The Confidence to be Social
I had an excellent experience at Social Media Week 201:, learned a lot, met some very smart people and got a lot of great ideas. I’m thrilled I went! I’m especially thrilled I went, because last year, I would never have gone, assuming, “Well, I’m not some Twitter dynamo, what would I have to talk about with those people? What would I do there?” But of course, most people there didn’t have 14 K followers, they were just people passionate about ideas and connecting with other people to share their ideas, and learn and grow, and yes, probably score some swag, why not? I went because Nokia was offering scholarships to people who wrote (short) essays about what they hoped to learn, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to write an essay and see what happened.
And, of course, what happened is that I got the scholarship, went, got new clients, new ideas and had a fun time. The conversations I had with people, were about so much more than “simply” social media. We discussed everything from networking to lipstick. That’s the thing about social media, it’s “social,” it’s about helping you share your story with other people. So for it to work, for you to be interested in using it, and be interesting when using it, you have to have confidence in your story. I mean, there’s people out there on Twitter, for example, with 8,000 followers tweeting out their bad poems, and god bless them if that makes them happy, but I don’t need to know. I have enough bad poetry in my life; I live in NYC. (Check out the art I saw on the LES, as Exhibit No. 1 in the gallery of NYC’s bad poetry.)
But my point is, to do anything interesting in this world, to get the jobs you really want, or meet the men and women you’re interested in; simply to go as far as you can, you have to have confidence in yourself. You have to have confidence in your talents, in your charm, your abilities, in who you are, to be able to present. If you don’t have this confidence, you’ll resist using Twitter, or Pinterest, or whatever because you don’t know the “right” way or, you’re not sure a particular platform is right for you, or you can even hire some social media “expert” to create a strategy for you. But how can someone else create a strategy, when the best branding comes from the heart? And I say that, btw, as a “social media expert,” according to US News & World Report. There’s so many opportunities on social media, and of course, by extension, the world, but if you waste (your) time getting hung up on the “right” or “wrong” ways to use it, or if you’re worried about shaming yourself with your mistakes, you’ll never get anything done. I’d always rather be messy and learn, than stay stuck in my “perfection,” i.e. boredom.
Tomorrow, I’ll give you some strategies to get started, but if you can’t wait, I don’t blame you! Email me at carlotazee@gmail.com, become a fan of my Facebook page, “Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta,” and score yourself a free consultation!