Social Media

Social Media Day 2022

When I saw a tweet about this day on Thursday 30 June, 2022, my reaction initially was, oh no not another social media marketing ploy.

I then reflected a little and I remember how excited I was when Facebook came about and how even more excited I was when Twitter emerged. I hadn't even considered LinkedIn properly and over time I did like LinkedIn the best, because of it B2B flavour. I threw myself into all social media feet first, my head followed later.

I got clued up on all of it, sought out training in the USA, I remember how backward the UK was. At the time I was working freelance for a training company who provided online management best practice training, all text based. I told the MD that social media was important and it was going to get big. He dismissed it and said and I quote, ‘I am not interested in knowing what people have had for their lunch’.

Many years later he hired me to run a LinkedIn training session for him and his staff.

The Social Audio Revolution

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of years, not mentioning the 'C' word, Social Audio is possibly the newest social media innovation of the the current 20's.

You may have heard of Clubhouse, their meteoric rise to being THE social audio go to platform and the beauty of being focused on just that, nothing else, no distractions, no other innovations, just social audio, means they were the market leader, the innovator and solution of choice. They refused many takeover bids and even one by Twitter, which reportedly was for $4 billion yeah that’s billion with a B. Why didn’t they take that I wonder? Personally you must be slightly mad not to.

I was late into the Clubhouse, it’s been a while since I played golf so nobody gave me the nod and wink. Never mind I did set up a profile, it was easy to do and simple. The whole platform was simples, yeah I say was, because with all social media products the engineers complicate the hell out of it. It’s not so simple anymore and then the surprise why the drop off?

China! Maybe they have sorted Social Media addiction?

I have no idea where China is with Social Media/Big Tech, but I gained a bit of an insight by listening to an episode titled “A fresh take on Tech in China” on the podcast ‘Your Undivided Attention’, which features Tristan Harris, who Co-founded Humane Tech and starred in The Social Dilemma. Do check out these two websites.

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast
https://www.thesocialdilemma.com

I first came across Tristan via an awesome Ted Talk, “How a handful of Tech companies control billions of minds every day”.

Frances Haugen - Facebook Whistleblower

Ever since Cambridge Analytica (2018) we all knew that Facebook and especially Mark Zuckerberg were lying. But as soon as the week was over we all ignored it, we went back to our feeds like zombies, until now perhaps?

In the past week Facebook went down for 6 hours globally, an accident or coincidence as Frances Haugen was about to provide a statement to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation in the USA government.

This is her full statement lifted from her blogpost: https://www.franceshaugen.com/blog/b9xlswihkike7639nn4ie23odz9eqy

Social Media, you’ve made us all addicted!

We’re now scrolling junkies. Why would we all waste our time scrolling through such utter nonsense, abuse, anger, ‘look at me’ posts, sharenting (parents sharing their kids), promotional jargon, show-off knowledge, repeated news stories, so-called opinions, thought leadership, questions as clickbait, engagement requests, follow requests, regular ads, so many examples, I could go on but I guess you get the idea.

The Socials Love your Comments...

Whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat or any other platform I might have missed, they all have one thing in common.

They need your eyeballs.

The more eyeballs, the more they can charge for their ads. The advertisers need eyeballs and will move to the platform which has the most eyeballs. Eyeballs = $$$ billions.

We're talking serious dosh here, the more controversy there is in the world, i.e. racism, covid, masks, vaccines or even Matt Hancock, the socials love it. They need controversy in the world, they need people fighting against each other, they need massive division.

So here's a theory for you, yes indeed it could be called a conspiracy theory. What if these platforms employ people to start the controversy on some platforms, let's call them 'Doom Influencers'. I know it sounds mad, but if your business is valued in the billions and competing with other billion dollar companies, then surely it makes sense to pay someone a small amount of money, somewhere far far away in a distant land, who can sit on their computer and just watch the controversies appearing in the world and make them even bigger.

Online Storytelling Workshop

Share Your Story - Online Storytelling Workshop.jpeg

I am running Online Storytelling Workshops to reach more businesses and make it accessible for more start-ups, small businesses and students.

I’ve been curious about business for over 40 years. The main reason? Well, money of course! My father worked for the Bank of America in Amsterdam and he was the most frugal spender I have ever come across. Whenever we as kids and there were four of us, asked for money he used to point to his back and ask if we could see any money growing on it.

A very strange saying but it has stuck with me for all my life.

So my desire to make my own money came at a very early age. I started work at the age of 16 and got the taste of money whilst working for a family friend’s business in Amsterdam. When we moved to the United Kingdom and after having had the first taste of my own money there was no way I wanted to continue with my education, I wanted to work in London and become independent. So at the age of 17 my employment in business had begun. I’ve worked for several large organisations in the Textile Industry and have come across hundreds of managers, several CEO’s and Managing Directors and there was just one thing that separated the good ones from the really bad ones and that was Storytelling.

Those that could tell a great story, stood out for me and got my respect, those that couldn’t didn’t.

Storytelling applies to people in business just as much as those that are running their own business, it makes no difference. Let me explain why.

All communication is Storytelling. Just pay attention to your next conversation with anyone, a friend, a family member, a colleague or a complete stranger. I am 99.9% confident that the dialogue you engage in contains many many short stories. Well, if all communication is Storytelling, we should be paying more attention to it don’t you think?

I come across many business people and listen intently to how they introduce themselves, whether its at networking events, during public speaking, presentations etc. I am astounded and quite frankly shocked on how little Storytelling is used by business people. You may not appreciate how programmed you are for Storytelling. You started listening to stories, potentially before you could even talk properly. In those early years you listened to words uttered by your parents and grandparents, those sounds you had to convert into pictures in your brain and that’s how your cortex started its development to comprehend stories and the start of all communication.

In the decades that you have been walking on this planet you have been exposed to stories through the medium of TV, Radio, Cinema, Books, Podcasts, Music, Theatre, The Internet, Social Media and many other media channels.

Your exposure to Storytelling means it is already second nature to you. All you have to do is understand the mechanics, the framework and the structure to get started in crafting your own story and your business story. I’m not asking you to become an author, a script writer or an amazing orator, I’m asking you to become better at doing something, you’ve already been doing all your life.

When you join the Online Storytelling Workshop, you will leave with a storytelling blueprint for your own business by recording your own story using the Share Your Story canvas. This online workshop is only the beginning of your journey. Afterwards there are 2 optional paid for (£24) follow-up coaching calls to keep you on track and finalise your own ‘Share Your Story’ Blueprint. That’s not all, read on and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with all the additional online support and free resources included in your initial workshop!

INCREASE YOUR SKILL TO SHARE MEANINGFUL STORIES:

  • In digital and online

  • In your branding and off line

  • In your speaking

  • In your networking

  • In your conversations

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

  • Small businesses (typically with less than 9 employees)

  • Freelancers

  • Solopreneurs

  • Start-up businesses (Discounts provided, please ask!)

  • Speakers — Presenters

  • Trainers

  • Coaches

  • Unemployed (Concessions available, please ask!)

WHAT IS INCLUDED FOR EVERYONE WHO ATTENDS THE ONLINE SESSION:

  • Free access to LinkedIn Lectures course with 13-hours of on-line video training. Value — £90

  • Membership of a private LinkedIn mastermind group for all workshop attendees. This group will support you to follow-through with your actions, share best practices, progress and allow constructive and supportive feedback. Value — Immeasurable!

  • Opportunity to be a guest on the ‘Share Your Story’ Podcast and share your story with thousands of podcast listeners. Value — Priceless!

I really look forward to welcoming you at a forthcoming Online Storytelling Workshop

Why do you need all those votes?

0*dmgMn9SIHqEvg9Xv.jpeg

We all desire plenty of votes, let me give you a few examples.

Votes from our parents, to confirm we are enough.
Votes from our teachers, to confirm we are worthy students.
Votes from our employers, to confirm we make a great contribution.
Votes from our peers, to be recognised and feel like we belong to the tribe.
Votes from our friends and families all over social media, non-stop confirmation that we are loved.
Votes from our industry in the form of awards to prove that our company is among the best in the industry, in our region, in the world etc.

Why?

Everyone wants to be loved, feel good enough, feel recognised and we are constantly looking for this throughout our lives, it shows up everywhere!

Even when I’m writing this I need you to agree with me, that you can see what I’m saying is true, confirmation that I’m enough.

We are already enough, but we don’t wish to accept it.

This is the human experiment, the human drama, all of our individual stories acting out every single day, searching for approval, searching for acceptance, for love and belonging.

Look in the mirror and there you will find it all the votes you need!

Maker Monday 29th July 2019 - Podcasting Talk

Maker Monday - BCU Steamhouse - 29.07.19 - Podcasting Talk

Thank you for allowing me to come and speak at Maker Monday about the topic of Podcasting. I have been podcasting since the end of 2016 and have thoroughly enjoyed the journey and especially my learning. I became significantly interested in podcasting in 2014, but never had the courage to get started and didn’t know what my podcast would be about, so it took me a while to get started. I fortunately came across a crash course on podcasting that was free and it spurred me on to produce my own show.

In this talk I shared some key information and stats to impress on you (the audience) that if you even have a small interest to get started, there is a way now to do this virtually for free.

Here are some of the key takeaways from my talk:

  1. Podcasting continues to grow.

  2. Smartphones drive podcast consumption.

  3. Listeners consume 6 1⁄2 hours each week.

  4. 33% of share of time of audio content are podcasts. 5. 2 million podcasts indexed on Google.

  5. 52% is on Apple Podcasts, 19% on Spotify.

How to start creating your podcast using anchor.fm:

  1. Consider your topic, genre and audience.

  2. Guests make podcasts more interesting or alternatively discussions between two experts.

  3. 3 ways you can record, smartphone, tablet or desktop.

  4. Or record using other methods and upload to Anchor.

  5. Consider opening and closing music and possibly transitions during the podcast. Don’t go overboard! Equipment for mobile devices: Lavalier Mic + extension lead + adapter to be able to use two microphones and earphones (buds). http://amzn.eu/0MQDlr8 - £76 - for phones with an ear jack - consider adapters or other mics for latest Apple phones.

  6. Share podcasts on social media, website-blog (embed audioplayer).

  7. Submit your RSS feed to mixcloud.com after opening an account, it’s free also!

Download the presentation slides HERE.

Download the key takeaways sheet HERE.

Download the Guest Guide that I use HERE.

The Surveillance Threat Is Not What Orwell Imagined

FullSizeRender.jpg

Shoshana Zuboff • June 7, 2019

George Orwell repeatedly delayed crucial medical care to complete 1984, the book still synonymous with our worst fears of a totalitarian future — published 70 years ago this month. Half a year after his novelʼs debut, he was dead. Because he believed everything was at stake, he forfeited everything, including a young son, a devoted sister, a wife of three months and a grateful public that canonized his prescient and pressing novel. But today we are haunted by a question: Did George Orwell die in vain?

Orwell sought to awaken British and U.S. societies to the totalitarian dangers that threatened democracy even after the Nazi defeat. In letters before and after his novelʼs completion, Orwell urged “constant criticism,” warning that any “immunity” to totalitarianism must not be taken for granted: “Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”

Since 1984ʼs publication, we have assumed with Orwell that the dangers of mass surveillance and social control could only originate in the state. We were wrong. This error has left us unprotected from an equally pernicious but profoundly different threat to freedom and democracy.

For 19 years, private companies practicing an unprecedented economic logic that I call surveillance capitalism have hijacked the Internet and its digital technologies. Invented at Google beginning in 2000, this new economics covertly claims private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. Some data are used to improve services, but the rest are turned into computational products that predict your behavior. These predictions are traded in a new futures market, where surveillance capitalists sell certainty to businesses determined to know what we will do next. This logic was first applied to finding which ads online will attract our interest, but similar practices now reside in nearly every sector — insurance, retail, health, education, finance and more — where personal experience is secretly captured and computed for behavioral predictions. By now it is no exaggeration to say that the Internet is owned and operated by private surveillance capital.

In the competition for certainty, surveillance capitalists learned that the most predictive data come not just from monitoring but also from modifying and directing behavior. For example, by 2013, Facebook had learned how to engineer subliminal cues on its pages to shape usersʼ real-world actions and feelings. Later, these methods were combined with real-time emotional analyses, allowing marketers to cue behavior at the moment of maximum vulnerability. These inventions were celebrated for being both effective and undetectable. Cambridge Analytica later demonstrated that the same methods could be employed to shape political rather than commercial behavior.

Augmented reality game Pokémon Go, developed at Google and released in 2016 by a Google spinoff, took the challenge of mass behavioral modification to a new level. Business customers from McDonalds to Starbucks paid for “footfall” to their establishments on a “cost per visit” basis, just as online advertisers pay for “cost per click.” The game engineers learned how to herd people through their towns and cities to destinations that contribute profits, all of it without game playersʼ knowledge.

Democracy slept while surveillance capitalism flourished. As a result, surveillance capitalists now wield a uniquely 21st century quality of power, as unprecedented as totalitarianism was nearly a century ago. I call it instrumentarian power, because it works its will through the ubiquitous architecture of digital instrumentation. Rather than an intimate Big Brother that uses murder and terror to possess each soul from the inside out, these digital networks are a Big Other: impersonal systems trained to monitor and shape our actions remotely, unimpeded by law.

Instrumentarian power delivers our futures to surveillance capitalismʼs interests, yet because this new power does not claim our bodies through violence and fear, we undervalue its effects and lower our guard. Instrumentarian power does not want to break us; it simply wants to automate us. To this end, it exiles us from our own behavior. It does not care what we think, feel or do, as long as we think, feel and do things in ways that are accessible to Big Otherʼs billions of sensate, computational, actuating eyes and ears.

Instrumentarian power challenges democracy. Big Other knows everything, while its operations remain hidden, eliminating our right to resist. This undermines human autonomy and self- determination, without which democracy cannot survive. Instrumentarian power creates unprecedented asymmetries of knowledge, once associated with pre- modern times. Big Otherʼs knowledge is about us, but it is not used for us. Big Other knows everything about us, while we know almost nothing about it. This imbalance of power is not illegal, because we do not yet have laws to control it, but it is fundamentally anti-democratic.

Surveillance capitalists claim that their methods are inevitable consequences of digital technologies. This is false. Itʼs easy to imagine the digital future without surveillance capitalism, but impossible to imagine surveillance capitalism without digital technologies.

Seven decades later, we can honor Orwellʼs death by refusing to cede the digital future. Orwell despised “the instinct to bow down before the conqueror of the moment.” Courage, he insisted, demands that we assert our moral bearings, even against forces that appear invincible. Like Orwell, think critically and criticize. Do not take freedom for granted. Fight for the one idea in the long human story that asserts the peopleʼs right to rule themselves. Orwell reckoned it was worth dying for.

Contact us at editors@time.com.

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editor

How do you know if you are being authentic?

@stayingaliveuk.png

This article was inspired by my LinkedIn connection Rebecca Bell, who posted an update about the case of self-proclaimed titles, like ‘Thought Leader’, 'Influencer’ or ‘Visionary’.

See the post below.

The discussion has been fascinating and you can see how many likes and comments are clocking up on this topic, it really has never-ending opinions.

This topic has touched a nerve with many and it’s making me wonder why do we try and big ourselves up so much. Is it because we need that recognition to feel good about ourselves? Is it because the world around us has conditioned us to claim titles for ourselves, so we can be seen by others as important and they will believe in us?

Most of us have heard the saying ‘people buy people first’ and that means someone has to be in your company, face to face (or at least a video call) before this can take place. But because we now spend most of our time in the digital world, the non-physical, we are making up our own non-sense titles to impress and be bought by our connections and sometimes to manipulate search results too. 

Have you ever heard anyone at a networking meeting say. Hello my name is Michael and I’m a visionary or I’m a thought leader or I’m an influencer. Probably not. Recently I was invited to connect to someone who calls themselves a 'Business Maven'. Who encouraged him/her to use this title to suggest that they are maybe better than you or me, better qualified than anyone else to be an expert in the world of business?

A better description, title or headline for any of us would be:

'Have learnt everything I know from others and therefore thank you to all for the great lessons'. 

Because when we came into this world, we knew diddly-squat, nothing, absolutely nothing. Everything and I mean everything we know we had to learn from others. Sure we put our own spin on it and we create some amazing technology because we may think of a different approach to others, but really every tiny bit of knowledge we own, someone gave it to us.

So let's be more humble, grateful for what we know and NEVER proclaim that we are better than anyone else, NEVER!

@stayingaliveuk

Is your Intention purely Self-congratulatory or is it Selfless?

@LinkedIn & @gapingvoid

@LinkedIn & @gapingvoid

When browsing the internet, my apple news app and the social media networks, the content speaks volumes.

The content largely is self-congratulatory, especially on Facebook. There is very little value in the content that gets posted whether by the news media, your friends, colleagues and the hundreds of strangers that you are connected to. 

Everyone is trying to distract us from our attention in the moment and engage with their story, bring us into their world view and opinions. Mostly it's #fakenews and sucks us in to express a like, heart, laugh, cry, wow or mad, and if we can be bothered, write a comment. 

 

Whether you believe the research or not, they say it takes you 25 minutes to return to the original task after only an 11 minute interruption. That is an absolute age, have you ever tried to sit still for 25 minutes? It's impossible and lasts a very very long time. 

So why do we do this to ourselves?

Don't get me wrong, I like social media, I really do, well maybe I did and I am starting to wonder how much time I have actually wasted on social channels, whereas I could have been creating some fabulous stuff and change my life for the better?

Realising that social isn't going away soon I have started to re-assess my activity there. I used to post 3 times per day via my favourite scheduling app, Buffer, but now I only post once per day. I paid for the 'awesome plan' so that I could have all my channels there and post to all of them and now I just have the free plan with only a few channels to post to. I continually had to search for new and interesting content from other channels, I even have a feedly account to locate all that content. The stress of having to keep finding content was crazy at times, when I saw my buffer of content emptying, I panicked and had to spend a few hours to find more stuff to load it up. I am feeling like a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders by not having to do that any longer.

But did it actually work and did I get a return on my investment. I never truly know whether it did or not and my hunch is that it probably didn't. My engagement is no better or worse as a result of reducing my content sharing. 

So what about the way forward? Pretty much as the image says really.

  1. Be impartial.
  2. Inform next steps and offer guidance.
  3. Answer questions.
  4. Solve problems.
  5. Listen, respond and be helpful.
  6. Make people smile, laugh and sometimes give them pause.
  7. Design engagement and customer journeys across screens, platforms and networks so they are seamless.
  8. Create experiences that are delightful, memorable and shareable.

How about you, what have you noticed?

@stayingaliveuk

So, what's it like in the Rabbit Hole?

Whilst being active on social media, our objectives are essentially selfish. Let's be honest, we can list our desires from social in a very short list.

  1. Wanting to get noticed. 
  2. Wanting to get noticed. 
  3. Wanting to get noticed.

The advice for getting noticed runs in the millions of posts across the web. It is literally deafening and equally overwhelming. There is so much stuff out there that we have gone blind. Our brains are zoning out the noise, our subconscious has been trained to ignore the majority of content that's being pushed out in front of us. The major social networks are managing to convince us that to get noticed you have to advertise, organic content isn't going to hack it.

Unless you make a conscious effort to seek content out for a particular and motivational reason, you are actually ignoring most things. Again they are hoping that advertising will make a difference to this.

However the most engaged conversations that I witness is when someone posts a controversial comment, accuses a big corporate of bad service or they say something about themselves that is deeply personal. After all we are very very curious (nosey) and interested in other people’s bad news or controversy. The, let's call it, old fashioned media have known this for centuries. The bad and controversial news about government leaders, business and celebrities is what interests people the most. Good news stories don't sell newspapers or online clicks for the advertisers.

Just pause for a moment. What was the last good news story you remember? Please do share it in the comments below, we all love hearing a good news story, there's so much bad news out there.

We are all ‘social media-holics’ in one way or another. Granted there will be people not on social media yet, but have a look at the stats, they are astounding.

3 Billion active social media users on the planet and growing every single day. Facebook has a mission to get Africa on the internet for one primary reason, allow them to get onto Facebook. 

LinkedIn has a mission to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce, last count there are 3 billion of those! Their platform is at half a billion currently, so they have some distance to travel and no doubt they will do it. 

Can you imagine how much content is going to be posted on these platforms when developing nations achieve massive internet access in the remotest parts of the world?

All the social platforms know that the western world are highly addicted and eventually will start dropping of members, so they have to look at other nations in the world to keep their billions of revenue coming in.

Nothing wrong with that of course, except creating more addicts in the world, more 'social media-holics'.

If you have managed to cut through the noise and found this article, well done to you!

My advice to you and I'm only talking to you directly, nobody else. 

Reduce your social media posting to just one post per day of your own content. Then spend more time if you wish, on just one platform of your choice, engaging with your connections' content. 

And with that I mean real conversations not a link post as such. 

Just do this once per day, spend just 20-minutes researching your connections and respond to their real conversations.

That's it, it's my new minimalism social media strategy.

Looking forward to having more meaningful conversations with you.

@stayingaliveuk | #makesocialworthtalkingabout

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me http://styin.me/discovery-call-20mins.

Have you been on a Social Media Diet yet?

Well if you haven't yet, I promise you that one day you will.

I feel for parents these days. They have the toughest job, especially with addicted kids and teenagers. Addicted to their emotions and technology. I know we joke about Wi-Fi and Battery life being before Physiological needs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but it's probably true. Try taking a teenager's smartphone away from them and they won't be talking to you for weeks, if ever. You might as well have chopped off their right arm. 

This is the opening sentence by Tristan Harris during his latest Ted Talk filmed in April 2017;

'I want you to imagine walking into a room, a control room with a bunch of people, a hundred people, hunched over a desk with little dials, and that that control room will shape the thoughts and feelings of a billion people. This might sound like science fiction, but this actually exists right now, today.'

He used to work in one of those control rooms. He witnessed that the major social networks that we love and hate are planning to make sure that they grab, as he calls it, a bit of your mind's time. So all those social networks, all of them, want a bit of your mind's time, time you never knew you had to give to them. Even when you are reading this article you are giving a bit of your mind's time to something you never knew was going to happen or even needed it to happen. By me writing this, sharing it on the internet, I am asking you to invest a bit of your mind's time into reading my article. 

I've been sucked in by all of the networks in believing that I also should be, not only investing my mind in absorbing the content, I should be creating it too so others can invest their mind's time into my content.

Tristan talks about a feature on Snapchat called 'Snapstreaks'. Here's what he says;

'And they invented a feature called Snapstreaks, which shows the number of days in a row that two people have communicated with each other. In other words, what they just did is they gave two people something they don't want to lose. Because if you're a teenager, and you have 150 days in a row, you don't want that to go away. And so think of the little blocks of time that that schedules in kids' minds'.

Watch Tristan's TED Talk in full. 'The manipulative tricks tech companies use to capture your attention.'

Kids and teenagers are addicted to the internet, fact.

And dare I say it, I am and you are probably too. Want to take the test? Follow the link below. Maybe try and carry out the test on your child and teenager, somehow?

http://www.globaladdiction.org/dldocs/GLOBALADDICTION-Scales-InternetAddictionTest.pdf

Analyse Your Results:

0-20: Not at all nomophobic. You have a very healthy relationship with your device and have no problem being separated from it.

21-60: Mild nomophobia. You get a little antsy when you forget your phone at home for a day or get stuck somewhere without WiFi, but the anxiety isn’t too overwhelming.

61-100: Moderate nomophobia. You’re pretty attached to your device. You often check for updates while you’re walking down the street or talking to a friend, and you often feel anxious when you’re disconnected. Consider a personal detox.

101-120: Severe nomophobia. You can barely go for 60 seconds without checking your phone. It’s the first thing you check in the morning and the last at night and dominates most of your activities in-between. You may need to seek professional assistance.

Read the full article: Technology and Internet addiction: How to recognise it and recover from it.

https://www.comparitech.com/internet-providers/technology-internet-addiction

You might also enjoy an article I wrote back in 2013 title: 'Do Social Networks Sell Drugs';

https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/blog/2013/06/do-social-networks-sell-drugs

Now I know that they do, as I have probably been an addict since then.

All of us for sure will be going on a Social Media Diet. And I have it in my mind to be writing the first one of it's kind. Mind you it means I will also have to try it out! Now that might be a lot tougher.

--

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me http://styin.me/discovery-call-20mins.

Are you sure you like change?

@LinkedIn & @gapingvoid

@LinkedIn & @gapingvoid

Seriously though do you? 

I was browsing the news app on my iPhone early one morning in the past week when I read that there is a new social media channel on the rise, like Twitter but no spam or trolls and a Tweet is called a Toot.

The new network is called https://mastodon.social. And it has the picture of a cute mammoth holding a smart phone.

My first thought was, oh no not another social media network.  And I felt a heavy feeling with the prospect of having to master yet another Social Media platform. Of course I decided to investigate and was actually pleased to learn that registrations have been paused to ensure the quality of existing subscribers. Also they refer to ‘Instances’, another new language to learn. Give us a break please?!

The trouble is the digital news media have been all over this like a rash and this is what causes ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out) in all of us.

Anyway no doubt if it catches on and millions flock there from twitter. Might see you there or then again maybe not.

Now back to ‘Change’.

The hardest job in that world is actually to change yourself. Just try brushing your teeth with your other hand or put your trousers (pants for my USA friends) on with the opposite leg first.

If you wish to change a habit or start a new habit it is incredibly tough, because you've hardwired your habits over years of regular repetition. The neurones in your brain are fused together forever or are they?

The good news is that your brain is plastic, a term neuroscientists came up with when they discovered that your brain can change even if its damaged and for the purpose of this article you can re-wire your habits, it just takes the same amount of repetition that caused you to develop your habits in the first place.

Coming back to why this is all important in the new digital and social landscape. 

If we want to get attention for our product or service, we have to change our learned habit of spraying and praying. Instead we have to get up close and personal. Deal with people one-on-one and treat them like individuals instead of a commodity. 

Stop email newsletters and instead send personal emails. Stop adding connections to email lists and instead tell them that they can opt-in if they wish and they can unsubscribe at any time they want. Don't cloak a mass email as if it was a personal email. I have witnessed so many bad and quite frankly stupid practices that my jaw literally hit the desk in amazement. 

Nobody by the way is waiting for your email message, your new product or service, your new book, your next blog post, your Facebook live video or even your next Social Media post inside LinkedIn and Twitter or your story in Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and no doubt others.

Why? Because everyone is overwhelmed with too much stuff. This article will hardly receive any views or engagement, because a hundred thousand other articles were posted in the same week and actually your real attention is on fear, like Donald Trump or Brexit or Syria or your own focus on getting your own content seen.

We all have to change our habits with publishing content or trying to get attention, become relevant and build relationships with real people who might if you do it right become a 'Raving Fan'

Because that is your only mission and 'spraying and praying' is not the way to achieve that.

I'd love to hear what you are looking to change in your approach to Social Media, Social Selling and content marketing. Let's change together forever.

LinkedIn created a brilliant eBook with my favourite illustrator. @gapingvoid (Hugh Macleod) creates the most amazing messages through his illustrations. Read more about him and @gapingvoid here: (http://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/team-members/hugh-macleod/)

Regularly I will share one of the articles and illustrations from the eBook and give you my opinion, interpretation, insight and my meaning.

@stayingaliveuk

http://linkedinlectures.com

http://linkedinlectures.com

#contentmarketing #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling #sales #empathy #distraction #purpose #relevance #trust #love #mastodon #change

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.

Have you changed your behaviour on social yet?

@linkedin & @gapingvoid

@linkedin & @gapingvoid

Not sure what is meant by the question? Let's explore.

You are currently in one of 2 camps. Either you're in the massively active camp, social has become a 3-5 hours per day work and leisure time or you you're in the ‘I need to spend less time on social and I'm monitoring my own activity there’.

Spending time away from social media, in particular Facebook is becoming one of the top New Year resolutions, right up there with weight loss, stopping smoking, going dry for a month and of course more exercise.

And every time we feel compelled to move away, we are pulled back by feelings of FOMO, ‘fear of missing out’ and international events, liked POTUS (President of the US), political drama, terrorist incidents and many other ‘I must way in with my opinion’ events.

The fact is, you were never able to contribute your opinion in the past, but now kids have never known anything different have they?

They ALL have an opinion now and sometimes it's not that great either.

And if you are in the 3-5 hours a day camp, well, you're either really, really enjoying it or need to do it because it's your job or you're trying to get noticed or you have a need for more love.

After all we all have a massive need to feel loved. And this love is felt when many friends, family and yep strangers engage with your posts, your content, your shares and your opinions. That's the addictive bit by the way, the content is actually of no consequence, really it isn't.

Inevitably, and it is possible that you may have heard this prediction before, this route to feeling loved will reduce and reduce and eventually you will not feel anything any longer about social media. The next big thing will then take your gaze, your attention and your time. It might be Virtual Reality, who knows!

The engagement on social is changing, mass engagement will continue to reduce, that's why Facebook is upping the advertising game. If you have a business page, have you had the $10 voucher yet to try their adverts?

The only route left is building relationships on a one to one basis, one person at a time. No blanket emails, no massive advertising campaigns, no autobots on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook messenger. They are all interesting time saving tools but they will be easily overlooked, ignored and deleted.

So, let me ask the question again.

Have you changed your behaviour on social yet?

I'd love to hear from you and how you are changing your behaviour on social. Use the comments section below to share your thoughts on engagement and content strategies.

LinkedIn created a brilliant eBook with my favourite illustrator. @gapingvoid (Hugh Macleod) creates the most amazing messages through his illustrations. Read more about him and @gapingvoidhere: (http://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/team-members/hugh-macleod/)

Regularly I will share one of the articles and illustrations from the eBook and give you my opinion, interpretation, insight and my meaning.

 http://linkedinlectures.com

#contentmarketing #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling #sales #empathy #distraction #purpose #relevance #trust #love

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.

Why is Storytelling so important? Chapter 1

@stayingaliveuk

@stayingaliveuk

Because it takes us back to our magical childhood. Even before we could comprehend what was being said, our parents read stories to us. They took us on a journey, where anything was possible, where we could imagine anything with the use of our brain. We created mystical characters who did not exist in the real world but, as far as we were concerned, they were as real as you and me.

Hollywood have always known that we all LOVE stories!

When we watch or read a story we start creating images in our brain to fill in the missing parts. Let’s take the following paragraph.

“Jane, who drove too fast in her red sports car down the busy highway, was excited about the prospect of meeting up with her friends, who were waiting for her. They were waiting for her in her favourite restaurant at a table by the window with a view over the lake. Sundown had just started and the light was bouncing off the water, which was still and sparkling in the remaining light. Ducks were drifting peacefully on the water, heading towards their night retreats. Jane was running late”.

You just created several images in your brain taken from your library of images which are stored in billions of neurons. More than that you emotionally connected with Jane: we’ve all been late for appointments and know what it feels like to be rushing to try and get to our destination faster. You also love being able to get a table by the window in a restaurant, especially with a view over a lake. Oh wow, just imagine that. And who doesn’t like seeing ducks drifting on a lake at sundown?

This means that you didn’t just imagine Jane’s journey and destination, you actually wished you were Jane. Or John, of course, if it was a guy who featured in the story.

So, if we emotionally connect with stories what do you think the best marketers in the world do? Correct! You guessed right...they tell stories.

You can download the full story by clicking the link HERE.

#storytelling #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling #sales #empathy

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.

Right then, what's actually causing you to be so distracted?

I'm sure you have heard that little voice in your head, you know the one that tells you that you should have done something when you haven't, the one that NEVER shuts up.  Oh and it's never positive, it's ALWAYS a negative commentary.

Well it's the same one that talks to you when you are writing, posting, liking and commenting. Constantly evaluating what you're writing, questioning whether you should have done it differently, said more or said less and even if you should have said anything at all.

Should you tap the like or the love emoji on Facebook and tapping the angry one when someone is complaining or the sad one when they're sharing some personal heartache. Is tapping the emoji enough or do you add some comments too. But what if you say the wrong thing. You’ve only got 10 seconds to add something.  Look at all those other comments, should you even bother or should you just like one of the other comments you agree with, but oh some of those other comments are dreadful, should you say something back or should you just move on. But you may be enraged with it all and your inner dragon can't resist it.

All of those voices are happening instantly and in split-second succession and you don't even know it's happening to you. And it's very likely that you were being distracted by the next post,  the next notification on your mobile and your need to write and post the next article or blogpost.

We are convinced that the distractions are outside of us and in fact they are all in our heads. We are the ones who allow ourselves to be distracted, it's never anyone else’s fault, really it isn't.

So how do you manage to stay focussed and on topic with all the thousands of opportunities for distraction?

BETTER HABITS

You are never going to drown out all those distractions but you can train yourself to develop better habits.

Better habits means getting organised around when, where and how you engage with all of the thousands of distractions that you have to face and all the tasks you have to perform. It means being organised and you decide when you allow yourself to be distracted.

Examples:

  1. Notification to say someone's tagged you? You schedule a reminder when you know you have time to look at notifications.
  2. You need to write an article or blogpost? Again schedule a reminder and block time in your schedule when you will have time to write it.
  3. Ideally you'd like to have a steady flow of posts going out to your social channels. Use a social media scheduler like Buffer or Hootsuite and there are other schedulers too.
  4. You need a source of interesting and exciting content to learn from and to repost to demonstrate your thought leadership. Investigate using RSS aggregators, like Feedly, Flipboard and others.

I have found by using the Apple reminders app and scheduling the reminder for specific days and times I am able to be far more productive and disciplined in developing better habits. It's an ongoing journey and with practice you can and will develop a better habit in reducing the amount of unnecessary distractions.

I can highly recommend The Habit Guide by Leo Babauta, who has some excellent tips and strategies to develop better habits. He also writes a great blog zenhabits.net.

What strategies have you developed for reducing the amount of distractions?

I'd love to learn and I am sure others would to, so help us out and share your answer below.

---

LinkedIn created a brilliant eBook with my favourite illustrator. @gapingvoid (Hugh Macleod) creates the most amazing messages through his illustrations. Read more about him and @gapingvoid here: (http://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/team-members/hugh-macleod/)

Regularly I will share one of the articles and illustrations from the eBook and give you my opinion, interpretation, insight and my meaning.

@stayingaliveuk 🚀

#contentmarketing #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling #sales #empathy

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.

The New LinkedIn vs the Old LinkedIn

LinkedIn, is about the change.  I thought it would be good to show you the upcoming differences.   If you are using the LinkedIn mobile app, you will be pleased to learn that it's very close in user interface to the app.  At long last!

Do you really think your content is so special?

Think again! I call it the 'Falling Tree'. There is a tree falling over in a forest somewhere on the planet. In fact there are probably many trees falling over in forests right now, maybe thousands and nobody is there to witness the event, nobody.

This is probably happening to your and my content right now. Our content are just trees falling over and nobody is there to witness it. So why do we spend so much time creating, perfecting, worrying and measuring? Because everyone tells us to?

 

There are so many coaches, trainers, authors, storytellers, SEO experts, influencers, copywriters and any other title you may care to conjure up, who are advising us to create more and more content, to pick the right times, the right days, the right platforms, the right demographics, the right advertising campaigns and all just to get our content noticed. 

You may have come across a term that is often used in the world of learning, 'Sheep-dip'. We are all being 'Sheep-dipped' by the experts who tell us what we should be doing.

Is it because we wish to achieve mass market domination? Granted probably only in your sector right, your Niche (Neesh or Nitch)?

I believe it's time to think about a different strategy, to think authentic, to think personal, to examine a different approach. 

What would it take to start a campaign in your organisation, no matter how big or small you are, where every single person who works for you calls a specific customer, a named individual, in your customer's company and asks them personally whether you're doing everything that they would expect from you? 

That would be different right?

No survey, no customer service call, no external company making the call. Every single person in your company.  And if that means it's only you in your company, then that's perfect too.

And there is only one question. Let's repeat it.

"Are we doing everything that you would expect from us"?

Can you think of some other non 'Sheep-dip' approaches that might get you to stand out from the crowd?

LinkedIn created a brilliant eBook with my favourite illustrator. @gapingvoid (Hugh Macleod) creates the most amazing messages through his illustrations. Read more about him and @gapingvoid here: http://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/team-members/hugh-macleod/

Regularly I will share one of the articles and illustrations from the eBook and give you my opinion, interpretation, insight and my meaning.

@stayingaliveuk 🚀

#contentmarketing #content #socialmedia #engagement #marketing #socialselling