I know this woman – a physician. She spends a lot of time on Twitter. She has a Tumblr presence but it’s sparse and not very memorable. All day long she polishes her Twitter presence. She’s everyone’s friend. And to her credit she’s a wonderful curator. We caught up recently and she wanted to know how she could bring herself to the next level. Despite her time and investment in the latest real-time social tools she felt that her ideas didn’t get the traction that they deserved.
Here’s what I suggested: Twitter works for interaction and dissemination. But ultimately you have to create the stuff that defines you. Retrievable text, video and audio is where your ideas will live.
It’s about content, not Klout. You can share and engage, but it’s what you make that lasts.
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Why does one have to preempt the other? You seem to be ignoring the impact that sharing and engaging can have on others, that may be very lasting. You just don’t have the tangible results to feel good about.
No, it’s not a zero sum proposition. Sharing and engaging has big value but having your own stuff to share has bigger value. At some point you have to leave the conversation in order to make stuff worthy of conversation.
Bryan,
Point well taken.
As my wife always says, it’s about the balance.
How do we carve out enough time to ship, while still maintaining the social connections that are the fodder for any good content creation?
Cheers,
Greg
That, sir, is the question. I think we need to listen to your wife…
Oie, you’ve struck a cord here. In fact, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing with physicians; teaching them how to make a product that gives their audience a next step. If you only have the front of the funnel you’re not really being of value or deriving any benefit from it. You have to have something more… even if it’s only opportunity.
We facilitate. We do things, we don’t make things. This downstream proposition may have legs, my friend.