Beauty, come and get some

by Stan Faryna

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If you put a gun to my head and told me I could only do one thing in this blog, that one thing would be to share beauty with you.

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Thanks to a G+ post by Betsy Cross, I have beauty to share with you, today.

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A blog post. And this blog post is both epic and lyrical. It is fucking beautiful!

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WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE: HOW WE CAN BENEFIT FROM FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND SOCIAL MEDIA

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Stan Faryna
10 April 2013
Fairfax, Virginia

Are You Epic or Epidemic or [bleep]? And other social media DOHs

Are You Epic or Epidemic or Just Talking to Yourself?

And other social media DOHs!

by Stan Faryna

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A lot of people talk to themselves. Twitter helped that along more than anything I know. But blogging is right up there. And, duh, social media in general.

If anything proved The Dunning-Kruger Effect, it was Twitter and, maybe, Justin Bieber. So the last laugh is on Dunning and Kruger because they never saw that coming. Or recognized it – after the train came and went.

Where was I?

Oh yeah – talking to yourself in public is now socially acceptable behavior. Corporations and brands are doing it too!

Isn’t that crazy?!

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Ingrid Michaelson, The Way I Am

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Do not stir up love before it’s own time. Song of Songs 2:7

How to get the most out of social media. And other social media DOHs.

by Stan Faryna

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My friend, Saul Fleischman, writes about the features that Google Plus needs to compete as a social media platform. In my opinion, Saul proposes features which would up the game value of the app. Saul has a passion for the social game and opportunity – a passion that I admire about the man.

Read Saul’s proposals for a better Google Plus here: http://osakabentures.com/2012/03/facebook-robs-google-plus-both-fall-short

The success and sustainability of a social media platform, however, will not be determined by the advantages it provides to the social gamer.

Superiority of social service is determined by the opportunities and use that the average netizen can utilize. I’m not saying that the volume of registered users is relevant. I am saying that the volume of daily users and user to user interaction is key to a platform’s health and value. That’s why Facebook games are critical to Facebook’s strategy. Some suggest Facebook games drive 50% of the network’s daily log-ins, usage, and user to user interaction.

Superiority must also relate to how well a platform empowers people to connect, communicate, share, and collaborate with other people. All platforms attempt to address this function in terms of managing one-to-one and one-to-many relationships, but none of them do it brilliantly.

Despite all the hype, Pinterest miserably fails in this regard. That doesn’t mean it will fail. But if Pinterest succeeds, it means that online relationships are trending toward increasing superficiality. If I felt just a little bit snarky, I would list all the cool kids that failed to notice Pinterest’s major defect.

Today, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, blogs, and websites continue to stand out as the most usable and useful of social media platforms. They are not silver bullets, but they are staple in any social media and/or online marketing strategy – commercial, personal or otherwise. Their value to you, of course, is belied in the quality of the relationships you have with other people on those platforms – not follower count, likes, comments, page views, etc.

Metrics, analytics, and data of any kind are often misleading without a deeper sense of context and dynamics. Data, in fact, does not easily convert to knowledge, prudence, or wisdom. You can watch 10,000 movies in your lifetime, but it will still be unlikely that you write a great movie script like Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, replace Anthony Hopkins in a remake of Silence of the Lambs, or direct a better remake of Guillermo de Toro’s film, Pan’s Labyrinth.

Contrary to popular superstition, data is not a commodity.

As my friends, Jack and Billy say, have fun with social. They and many others take what they do seriously enough to show up on schedule, make their presence felt, contribute to conversations, and make relationships. If you still have time and attention to build relationships with people on another social platform, go for it. But the last thing you should do is stretch yourself thin across a dozen major and minor networks where you leave no foot print on hearts and imaginations.

Digital footprints are often nothing more than sand castles that wash away with the tide.

Postscript:

Looking over my shoulder, I see the wind has blown the pages of a book open. Coincidentally, it offers wisdom on this subject:

Do not stir up love before it’s own time. Song of Songs 2:7

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Stan Faryna
28 March 2012
Bucharest, Romania

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Feedback

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Subscribe to this blog if you would enjoy keeping up with my thoughts and commentary. Like it, rate it and share it – if you want to give me some love. Oh yeah – if you have pinsanity, feel free to follow me on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/faryna

How to stalk people on Twitter – the right way.

A hand-made, deep dish chicken pot pie – just a thing I do.

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We The Kings, Say You Like Me

Social Savvy: The first 1000 tweets of your business Twitter account

Social Savvy: The first 1000 tweets of your business Twitter account

by Stan Faryna

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Enya, Only Time

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Twitter is all about saying the right things to the right people at the right time in the right way.
character count: 100

Do you describe yourself as a social media [xxx]? Really?!

Do you describe yourself as a social media [fill in the blank]?!

by Stan Faryna

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Who are you?

There was much reflection as 2011 came to a close. There was much anticipation about 2012. It happens every year.

Most hope to do better – however they imagined better to be. For some, the reflections continue. Bill Dorman, for example, has been going deep. Jack Steiner always asks the right questions – even if those questions make us uncomfortable.

Doing better means that you really do know some of the things that you did wrong. Some. But, maybe, more than just some. [grin]

Also, knowing that some of your most killer ideas, expectations, and efforts were totally wrong, misguided, and/or dumb. Or wrong for you.

Are you comfortable faking it? And other social media DOHs.

Are you comfortable faking it? Friendship, love, and life – for instance?
by Stan Faryna

I’m going to do this like Jack does it. I am also inspired (in a manner of speaking) by a Florida Film maker that recently got accolades from the blogging community. More about that another time.

Stream of consciousness: I started with a title. It came to me as I watched my twitter stream. It’s loaded with love, gratitude, and inspiration.

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I have selected this music to heighten your reading pleasure: The Blue Danube.

Triberr 1.2: Rockstar Bloggers and Chatlanians

Triberr

Triberr is an invite-only social platform that empowers bloggers to be curated AND to curate other bloggers via Twitter. Once you get your invite into a tribe and set up your account, your reach of your blog post is automagically multiplied by the Twitter reach of all the members of your tribe. You can also create and build your own tribes – after you get your first invite.

Obviously, the best tribe for you on Triberr is the one that fits (more or less) with your level of reach, insight, content, capacity for connection, and ambitions.

Rockstars and Chatlanians

Rockstars and Chatlanians is a tribe for bloggers who want, who create and who sustain meaningful conversations – the kind of interaction that will take us out of the filthy gutter of ordinary aspirations and that all too human lifestyle of envy, contempt and jealousy.

It is a tribe for badassery. For bloggers with a fire in the belly. Stars in their eyes. And a double fist full of words. Ideas. Insights. Story. Dreams. Aspiration.

Triberr 1.1: Interview with Triberr co-founder Dan Cristo

Triberr

We all have aspirations. Dreams. Like the singer of Tears for Fears croons, everyone wants to rule the world.

Making it happen is another story. Sharing the idea is as far as most people get. Getting people excited about the potential of that idea – enough for them to roll up their sleeves and pitch in or reach for their checkbook – is the actual first step in making it happen.

These are the stories that aspiring netpreneurs and entrepreneurs need to hear and read about. That’s why I connected with Triberr co-founder Dan Cristo. To get him to share how he and Dino Dogan jump started Triberr.

For those that don’t know about Triberr, you can read my previous post here.

Thanks to Dan Cristo for sharing his time and answers with us.

Everyone wants to rule the world, Tears for Fears
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How to Succeed in The Thank You Economy

Walk This Way, Run-DMC
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A Thank You Economy

Reach, connection and relationship is crucial to your success, whether you are an industry professional, artist, writer, problogger, or whatever. Social Media provides that channel – be it Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, FourSquare, a blog or some/all of these together.

Tim O’Reilly sums up the nature of social media here. He says that, “you gain and bestow status” through those you read, mention, retweet, recommend, like, comment…

This is the engine of the thank you economy.

In the thank you economy, dismissal, neglect and omission are punishment.

In O’Reilly’s words: “Obscurity is a bigger problem for authors than piracy.”