“If you are asked to toe the line the you are expected to conform to the rules of the situation.” from James Briggs

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

We all have certain roles and responsibilities we are committed to upholding. Some of these commitments are made by choice, others we as a result of that choice. (Ex: you chose to marry someone: choice; you have a relationship with their family as well: acquistion).

Some of these choices mean supressing certain aspects of our personalities. Some choices we make definitely require us to toe the line and I’m okay with that.

When we have a blog we have responsibilities to ourselves to be true in our writing but then we start to find an audience and often that audience comes with expectations. Those expectations can be seen in the comments and in the reactions to certain content. It does seem tempting to just stick with what’s been working.

“Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.”

But I wonder if we all toe the line a little too much.

Do you blog like you’re expected to in a “certain situation”, maybe according to what your readers expect? Do you write according to how you have always written? Do you write about the same things you have always written about?

When I meet someone offline that I read regularly online I’m always surprised by something about them. A crazy way they dress, an interest they have never expressed through their blog or an amazing sense of humor that I didn’t pick up in their writing.

I’d like to think I can write about all the things I am interested in and not hold anything back . I’d like to provide content a little outside the box from time to time. Something to get people thinking and hopefully provide some value. This could work as an advantage by attracting new readers and that’s always good! New conversation and opinions are always worthwhile.

The disadvantage may come from throwing off some of your regular readers and making them feel a little alienated. Hopefully we can think of ourselves as accepting and patient enough with those we read to allow them room to change, grow and try new things.

I’d like to think I’m adventurous enough. Are you?

from Kathryn Jennex aka @northernchick

photo darkmatter

Got a hammer, looking for nails to use it?

Got a Twitter account, don’t do that.

Social media tools work so much more effectively when we decide a few things before we use them.

What to Do Before You Twitter

Know what business you’re in and know your ideal online customer.

If you’ve not done that in the last six months, the definition you’re using probably isn’t the best one. The generational nature of the online culture means that our base of customers is always shifting, growing, learning.

Draw a picture. Make a prototype of the customer you’ve just identified. What do you offer that makes that customer’s life faster, easier, or more meaningful?

Now that you think you know that. Go find people who meet that description and ask them what they care about … and listen.

Go back and revise your offer to meet what they care about not what you thought they did. Then keep listening — build relationships and get to know your potential customers better. When you talk about what you do, talk the way you tell friends what’s going on in your life.

You don’t pitch your friends do you?

The folks you meet will say when they need you. When you hear them talk about a way you might help, just say, “By the way, that’s what I do.”

When we’re authentically listening, we can hear who actually needs our help.

How do you let folks know what you do without pitching them? I bet you have some secret ways of doing that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your web presence!!

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.

It’s Not a Another Life …

When go to another country, when we talk on the telephone, we don’t say that we’re not in real life. But somehow we’ve started thinking that because we’re using our minds to connect online, we’re not in the real world. It’s a different culture with different rules that’s all.

• How does trust work differently in different cultures?
• How is coming online like going to another country?
• How do you figure out who’s good and who is not in different cultures?
• What makes relationships faster online?
• What makes relationships misfire in person, on the phone, and on the Internet?

And, 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: sxc.hu
Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Who hasn’t had the joyous experience of a negative comment? We overhear them around the corner, confront them in conversation, and find them written boldly on our blogs. It helps to remember that they’re often more about the person talking … what that person heard, misheard, or never listened to from the start.

It helps a lot if we don’t make such things about ourselves.

A friend asked me once how I handled negative comments on my blog. My first sentence was, “Well I’m a saloonkeeper’s daughter and I used to teach first grade …” I had no idea how that sounded until she laughed out loud.

How do you keep negative words from turning you around?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your web presence!!

JOIN US TONIGHT AT 7PM

It’s Not a Another Life …

When go to another country, when we talk on the telephone, we don’t say that we’re not in real life. But somehow we’ve started thinking that because we’re using our minds to connect online, we’re not in the real world. It’s a different culture with different rules that’s all.

Join us tonight to talk about it.

Oh, and bring example links that explain your thoughts. .

The rules are simple — be nice.

Do be nice.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

With the advent of SOBCon Hands-On event partnerships, I’m enjoyng the pleasure of forming relationships and working alongside people who share my business passions organizations, businesses, and individuals learning to serve their markets by working online and off seamlessly. Watch for them in the next few weeks.

The authentic candor of the conversations with Susan Kuhn Frost, Gio Galluci, Erica O’Grady, DDGriffith and Starbucker has totally convinced me that teaching the tools isn’t an end in itself.

Businesses of every size seem confused about integrating the Internet — they see social media tools as key drivers of business. Social media tools don’t build a business.

I keep thinking of an editor with a writing assignment. She had talent, experience, and the best equipment to use to write the piece she was assigned. She came to me on day three, saying that she just couldn’t do it.

After a few minutes, the problem was easy to spot. All of the tools in the world wouldn’t fix it.

She hadn’t decided — didn’t know — exactly what she wanted to say.

You can’t use the tools of a writer if you don’t know that.

Gotta Know the Goal Before the Tool Is Gonna Help

To bring it down to it’s most basic form, the business that picks up the tools first without setting goals first won’t don’t do well.

Email, telephone, Twitter, any tool is only as useful as it match to the purpose. Not the other way around.

If we want to be successful using social media tools, we need to know a few things to make the tools work:

• Who we are.
• What we offer.
• Who we’re offering that to.
• Which tool is a match.

Just like the editor, who had to know what she wanted to say to use the tools at her disposal …

I’ve decided to let the other guys worry about what comes after Twitter … from the pencil to to the typewriter to the telephone to the computer … they’re all tools.

We gotta know what we’re using these tools to do.

Have you seen people get so involved in a tool like Twitter that they’ve used it without really having a goal?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your web presence!!

We sometimes go to galleries where there are sculptures and artworks that are made from materials that have been found in nature, recycled and then as art installation sold for thousands of dollars..

Recently we had the pleasure of enjoying a sculpture made by nature for a week or so on Rainbow Bay Beach for free. We now think of the beach as natures gallery.

What uncommon sights of art have found in nature?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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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.

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

We all teach each other.
We all live for each other.
What else is there?

I am so grateful.

That is all.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Something blogging has taught me a lot about — not just the beauty of paying attention to one thing at a time — but the fulfillment of offering other people a chance to talk.

Half the show is in the comments. Thank you HART for saying that!

That was one of the first things we discovered here.

When I first started blogging, I often tried to do too much. I’d write a post that carried the load of too many thoughts at one time. Those blogging posts went both deep and wide. They were so complete, I left no room for readers to add their thoughts.

It’s not a conversation when all a reader can say is I agree with you, Great post. or You covered that subject really well. There’s just nowhere for a conversation to go, if I don’t leave room for a reader’s thoughts to squeeze in between my own. Now I know to think about the conversation when I write.

Here are a few things that I do differently now. What they add up to is staying in the mind of a beginner.

• I ask more questions without answering them.
• I don’t try to think through every possibility as I used to do. I write what I know and I let other folks add what they know to that.
• I’ve backed off on holding myself accountable as an expert on the what I write about and instead, think of myself as one of the audience talking to another reader about an idea, waiting to hear his or her point of view.

The result? This social media beginner is having so much more fun than any teacher … and feeling so much more authentic.

What do you do to stay a social media beginner?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!