Tagged! Best Practices in Social Media, Maven Style
By Roberta Rosenberg on Sep 5, 2008 in Social Media
As someone who is still feeling her way along in social media (and yes, I think I still don’t get Twitter or why anyone remotely cares to follow me), Drew McLellan tagged me to participate in a best practices discussion about SM. Specifically, the strongest best practice in my SM arsenal, er toolbox. 
Okay, I’ll play.
Drew’s best practice is to “Lift Others Up” … share something, be generous with your time, encourage and support others in their efforts. I couldn’t agree more. But I’ll take a slightly different tack and say:
The Copywriting Maven’s Best Practice: Lead with your authentic self.
In a world where more and more we conduct business via web, IM, Twitter and all manner digital, it’s hard to get a read on the person behind the persona. What we gain so easily in speed and efficiency, we just as easily lose in gut feel and visceral sensibility, our liberal use of emoticons and other stage directoria aside.
I realized this early. So rightly or wrongly since my first days online in the mid-1980s, I decided I was just going to be who I was, personally and professionally. No differences or disconnects between the online/offline me. No games, no surprises.
I’m not suggesting that you strip yourself bare - unless that’s the kind of thing you’re into. But I am suggesting that by being your most genuine self, whether it’s in SM interactions or face2face in that quaint, old-fashioned way, just makes the most possible sense. Easy, too.
Now to the tag … direct from my NetVibes Reader, here’s who I’d like to hear from!
Here’s how it works:
- Blog it or add it to the comments here.
- Link to Mitch Joel’s blog - this is the guy who started the whole thing
- Tag it “social media marketing best practices project”
- And then tag someone else with the meme.
And don’t forget to have fun!
Karen Putz | Sep 5, 2008 | Reply
In this digital age, it pays to be authentic because when you meet people offline, they can easily see any differences between what is revealed online and what they see face to face.
There is one person that I know who portrays a very different life online than what is being lead offline. I would imagine it would be very hard for this person to show up in a conference knowing that the authenticity isn’t there.
Karen Putz’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday?Leap!
Rebecca | Sep 5, 2008 | Reply
Hi Roberta,
Thanks for your “Best Practices”.
It really strikes a chord. Offline I’m a real outgoing person, but I tend to hold back online. Net Shyness I guess :o)
Rebecca
Roberta Rosenberg | Sep 5, 2008 | Reply
@Karen - you and I probably know a lot of the same people!
I do enjoy it when I meet folks in person and they tell me I look/sound/talk just like I write.
@Rebecca - now most folks would say the opposite! As my mom would say, “Just be you where you happen to be.”
Drew McLellan | Sep 6, 2008 | Reply
Roberta,
Excellent advice! In the early days of online life (back when you and I were mere youth) being online was often about getting to be someone else. Role playing games, virtual realities, avatars with different names. It was about escapism. You were never going to meet the other people, so it didn’t matter.
Today, it’s completely flipped around. As you and I know…we do meet each other. We do work together. We do collaborate. Hell, we tell each other what we had for breakfast in Facebook and Twitter updates. So we’d better be ourselves.
Very timely counsel. Thanks for jumping in!
Drew
Drew McLellan’s last blog post..Who’d have thunk it?
Roberta Rosenberg | Sep 6, 2008 | Reply
@Drew - ahh, but even in the early online days we did meet people. I met my husband that way!
Jenn Mattern | Sep 15, 2008 | Reply
I generally don’t participate in memes, but I’ll go ahead and give my $.02 comment-side.
Other than being true to who you are and avoiding the echochamber (which you’ve covered here), my biggest thing with social media is knowing when to say “no.”
Being actively involved in social media doesn’t mean you need to be using every tool out there. You don’t need to be on myspace, facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, an active stumbler, Sphinn, etc. You need to target, know which tools are going to reach the people you need to be connecting with, and devote time into using them effectively rather than spreading yourself too thin (speaking from the business perspective - fiddle with things for personal fun all ya want).
Jenn Mattern’s last blog post..My 9-11 “Tribute”
Roberta Rosenberg | Sep 20, 2008 | Reply
Jenn, I appreciate you making an exception. I couldn’t agree more.