Dotti Berry, iDigital Media Pro Empowering Entrepreneurs

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How do you connect through Social Media?

How do you engage though Social Media? How do you relate through Social Media? Everywhere you look there is either a tweet, an article, a teleseminar, or a webinar about developing your Social Media presence...from Facebook to LinkedIn…from You Tube to Twitter. Each one is a little different, but there is a common thread.

What does developing your Social Media presence really mean?

Here’s the CORE Essence of all of them. The bottom line is that through utilizing engaging questions, each medium has the opportunity to lead to Collaboration & Fun!

Connect - Friend them or they friend you on FB, Follow them or they follow you (or both happen) on Twitter, Connect with them on LinkedIn and share your profile and vice versa. Make a video, share a video, subscribe & follow their videos. Notice I said “Connect,” not “Pitch your product.” Very important to understand this basic concept. It doesn’t mean you can’t post on YOUR wall what you are into regarding life or business. After all, it is YOUR wall… but do not go to their wall or send them an initial message with your pitch. This applies even when it is for the starving children in Africa or the people of Haiti. Connect FIRST with no agenda other than to do precisely that…Connect! If you do this, you will have enough friends to call upon when there is an opportunity to help others through a specific tragedy or non-profit, without relying upon pitching people you don’t even know.
Openly Engage – If you never go from connecting to engaging, you really aren’t actively engaging (there’s that word again) the value of social media (notice I don’t say “power” here…the “power” is in the value). Ok, I am as guilty of this as anyone. Although I have less than 1000 “friends” on FB, I am telling you I don’t have the time or energy to “engage” with that many! It is sort of like the reason I don’t choose to have affairs. I barely have the time and energy to properly cultivate and nurture my relationship with Roby, the love of my life. What makes me think I can distract myself with affairs and legitimately stay connected to my spouse? No moral judgment here. Just the practical aspects. Ok…I have gotten off track here a little (not much), but I think you get my point. People are out there scrambling…often to indiscriminately build their numbers as fast as they can so that they appear to be a “happening” chick or dude. Why? Because some “guru” told them that is what they need to do. Well…I am not claiming or aiming to be a guru (I’m a Diva, after all!), but I do consider myself a human being committed to connecting and engaging…a human being who had two things confirmed during our year-long journey criss-crossing America in 2005/06.I take the following from one of our pages on our website. Two basic human yearnings seem universal and were consistently reflected across the diverse spectrum of people we met throughout the country…no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity, political persuasion, socio-economic status, religious affiliation or lack of one.1) People want to live authentically…there is something inside each of us that yearns for that, because to experience authenticity with self and others means to be known at the core level and in turn to know others in a similar manner. It allows you to live a life of MORE with more authentic connecting and more authentic engaging.2) People truly want to make a difference in our world – someway, somehow…and we search to find those connections which resonate with and impassion us.

There are many programs telling you how to build your list on autopilot. Is that what you really want? I can supply those for you if you do (who am I to judge if that is the “right” or “wrong” way.) Here’s my take on it. I agree that the more people you connect with, the greater is your opportunity to find the gold nugget of connection within those numbers, and the more likely you will be to engage with people with whom you are truly aligned. Perhaps that is how I need to view those systems. If you only have 10 FB friends, you might think “This FB isn’t any good at all. I don’t have anything in common with these people.” Do we have another chicken or the egg theory happening here? Comments, anyone? The real point to understand here, in my humble opinion, is that the “gold” is in the authentic engaging…it’s the value received from the give and take created by synergy with a person. So…what do I suggest? Use this phase like dating…throw your cap into the ring…shoot the ball (an ex-coach for women’s basketball at the University of Kentucky can’ t help herself from using these metaphors). What I know is that the more you shoot, the greater your chance of scoring, especially if you put the ball above the rim! Commit to this process of engaging and you will discover common ground with someone along the way. That’s what you do in any off-line relationship. You look for common ground during the engagement process (wow…is that why they call the phase before “marriage” an engagement?). The bottom line is that this common ground will lead you to #3 – Relate

Relate – YES! This is where you BUILD your Relationships. It doesn’t happen overnight and the beginning moments are often filled with excitement. Post excitement, you might stumble a little, have to regroup…perhaps even issue an “I’m apologize”… or even discover that this relationship is not empowering. Cut it off! Don’t allow it to continue just because you “slept” with them. (this is a metaphor, folks!). If the foundation of your relationship is not dysfunctional and contributes to you finishing an interaction saying to yourself, “Wow! That felt great and I feel energized,” then keep it up. Remember that you can feel energized even in the space of having difficult and challenging conversations. The building of your relationships is an interactive, dynamic and fun process…enjoy it!
Enthusiastically Leverage & Collaborate through Collective Intelligence – This is where the true value and power of this “Collective Intelligence” that I refer to as the new “Expert” begins to manifest. Leveraging the relationship & collaborating together in a positive manner is Nirvana! Here’s my bottom line. 4 eyes…4 ears (for Listening) and 2 mouths (for speaking, sharing ideas) is better than 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 mouth (me by myself). 16 eyes…16 ears, 4 mouths is better than the solo effort. 256 eyes, 256 ears, 16 mouths is better than MY solo effort. Social Media is allowing the PhD person discovers there’s common ground with the person who never attended college…the person with 30 years of experience in an industry discovers that the everyday person has some answers and solutions for the questions in business that are plaguing their business…the single, divorced Mom with 5 children, in small town, USA discovers there’s common ground with the single, divorced Mom with 5 children in India. You get the picture. All of these represent situations that in the past might never have happened. Our new technology and the internet that supports this Social Media Revolution is AMAZING!I am a person who enjoys connecting, engaging, collaborating, and T.E.A.M.WORK (Together Each Associate Matters). I am your associate in life, and you are my associate in life. Yes, I choose to work from home. That doesn’t mean that I choose to live a solo existence, unconnected to people and the world. I know that I am fed by connecting and engaging with others, and I appreciate every day the value of Social Media in that process. It leads me to ask,How can we shift and transform our world and make is a better place through utilizing this CORE essence of Social Media?
Ahhhhh…another QUESTION! I hope that it provides food for thought. I don’t have the answers (to anything in life), but I sure have lots of QUESTIONS. I remind myself that the questions are what lead us into inquiry and conversations with one another. The questions allow us to share our stories. We began each newsletter on our year-long journey with this line, “You can’t hate someone whose story you know.” Questions lead to inquiry. Inquiry leads to shared stories, and feeling heard. Stories lead to connecting. Connecting leads to openly engaging. Engaging leads to building relationships. Relationships lead to positive leveraging and collaboration. How much better does it get than that?

One of the best ways to tie all of this together is through a free tool, BusinessCard2, that you can get at Brand You First. This picture below illustrates the power of this amazing tool. Experiencing BusinessCard2 is one of the best ways to understand it. See my digital branding billboard below. Imagine updating one vehicle (BusinessCard2) that translate through all social media as you share your link or embed code on your blog or website.

Here’s a valuable update to this post…a link to recorded webinar I did with Lief Larson, developer of BusinessCard2. This will help you understand what you “don’t know you don’t know” about branding, marketing and promoting YOU via the internet and global marketplace… and what it means to “operate in the cloud!”

You…and I…have a unique responsibility that is a gift. And if we give the gift of connecting, openly engaging, relating and enthusiastically leveraging and collaborating through our collective intelligence and talents, the gift of who we are will just keep on giving and we will have FUN together!

Never forget the powerful words made famous by Helen Keller, but first originated by Everett Hale.

I am only one.
But still I am ONE.
I cannot do everything.
But still I can do something.
I will not refuse to
do the something I can do.