So if you had been following my twitter feed recently, you would’ve seen the following beauty from Monday:-
I got myself locked in the shower of my house & after screaming out of my window to get a passer by to ring for the fire brigade, I was rescued. It was an amusing story which resulted in a lot of discussion (often laughing, often directed at me).
Furthermore, in doing so, I gained about 60 new followers in about 2 hours.
I wouldn’t call myself a social media guru, but if I was, I’d call what I created a buzz. A humourous buzz with me in my smiley face boxer shorts, but dammit, it was a buzz. A buzz that many people would probably pay good money for.
After a tweet from Han saying I should write a blog post about it, I thought about why I got the response I did. In the end, I could only give one example.
People actually like me on social media.
I wouldn’t call me incredibly popular, but rarely do I talk about my job or my skills (SEO, PHP & Internet Marketing) on twitter. Instead a number of my posts are observations, thoughts or just random. Which seems to cause people to give a damn about me.
People Giving a Damn – Real Life Example
I’ll give you an example from wrestling. For years Stone Cold Steve Austin was “Stunning” Steve Austin, and “The Ringmaster” Steve Austin, a talented wrestler who was always there or there abouts. His problem was a lack of character – people didn’t really connect with him. In the mid 1990′s he became “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, a beer swilling, swearing, arse kicker. Crowd responses went through the roof, with massive “pops” – (huge Beatles esque cheers from the crowd). Austin was destined to rise to the upper echelons of super stardom, with a combination of a red hot character, and being an amazing wrestler.
Half way through the megarise, at Summerslam 97, he suffered a serious neck injury which threatened his career.
In reality his career should’ve been over, but within a few short months he was back. He lost a lot of his wrestling ability, with his matches being a lot more punches & kicks than technical masterpieces, but the crowd didn’t care, as they cared more about him.
And therein lies the issue, getting people to care about you & you can get away with being lazy. The Undertaker gets a bigger reaction from diving over the top rope twice a year than Yoshi Tatsu gets from doing it every night. Seth Godin gets more reaction from his 200 word blog post every week than a blog post with 2000 words of dry crap 12 times a day. Both Seth & The Undertaker connecting with people, and the easiest way to do it is just being yourself.
So on Twitter, Facebook or other social media channels, don’t just spam your followers, get to know them, show a human side. Not a “look at me! I’m working from home with a new car! Find out how by clicking here! ($9.95 a month)”. But talk about events (it really annoys me when the world is suffering a crisis, or there’s a world cup, and people who I *know* are interested in it are instead tweeting about the latest post or affiliate post), just come across as human, as it’s amazing how many “Social media gurus” don’t. I’m not saying you should deliberately lock yourself in a shower & call the fire brigade, but talking about everyday stuff, like the rest of us, and you’re more likely to connect.
Do this, and you’ll get a lot more buzz for when you actually want it, and not when you’re standing in front of 3 firemen wearing nothing but smiley face boxer shorts.
I’ll leave you with one more tweet from yesterday’s event:-
Further Reading
To find out more about buzz, connecting & being human on social media, I recommend reading these two great posts.
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