Why You Won’t Stop Blogging or Doing Social Media! And other social media DOHs
by Stan Faryna
…
M.A.S.H. Theme song (1970)
…
…
Bill Dorman talks about people dropping out of the social media scene. Bonnie Squires talks about people struggling and not making ends meet. Yomar Lopez hints at the despair and loneliness of not getting enough game and win out of social media. I could go on and on.
It didn’t work for those who have fallen off our radar. Maybe, it didn’t pay the bills. Maybe, they didn’t like it. Maybe, they weren’t having fun. Maybe, life interrupted the ecstasy of the moment. Maybe, the short cuts didn’t work for them?
Have you noticed there seems to be no hard and clear consensus among the social media thought leaders?
But there are a lot of warm fuzzies, good vibrations, and energized empathies going on. What’s up with that!
More importantly, what if it’s just not working for you? All of it!
Even if you have done everything that Marcus Sheridan talks about: you’ve done things, you’re making relationships, you are creating and, yeah, it’s just more suck.
Maybe, what sucks is what your doing. Maybe, it’s the people whose company you keep. Margie Clayman, to illustrate the point, suggests that a lack of community can be a real problem. Maybe, it’s all of the above and other things too.
Regardless of the reasons, if it’s not working out for you, why is it you won’t you stop blogging or doing social media?
…
Over-selling You to You
1. You are bigger than failure.
You know nothing is easy. You know that you have to work hard at blogging or social media for it to pay off. More importanly, you feel this is something that could work out for you. Eventually.
You will endure. Because, heck yeah, it’s better than mixing coffee drinks at Starbucks. Or putzing around an office – even a corner office where the address, accommodations, and perks are cool.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
The bottom line is that you believe that you are bigger than your present failure. And, perhaps, bigger than the failure of those around you – some of whom were smarter, better writers, and more social than you.
…
Shame and Humiliation
2. You don’t want to fail.
Quitting a blog or social media in general is nothing less than publicly admitting to failure. That’s worse than simply failing – right?
Failing as a blogger or social media apprentice is failing on the stage. And, honestly, no one knows that you are failing until you quit. And then they can laugh – the same people who will also quit in their own good time.
You won’t give haters the satisfaction. You’ll show them! Hell yeah!
Even though the social media culture seems to embrace failure as unavoidable dues to be paid in service of our future success, no one loves failure and, least of all, their own. Especially, the failure with which we may be presently engaged.
…
Premature Optimization
3. You count small wins, twice
Small wins in blogging and social media contribute to a peculiar kind of mass hysteria known to fancy Harvard MBAs as premature optimization.
OMG! @dino_dogan replied to you via Tweet. Or you were mentioned with 10 others in a #FF. Or you got followed by 100 more people this week and now you have, YES- OMG!, 10,000 followers! What happens when I get 100 comments on a blog post?! Party time!
Small wins are something and yet they are often irrelevant to the seemingly impossible criteria that may (or may not) define blogging social media success. Getting paid – in other words.
Small wins are meaningful to the heart, they fuel us, they keep us going. But small wins are easily confused with milestones.
If you can’t put a 6 month schedule on when 60 hours or more per week of blogging, blog reading, and social media are going to pay some bills, you don’t have milestones.
RTs, shares, +1s, and comments rarely put kids through college. More often than not, they don’t even pay for the internet, electric, and food we need to keep on keeping on.
If you are putting more than 40 hours per week into blogging or social media, we’re not talking about a hobby. Let’s be honest about that.
…
Move On or Move Up
Thanks for bumming me out, Stan.
Yeah, I know, I can bum myself out with the best of the haters. But this is not my intention. And I know for a fact, that you give a whole lotta credit for the intention. Because you’re awesome like that.
It’s time to move on or move up. That’s what I’m sayin’.
Am I moving?
It’s a question that I picked up from McKinsey-ites when I was doing powerpoint and business documents back in the day.
Writes Bonnie Squires:
You’re doing something wrong and you better figure out what it is.
But, regardless of the challenges you face, you are not alone.
Just as Yomar reminds us:
You matter.
So I’m not trying to bum you or me out.
You do matter.
You are awesome.
You amaze me.
But, awesome aside, are you moving?
…
John Paul Young, Love Is In The Air
…
…
Questions
Let’s discover answers together. Brainstorm. Have a conversation. Get real and honest with each other. Make our words count.
It doesn’t have to be here. It can happen across 100 blogs in the next three months. Or 1000. Perhaps, Abigail will lead the think. Or Bill Dorman. Or Gini Dietrich. I think all three need to lead it. And, maybe, another dozen or two.
Just let’s please start beating the bush – as opposed to doing more of the same: beating around the bush.
…
Maybe
Maybe, most of us are not in it for the money because we all know there’s no money in it. Not for everyone!
We think what were doing might be about the money because we all like money and it’s an easy answer to throw out there. But, maybe, that’s just a poor excuse for something beautiful.
Why do we need poor excuses for beautiful things like friendship, love, self-discovery, and, yes, just being human?
Can I get an Amen?
…
…
Feedback
If you think that this blog post sucks, let me know in your comment and don’t forget to include a link to YOUR favorite blog post.
If you think this blog post rocks, tell me why it rocks in the comment. “Awesome,””Great post,” etc. works for me. Don’t forget to include a link to YOUR most recent blog post.
Subscribe to this blog if you would enjoy keeping up with my thoughts and commentary.
…
Stan Faryna
7 February 2012
Bucharest, Romania
…
P.S.
No fairies were harmed during the writing and publishing of this blog post.
Follow me on Twitter: @Faryna
The unofficial blog of Stan Faryna 
Great post! Thanks for giving me some points to ponder.
Share with us, what will you be pondering? Can we ponder with you?
Big hug to you, Darlene.
Amen. Community is the main reason I enjoy blogging. The first few months when I was blogging alone, it was a pretty lonely world. But then I found Bill, Adrienne, Jens, Janet, Stacey, Triberr, you, and then many other blogging buddies. Suddenly I had a support network and that felt better than even the many small victories (which feel great).
But there have been some who have dropped out along the way and that makes me sad. I may not have known them for long, but they touched me with their warmth and friendship. Some have returned but not all and do I trust them not to go away again?
Blogging brings me great joy, but if I were the last one left standing, it would be tough to go on. I have become enamored with the wonderfully supportive blogging community. I hope that it will continue to endure and become even stronger.
Thanks, Stan, for guiding us in the ways that can happen. You Matter. Very much.
Your successes can fuel a million hopes. Perhaps, a hundred million. Because few have achieved what you have achieved in your first year of awesome blogging.
When are you going to share your wonderful story, Carolyn!
Amen!
April will be my first trip around the Sun as a blogger, and a lot will have happened since then.
Some milestones.
I got back into writing.
I don’t look to make hay from Social-Tango; but I do make friends!
I see, still, that most things are the opposite of what they appear:
Their are a lot of, so called, big named bloggers who really aren’t. It appears that they are something; but they cannot afford to quit, while us little guys can.
Blogging is a piece of the whole, not the whole; and the whole is a piece of you and what you are. Don’t get it back ‘erds! Don’t make blogging the whole or you’ll end up in hole. I blogged about that.
Places like this, with people like Stan, are the safe havens; you should come here for that, the safety.
Lean into your experience, let the tide roll in and out, don’t fret the stuff that gives you wasted feelings. Lean into your life and just write from that.
My posts serve me, I say what I am remembering, or what comes as an interest at that time of writing. I write short and sometimes long. But, I write.
Offline that makes me see more, and I tend to see you more too when I come to read.
I’ve noticed some that I used to see and hear are gone, but not forgotten.
Billy… leaning in and trusting the experience will take me further.
This will sound contrived and trite, but trust me – it is not that.
You make my heart leap and bound. Maybe, we can bottle you!
I believe too many people set their expectations for SoMe way too high and way too unrealistically.
For me, it was always about three things when I began (in no particular order):
1. Make the world a better place
2. Model a successful, hard-working dad to my boys who hadn’t seen me work for many years since I’d retired.
3. Have fun
Next on my list is to make some money. That is what I’m focusing on – to a degree – in 2012. BUT, nothing I will do in the service of earning an income will compromise the 3 things I listed above!
You are having fun, Bruce! That’s obvious to me. You want to make the world a better place. I see that stamped all over your evil grin. And, you work your — off – no one who knows you in social media could say otherwise.
I also like how you beat the bee hives and then smoke ’em down. [grin]
This post is packed with some great tips, people and insights Stan!
We have lot’s of mutual friends on the social web – I will be plugging into the community more often : )
Cheers bro!
Thanks for your encouragement, Mark. Your encouragement goes a long way.
Hi Stan,
The best advice I have for people is to have fun because if you are not having fun there is no reason to do this.
That Abigail was you big guy; just don’t shave your legs, ok?
If anyone can make something more out of blogging than fun, being human, and whole-hearted this year, my bets are on you, Bill, Bruce, Carolyn, and a few others. And what’s interesting about that observation is that you all keep it real (in your own ways).
“… blogging provides a platform and a way for us to build bridges between people.”
-TheJackB
You are very careful with your words, Jack. Most of the time.
So it struck me as noteworthy that you did not go on to suggest that blogging was anything more than this. Maybe, I’m wrong about the intentions of your statement. But, on the other hand, if that’s your honest opinion, I don’t have have any big problem with your position.
You have an amen from me brother and right now my money is on the witness protection guy.
Let’s discover answers together. Brainstorm. Have a conversation. Get real and honest with each other. Make our words count. Sounds about as good as it can get.
Fun is my motivator and right now I’m having fun. I see people going Mach V with their hair on fire and all they are doing is crashing and burning. Personally, I feel we are still at the very tip of this thing and we have so much more to learn on this fabulous journey.
Find a way to keep it sustainable without being crazy, and we’ll find a way to make it work.
Good post Stan.
Bill,
Are you a Speed Racer fan?! Wow, I remember the cartoon from way back. Loved it. I haven’t seen the movie though.
Speed’s car, the Mach Five, kinda reminds me of a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_TR
I agree Bill, we’ll find a way to make it work out to our satisfaction (whatever that means for each of us) as each of us works out how to making it sustainable.
What is sustainable?
Perhaps, there’s a balance for each of us and that includes communicating things that are interesting, staying on schedule, giving some love and attention to the people that give us their time, and getting some validation (expanding reach, having impact, and being trusted enough to be included in something bigger than ourselves)
Am I missing anything?
I think you have covered it all; believe that you give to get; so to give again. Have a purpose greater than yourself.
Hi Stan! I stumbled upon your blog today on Twitter and I found what you wrote about pretty enlightening. As a relatively new blogger, I have been soaking up as many tidbits as I can get from successful bloggers in the blogosphere world. I started blogging as an escape from life’s craziness, but quickly found it very therapeudic, at the same time now I spend so much time reading, researching information for blogging…which has been very time consuming, now I’m wishing and hoping my blog will eventually pays off. I think really, it would be more for validation. Check out my blog some time;) http://www.keepingupwithdafashionista.com
Thanks for finding me, Rebecca. It always wonderful to be found!
I checked out your blog.
http://www.keepingupwithdafashionista.com
I was impressed by the integration of sophisticated commerce tools and the strong design factor that you got going on. Brava!
(I am saying “AMEN!” in my head, DO NOT WAKE THE BABY! I have this rule, you wake her, you take her.!!)
Hey! Boy, I am surrounded by deep thinkers and pessimists. Cause I don’t care how often you toot hope and love and sharing and giving, Stan the man, You. Are. A. Pessimist. Yes you are. Ugh.
Oh, I know, you just sat back hard and are reaching for your glass of scotch or some sort of strange berry- brandy, but still. You are going to say, “Realist.”
Yeah, yeah, but still. Reality and Pessimism are not necessarily separate though.
Besides, I am a rocket shooting for the stars. I will not quit. The rewards are so much more than any loss. And yes, just so you don’t think that the clouds my head has been living quite nicely in for a nice while now haven’t made my brain go to mush….
I’ve learned enough to know I need help now. I’ve learned my ABC’s, now it’s off to College. Play time is over. (and just FYI, @TheJackB , Play time may be over, but I couldn’t possibly be having anymore fun!….well, maybe a little… OH! And what did I miss?? Why do these turkeys keep calling you Abigail??)
My vote? You (and your post) rock, man. I just love smarties.
Big hug to you, Amber-Lee!
Yes, I am pragmatic as far as facts and consequences will go, but I don’t think I wear concrete boots. In other words, I can fly. I dream. I hope! Really I do. And, yes, I listen for God and I look for signs, great or small. But I don’t dance and I think that’s a terrible shame. [laughing]
Blogging and social media can create online presence for you or your business. And it can be more effective and cost-effective! Than online advertising and other corporate online strategies. Than traditional advertising and marketing strategies.
It may be.
…
…
I also know people who pay hard cash to build personal brand presence via traditional advertising and marketing strategy.
But it even goes beyond traditional advertising and marketing strategy. There’s a guy here in Bucharest that hands out hundred dollar bills on one Sunday every month. He also builds churches. Everybody knows him. Talk about brand presence!
He also drives a Maybach. That’s also branding. A million dollars of brand.
Is he having fun? Oh yeah!
Sometimes, his million dollar Maybach is parked right outside my window. When he’s being interviewed by the anti-corruption court.
And it’s brand when he saunters out of the castle with a big smile and a stunningly beautiful woman on his arm (half his age), the TV crews film him and he gives a little princess wave to them. The two slip into his fabulous Maybach, and the Maybach slips into traffic just like how happy endings are supposed to be.
Some think he could run for President. His personal brand strategy works.
That’s where I’m going with this story. The questions we have to ask ourselves about what we are doing:
Is what we’re doing, working out to our or another’s advantage?
Are we working to meaningful, uplifting, or beautiful outcomes?
Or, are we killing time? Going in circles? Throwing eggs at the wall because we lack for a better idea regarding our entertainment – or purpose?
I’m also saying that sometimes we will say and think we are doing one thing (doing business) when actually we are doing another (growing as persons).
…
…
You and I don’t have to like the man in the champagne Maybach to understand that what he does, works for him.
He flaunts outrageous wealth because it serves him. It gives him great advantage. In fact, he does multi-million Euro deals. He thinks about making a bank. He has a million (or more) fans. And some of them (100s or 1000s), they’d kill for him. Literally.
He doesn’t use Twitter. Or Facebook. He doesn’t blog. He may not have a high school diploma. But what he does, it works for him: money, power, and influence. What he does speaks to the people that serve him and the people that do business with him.
You and I do not have to want what that man wants… to understand that what we do must speak to the people with whom we shall collaborate and/or do business with us.
Is that what I’m saying to you?
Sometimes, I do worry that I have failed to make my point, understood.
…
…
P.S. Abigail Van Buren is Jack’s current identity as provided by the Federal Witness Protection Program. See his blog post, What is a person worth.
Me? I don’t have any answers except act on the blessings sitting in front of me and keep hope burning inside that Someone bigger than me is watching out for me, leading me to bigger and better things.
I sometimes have to take a step back and see if I’m staying true to that fire inside. That’s all I really want. Because there are people who like what we do. But I need to speak clearly who I am and what I’m doing so that my audience can find me.
Thanks for the inspiration, Stan.
Am I inspiring you? Because I would like to inspire you AND pull back the curtain so you can see the wizardry for what it is.
But I do not know if I succeed.
Stan,
Betsy said the important stuff…really. I hope I understand, sometimes it is hard for me… to understand, but not because of you, because of my own lack…of something.
But what you say, even when I get lost at times, always, always makes me think about it and how it makes me feel. What can I learn, what can I use, what is he telling me…? Because, THAT is your gift, at least to me, is talking straight TO me.
So, thank you my friend. My life is enriched beyond (my own) description, sitting at your knee, listening…taking notes.
(and I don’t believe Romania is a good place for you- you see WAY too many super-bad-guys…I worry..)
I live across the street from the anti-corruption courthouse dash castle. I see a lot of super bad guys come and go. It’s like living upstairs from a super car showroom and competing press corps frenzy on the steps of my door. The soldiers with AK47s don’t let the press crowd the court’s door. [grin]
Yeah, it means when I take Mr. Hachi for his walk in the park, I step out the door and nod at guys holding locked and loaded machine guns. Live ammunition. Every day.
Ironically, their presence does not lend a false sense of security to living where I live. The soldiers care less what happens 20 feet across the street. We’ve even had cars looted while they stand there locked and loaded. Windows smashed in front of them, blah blah blah.
But I suppose I’ve been put here for a reason. [grin]
Big, big hug to you, Amber-Lee.
P.S. A few days ago, the Prime Minister resigned and also the ministers of government. A new government was sworn in today. So much for democracy. Interesting times may yet unfold. I suppose there is not much news about it in the states as it might be bad for Wall Street. Romania won’t be “pretending” to live up to IMF, World bank, and other big bank agreements anytime soon.
[…] Why You Won’t Stop Blogging or Doing Social Media! […]
[…] what design? What ends? Do we know the part we play in this story. Or even that we each play a part? character count: […]