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Chris Brogan is a leader in the social media arena, at least in my book. His posts are real, thought provoking and often get me thinking about how I view social media and my role. With my own space on this site, I can now contribute to the conversation and hopefully generate discussion, comments and activity as well. But just how do you do that, generate comments I mean?
LinkedIn Group Example
I have a group that I created on LinkedIn for University of Rhode Island Alumni living in the Midwest. I had hoped to find those of us brave enough to leave lovely New England (believing that life does exist beyond the NY state border) and do some Alumni networking. First of all, of the 281 people now in my group, only 3 of us including me are in the Midwest (WI). The rest all reside in RI, CT, NY, MA, and NJ. Not only have they never left New England, they are not participating. I have tried to ask questions, offer insight suggest ways to engage to no avail. Although I may be asking the wrong questions, I also believe I have a group of turtles! Everyone is sitting on a log waiting for something to happen.
Are you a turtle when it comes to social media? Photo by Jill Doughtie
Facebook Fan Page Example
On the other hand, Chris’ conversations are ones that I have come directly to my email so I can read right away. One of the things I notice most about his posts, they generate comments and discussion. A lot of it. This is a good thing. Agreement, disagreement, controversy, outrage and others are the emotions that keep us thinking and make sure we are alive.
He has recently been involved in co-authoring a book called Trust Agents (no I am not selling it but you can find it here) . They are promoting it on social media and writing about what is working and what is not working. We all think we have a book in us, so that certainly has increased his following. His Facebook fan page is one of the most active dialogue pages I have seen. The fans are posting many opinions of what is trust and who they trust and even why they believe others trust them. Several trusted grandmothers were mentioned as well.
Blog Post Example
Another very active comment page was a recent one concerning Social Media ROI methodology and calculation. The original post by Axel Schultze on Social Media ROI – A financially sound method on Social Media Today had 59 comments ,and 8016 views. Now if you are measuring ROI by activity, comments and views I would say you had some good success. Why was this so active? I took a look at several other articles and blogs that touched on the same subject to see what their activity was. Social Media Explorer had a post by Jason Falls on this subject that generated 122 comments back in 2008.
I noted that they are talking about their personal views in an area that is still new. They have each taken a strong stand but are open to conversation and dialogue. You can see that by the thoughtful responses they offer back to the comments posted. Not only have they posted, and received comments, they continued to listen, engage and contribute back to the discussion. They are all present in the conversation.
Crux of Social Media
Decide if you are going to participate and jump in
That is the crux of social media. Don’t be a turtle. If all you want to do is sun yourself on a log while enjoying the pond, maybe social media is not for you. You can’t just create a profile on a social media site and expect people to jump out of the woodwork to network with you. You can’t join groups and lurk- picking up names to market to them. You need to listen, answer questions, offer insight, and share your knowledge. Be a frog. Take a leap. Visit all sides of the pond. Be active in generating conversation and be active in responding to the conversation and issues that are on everyone’s mind.
