when we’re out walking the beach are the ones we should give our time to.
  • Let “high investment” conversations sit for a time. When you find yourself arguing for a point that seems like the only answer, and you know that the person with whom you’re discussing the choice has the opposite view. Decide not to answer for a few hours or a day. If you’re caught up in the argument on a personal level, as time passes the matter will mean less to you. If your argument was purely business, you’ll still feel much the same.
  • Sleep on a problem. Choose an idea that you’re working on. Phrase it as a simple sentence right before you close your eyes. Let your brain work on it while you sleep.
  • Pay attention to what wakes you up in the middle of the night and your first thought in the morning. Those thoughts are things your brain knows you should be acting upon.
  • When you are worried, find a way to act on the situation of concern. If you can do something, thoughtfully choose a an action to change things. If it’s not in your power, go to someone who is able to act and say, “I’m telling you this. It could be important or not. I feel a responsibility to share what little I see. I trust you’ll know whether to do anything.” Once your concern is stated and received, let it go. Trust in that those who can do something will do what they can. More worry will only disable you.

Worrying is not a bad thing. It alerts us to possible problems we might avert. Worrying without acting, however, can cloud our focus, drain our energy, and stifle our ability to think clearly. Channeling the worry into positive action keeps us moving forward with strength and in control.

How do you decide when to act on a worry?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Need help sorting what concerns you? Click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. All that expertise in one room! Register now!

Related articles
The 10 Skills Most Critical to Your Future
Critical Skill 1: Strategic Deep Thinking
Critical Skill 5A: 3 Parts of Spectacular Ideas
Critical Skill 6A: Five Tools for Finding Faulty Assumptions

Thanks to Week 128 SOBs

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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

Missed Opportunities and High Returns of Attending a Conference

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With a Little Help From Friends — Old and New Ones!

SOBCon08 Logo50

Deciding to go to SxSW was easy. Well it was easy last summer when Sheila Scarborough and I had this master plan. I would go down to Austin and stay at her house. We’ve known each other since two days before forever . . . it seemed a logical next step — everyone says it’s the show for bloggers. Everyone seems to go there. It seemed that I should too.

Sometime in January, I started to wonder, why was I making this significant investment? Would it really help my business? Adding friends to my Twitter account didn’t seem like enough reason to melt my credit card for a trip to Austin. At best, my answer was nebulous.

I was torn. I saw serious potential, but I’ve also gone to conferences where no business happened.

Missed Opportunities and High Returns of Attending a Conference

I had to be sure before I registered that serious business conversations would happen. I needed a high return on my investment. The registration would be more than worth it, if I could grow my business and add more value to SOBCon08.

I realized the only way to ensure a high return was to plan one. Here’s how you might do the same when you come to SOBCon08 or any upcoming conference you’re considering.

  • Know what you’re investing in. Ask yourself these questions:
    • Is the value for me in the speakers? the workshops?
      the chance to meet other folks there?
      How can I make the most of those opportunities?
    • What do I want folks to know about me and my business?
    • What do I want to learn from the people there?

    I knew I was going to SxSW to let people know about my business and SOBCon08. Just being clear on that made a difference. It affected what I put on my name tag and which business cards I took.

  • Touch base with people you want to meet and let them know why you want to meet them.
    • Most conferences have blog or a wiki where you can do that.
    • Or write a blog post inviting folks to let you know that they are going.

    I contacted certain folks that I wanted to see — Ian Kennedy, Chris Brogan, Fraser Kelton, Alex Iskold. We made plans.

  • Know which sessions you want to attend. Every conference offers different value in content and session format. I knew that SxSW panels would be podcast later. So I carefully chose the few I really thought were important to see in person.
  • Don’t overschedule. Leave some room for folks you don’t know will be there . . . I got to meet Jason Falls, J.C. Hutchins, David Beaudouin, and Beth Kanter.

Simple enough suggestions, but I asked — lots of folks came without a plan.

Frankly I’ve had my share useless, no-return conference experiences. They make it easy enough to convince myself that I can’t afford the time and cost of any conference. One thing they have in common is that I was a passive attendee — not invested in my own attendance.

It’s the plan that ensures the return. Now I pick the conferences most relevant to my business. Sometimes I suffer a pinch of cash flow, but I make a plan to ensure a return on my investment. My business grows, my network gets richer, and my blog gets more traffic. The plan keeps me focused, organized, and feeling in control of capturing what I’m after.

SxSW was a high return investment experience. I had fewer than 50 conversations, but they were the right ones with the right people. I came home with two new clients, another sponsor for SOBCon08, and a new project that I’m working on. That would have been a lot of missed opportunities had I not made the commitment.

Getting a return on our investment is the core of business. Key to investing is identifying true opportunities. Without investing we’re just going, moving forward not growing.

No one can attend every conference. But when one offers real potential, it’s worth thoughtful consideration. With a plan, we can ensure a high return on our investment. Missed opportunities are expensive too.

How do you decide between the high returns or missed opportunities of attending a conference?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!! SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. All that expertise in one room! Register now!

SOBCon Hotel Update

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Hi everyone, Terry Starbucker here – looking forward to seeing everyone at SOBCon08. I just wanted to pass along a tidbit we got courtesy of Denise at Build a Better Blog.

The Club Quarters hotel nearest the Summit has sold out of its rooms – however, the SOBCon discount at Hotel 71 is still available at $225 (but not for long – hurry!), and Denise reports she found a great deal at the Marriott Courtyard River North (just a few blocks away from the Summitt) on Priceline.com

So fear not, there are still plenty of places to stay – so register NOW!

Thanks Denise!!

SOB Business Cafe 04-04-08

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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

Zoomstart is thinking royal thoughts for rockstars of the Internet.
In the end, it’s that new territory that you discover and conquer that will make you the king in your industry. But you’ve got to start somewhere, and the best place to start is to follow the current kings around and learn from them.

Web Urbanist is thinking about geeky redesigns. Gosh, they’re beautiful.
Do you ever get sick of people telling you to recycle? Well, these furniture designers prove recycling can be a lot more interesting than stuffing cans, bottles and cardboard into the proper containers.

Unconventional Thinking is thinking about how to hook customers using the web.

So they take the only hook song on the album, You Can’t Count On Me, create a landing page, give you a link to download and viola, digi does what print can’t even touch.

Pothole on the Infobahn is thinking about authenticity.
Amongst the many earnest and upright angel individuals, who are dedicated to fostering innovation and commerce in their communities, there often lurk the shady evil doers that are really looking to line their own pockets by directly funneling your money from your bank account into theirs. It’s not pretty but it is predictable.

Life Clever is thinking about distorting images in a new way.
As if there aren’t enough permutations of Photoshop, Adobe’s just launched Photoshop Express. This web-based version of Photoshop enables you to quickly crop, touch-up, distort, and apply effects to any of the billions of images you’ve taken with your cam.

Jibber Jobber is thinking about the 66 best ways of networking and uses a great one in this post — promoting the work of a guy he holds in high esteem.
Without further ado, here’s Thom’s EXCELLENT list of better networking posts. The images to the right are Thom’s books, linked to Amazon for more information.

Related ala carte selections include

Weblog Tools Collection is thinking up the questions and answers to FAQs that many folks will soon need.
These questions and answers were gleaned from the wp-hackers and wp-testers e-mail lists over that last several weeks.

And one more:

Quick Online Tips is thinking about the joy of the new 2.5 experience.

WordPress 2.5 is released and everyone wants to grab the latest version of the sleeker, faster and beautiful WordPress. I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and started to write a few new posts, and was surprised by the range of new features offered while writing a post…. here are a few of them.

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