I have a lot of thoughts. Most of them suck. Sometimes, a few of them don’t suck.
Twitter doesn’t let you elaborate on your thoughts, and while I understand that is the point of Twitter, sometimes a lady just wants to explain herself. Sometimes a fleeting thought develops into an idea. Sometimes that idea just may be a good one. Here’s a look at a few of my thoughts/tweets from this week.
February 26th “At the end of the day, when all is said and done, people are just really fucking weird.”
Oops. I used a swear. Still, I think about this all the time. I love weirdos. I love people who are unabashedly themselves. People who aren’t afraid to love things that may not be “cool.” People that dress how they want. People that recognize what people think, but don’t necessarily care. I’ve moved around a lot the past few years, and each time I do it’s a challenge to make new friends and forge professional relationships. Often, I realize I bend my personality to suit what I think others want. In the words of the guy on the bus that one time, “that just ain’t right.” Embrace your inner weirdo.
February 27th “Was that really worth sharing, really?”
Redundant? Yes. Valid question? Also, yes. Redundant? Yes. People complain all the time about people posting their daily schedules on Facebook or pictures of their lunches or adult libations on Twitter. If you’re using social media professionally, this could transcend from a minor annoyance to a swift “unfollow.” Know the balance.
February 28th – I had nothing good to say. On and off Twitter – nothing good came out of my mouth.
February 29th “ Social media aka Learning how to not be afraid of your personality.”
This goes hand in hand with being a weirdo. Once companies and businesses become unafraid – magic happens. Weird personalities are better than NO personalities. Don’t be afraid of yours.
February 29th RT – “wtfqrcodes”
I’m just so happy about this website. All together now, “QR CODES ARE STUPID!”
There you have it. An elaboration on what I think are my finer tweets of the week. The rest? A bunch of Oscar live-tweeting and personal musings I’m convinced people will find hilarious. I’m disappointed a lot.
Like what you read? Follow me on the Twitters.
by Nicole Branigan on January 11, 2012 · 0 comments
Remember when everyone and their mother was “liking” pages that described their idiosyncrasies and personal habits on Facebook? My husband and I used to make fun of the, “I flip my pillow to get to the cool side,” and, “when I see the chat window say you’re typing, I stop typing” Facebook groups that would pop up on our News Feeds. They were annoying and seemingly pointless, but recently a light bulb about these silly groups went off in my head.
These groups work because people feel a connection to each other. People want to feel a sense of “oh, you do that, I do that too!” with family, friends, and strangers. In fact, this is one of the many reasons social media succeeds. The connectivity people can feel with others in the next room and across the globe makes us feel human.
So go on with your bad self and let your silly Facebook group flag fly. Who knows, you may find your neighbor only eats the red gummi bears too.
by Nicole Branigan on December 20, 2011 · 0 comments
Everyone says Social Media is a unicorn, but maybe it’s just a horse? Jay Baer, Convince & Convert via FamousBloggers.net
Relax, I won’t be a total hater in this post. I love social media – it’s fantastic! I’ve made more connections in my short stint in Nashville with Twitter than I ever would have by going to the park and asking people, “would you like to be my friend?”
The past eight months I’ve taken a giant leap back from offering social media as a service, because I’ve realized I don’t entirely know what that means. Any time I’ve executed social media planning for clients, it didn’t go well and worse – it didn’t feel authentic.
I could have pored over social media texts, webinars, and other forms of education in order to fully understand social media and what it means to “connect,” but I found myself turned off by the process. I realized today why that is.
So many people claim to be “social media experts,” or to “do social media,” and these people may or may not be fantastic at their jobs. Still, many of these people, I’ve realized, are chronic sharers. You know the type. The “come to my social media webinar-meetup-tweetup-mixer-orgy” people. It’s this chronic sharing from every Tom, Dick, and Tweeter that is starting to sound like a bunch of white noise.
Webinars are helpful, and eBooks rock. But as a collective, the social media industry – on a grassroots level – needs to figure out a way to push beyond the distracting and disrupting sharing to create something truly interesting. And until I figure out how to do that, I’m sitting this one out.
by Nicole Branigan on October 7, 2011 · 0 comments
I recently ran into an interesting situation with a former client. The client had a sizeable following for their social media channels. They weren’t doing anything incredibly creative or out of the box, but they started out with popularity and it was taking them far. All was well, albeit predictable in the social media world. There was a lot of interaction on their Facebook page and they were slowly building a Twitter following. YouTube videos were a hit and miss, but they were trying new things.
The client seemed to do everything right, except for one major mistake: they were constantly changing social media managers and administrators. This seemingly innocuous move cost them a lot of loyal followers and endangered their authenticity.
You see, by constantly changing the administrators of the page, they were unable to connect on a personal level with their followers. Once followers felt connected, and there was consistency with their postings, they would randomly change who managed the page, force a new approach for no feasible reason, and would essentially be starting from square one.
While it’s not necessary to always keep the same tone and type of posts on your social media pages, it is necessary to maintain the loyal following you’ve worked hard to build up. Completely changing direction without warning or reason will damage your following. By forcing authenticity and random changes for no apparent reason, the client was actually damaging their real voice and confusing many followers. Note: I’m encouraging trying something new, but I’m discouraging trying something new for no reason.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if it’s working, don’t break it.
Refocusing to better serve you.
I have a love/hate relationship with social media. Social media provides great content, and a perfect way to PROMOTE content. I love what it does for businesses and I appreciate how it brings families together. That being said, as a content writer I dipped my pinky toe into the sea of social media services; the water was a little too tepid.
I don’t have a bad taste in my mouth from social media. It’s just that it’s difficult to offer full social media services to companies without being fully vested in what the company has to offer. Without being an integral part of a company, and without being a part of the daily goings on, it’s impossible to have a distinct handle on what voice the company is trying to convey. Without understanding the voice, it’s easy to force a dynamic through social media avenues that sounds fake and comes off as phony.
Social media is content, and that’s a beautiful thing. But by honing in my services to provide content writing/editing/coaching I will be able to better focus on writing and editing premiere content that my clients can promote. In doing this, they’ll be able to shorten the line of communication between their business and their clients/customers and create a voice of authenticity that will render greater success.
I’ll continue to research, talk about, and blog about social media. In my industry it’s important to understand the latest social media tools (even though I still don’t understand Google+) and be able to have a dialogue about them. Simply put, I want to encourage my clients to find their own voice and to use that voice to communicate with the masses. Social media takes time, but it was built for all levels of technological understanding.
You can do it. I promise. Now, go be excellent.
