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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, it's that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Ask instead, who are you not to be? Follow me on Twitter @bcavanaugh or take a moment to see what made me do an about face with my career: My New Gig |
It’s not often that I am at compete odds with Seth Godin. I was a follower before following was cool. Back then (1997), if you wanted to follow someone, you had to get on a plane and fly to some Fast Company “RealTime” events (does anyone remember those?) or Ester Dyson’s PC Forum. I agree with him on most everything except today’s post and point of view on Twitter. (I’m quietly placing my Seth action figure in the desk drawer while I write this).
He says that the the pillars of Social Media Success are:
I say, you can’t know any of this unless one participates, follows smart people and engages in social media on multiple levels. Here’s my version of the Social Media Pillars of Success:
Allow me to address Seth’s questions more specifically:
Who likes me? Ask @geoffliving if he cares who likes him. This guy is smart, opinionated, sometimes wrong, mostly right and always interesting, enlightening and willing to engage.
Is everything okay? Ask @jeffjarvis about the future of journalism. Or chime in to #journchat. No, journalism not okay, but Jarvis is doing something active about it. He tweeted earlier this morning that “his agenda is to advance journalism” which he does in a smart way via the anti-Christ of traditional journalism, social media.
How can I become more popular? Ask @chrisbrogran. His blog has nothing whatsoever to do with popularity. His post this morning is about “inspiring action” He says, “My goal with every blog post is to get you thinking in a way that might cause a change in your course of action”. Chris, if you’re reading this, it’s time for an action figure.
Whats New? Ask anyone, find a hast tag, that’s the beauty of twitter. CNN, Fox, NPR, they’ll tell you what they think is new, but now I can create groups and channels in TweetDeck and decide for myself. There are amazing people to follow #followfriday. Sure, there are some dumb tweets out there, but like telemarketers, you can hang-up, unfollow, not listen, click or react. There are such riches to be found, which is why I disagree with Seth’s point of view on this.
I’m bored, let’s make some noise. This is trite, but because I’m still very much a Seth fan, let’s say this is true. There’s still wonderfully funny, weird, engaging, thoughtful, inspiring content amidst the noise. Read Seth’s blog and you know he has been raging against noise for a long time, which is ironic to me because he lives in New York City (New York City??? said with a goofy western accent). I’m not sure where exactly, but on the island of Manhattan 1.6 million people live on 22.6 square miles. Now, that’s noisey.
Ah-ha! I’ve figured it out! I live in Montana where 900,000 people live in 1 million square miles. There’s no noise, just birds chirping (not tweeting) sandhill cranes making their nests in my front pasture. My noise tolerance is way higher because I’m not bombarded by it all the time. If I want a little noise, some smart thinking, some quick online rapport, I turn my head from the mountain view, or jump off my horse and just turn up the Twitter volume for a few minutes.
As a footnote, @chrisbrogan does inspire me to action, but so does Seth Godin. That’s the true pillar of social media success, the inspired discourse and courage for those of us with social butterflies to jump and have something to say.
