Just when we thought we’d found our place in the business world and our community and gotten comfortable in our own skin, along came Social Media.
Suddenly, it’s time for a high-school flashback. Instead of worrying about making the cheerleader squad or debate team, we’re obsessing over follower and friend counts. Rather than worry if we’re leading the fashion trends, we’re counting re-tweets and seeing how many replies we have. And now, Twitter has introduced “lists.” It’s like the “most” section in the yearbook senior year. Will I be voted “most popular,” “most likely to succeed,” “most athletic?”
How about “most likely to feel like I’m in High School all over again?”
Social Media Self-Esteem
Luis Sandoval is a friend, blogger, podcaster, and full of knowledge around the technical aspects of social media. He and I spoke recently and he calls this phenomena “Social Media Self-Esteem.” And no matter how secure you are, you’ll probably experience at least a twinge of it, especially when you get started in social media.
“There is a certain level of stress when someone goes out into the social space,” Sandoval says. “There can be lots of intimidation for newbies.” I can personally relate to this. My good friend Michael Long, (aka @theredrecruiter) got me started in social media. For the first few months, I checked my Twitter followers all the time and if I didn’t get at least 10 new followers a day, I asked myself “What’s wrong with me?” “Why don’t people online like me?”
If you’re not a natural small-talker, diving into an online conversation already in progress can be a frightening proposition. Luis said,“Going to that space for someone who is not social in the real world is not easy. It’s like walking into a party with 5,000 people.” When you are also representing your business and brand, there’s an added level of stress to “say the right thing,” or “sound smart.” What about blog posts? Many people stress about how many times their post is Digged or Stumbled Upon and how many comments they get for each post. That adds a whole new set of pressures.
How To Improve Your Social Media Self-Esteem
If you find yourself caught up in the numbers game, what’s the solution? Chris Brogan, one of my social media favs, has written some insightful posts about social media self-esteem and confidence here and here. What else? Luis has some good advice too: “Most people involved in social media are there to engage in conversation and relationship building, not to get sales pitches. So just like in real life, it is a gradual building of trust. You are extending a digital handshake to start a relationship online.”
My advice for keeping your sanity and self-esteem intact in social media? Be yourself. Focus on what is most important – developing authentic relationships with people who share similar interests and value. “I guarantee if you show that you care about people, and you reach out you will see your numbers increase,” Sandoval says.
Yes, you can link and re-tweet and follow all the “in” people and quickly build a following. But don’t spend your valuable emotional capital obsessing about follower counts and how many “lists” you’re on. Invest it in building relationships.
The Bottom Line
If you make ten contacts on Twitter that enrich your life and your business, and by that, I mean people you could pick up the phone and call in a pinch, I guarantee you are getting a better ROI than someone with 13,000 “followers” who hardly interact with them. Leave the cliques and stressing over popularity to the high-schoolers. Find your self-worth in what you genuinely give to others.
What has your social media self-esteem been like? Any advice for readers?
Photo Courtesy of Hot Rod
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I love this post because I can so relate to those same feelings when I got started. I was really blessed to have @epodcaster, Jennifer Navarrette show me the ropes and her number #1 message was building relationships. I felt I started out the gate the right way. Thanks for naming the “social media self-esteem”. Great post.
Alicia – this post is spot on. We’ve all felt the pressure of starting something new and either being compared to or comparing ourselves to someone who has been doing things for awhile. The fact of the matter is that you get out what you put into everything in life. Having a high number twitter followers is a meaningless goal. Anyone can get 10,000 followers, but few can actually achieve a high degree of influence. The former is a by-product of simply following a slew of individuals who follow back and the later is a result of actually contributing something of value.
Alicia-
This article spoke to me! I really loved it. I do believe that Social media is more about Quality Vs. quantity. I personally would rather have a smaller audience but very high quality contacts. Keep up the great work!
Cheers,
Shennee
Pattie – @epodcaster is a great person to know!
Byron – so glad to have you comment. I think we have a responsibility to help others who are struggling with this issue too.
Shennee – I’m glad this was helpful to you!
Well put Alicia! It’s easy to start equating social media followers to “popularity”, but as you point out – all that really matters is the depth of those relationships. We can really only build strong relationships with a small number of people (is it the Dunbar number that says 150 max?), so it’s important to remember to invest time to build true and rich relationships with a few versus coveting shallow relationships with many.
It is all about relationship building and sharing relevant content and at some point marketing and sales can and should play a role in business social media.
But again, that’s after the relationship building and sharing relevant content and just being yourself. Couldn’t agree more. In fact, you find that it’s so natural to talk shop with those you have relationships with – legitimately getting to know someone so you value and trust their insight and influence.
That’s the timeless act of business development.
But I’m still shooting for a gazillion followers – because everybody wants to rule the world. (Queue Tears for Fears and 80’s high school selfish-teem and neuroses)
Bravo Alicia! for highlighting important issues with social media metrics + a real potential for skewed perception. If you focus primarily on quantity it becomes (if not now, it will eventually) a lifeless endeavor.
Where is the meaning in pure numbers? How do you define value? Relationships are far too valuable to dilute on metrics alone.
Factoid: I’m not the world’s most natural small-talker
This article resonates. It is certainly a delicate balance when you introduce business into the equation. This is precisely where quality control measures are useful. Quality will always trump quantity in my book.
@Alicia
If you are only going to be posting a couple of times a week, keep writing excellent stuff like this! I wouldn’t go back to high school (except for my class trip to Hawaii!) for anything. I generally don’t get too worried about social media stuff, since their is plenty of attention to go around, but we all have that little insecure kid lurking inside us, don’t we?
Alicia, Love this title and your content. Absolutely agree it’s about quality not quantity. Especially when investing in relationships. Social Media certainly shouldn’t be viewed a “popularity contest”, as you wrote.
However, the numbers can help manage the ROI in Time. For example, one way to measure productivity on Twitter is: # of tweets divided by # of followers. This ratio shows how may tweets it takes to gain one follower. (There are many other factors here, but it does get us thinking, right?) This ratio gives insight into how people value their time. “Excellent” is less than 1:1. “Good” is anywhere from 1:1 to 3:1. “Average” is 3:1 to 5:1. Over 5:1, people aren’t valuing their time effectively, in my view.
The great value of SM is meeting, learning, collaborating with “like minds”. Like we have. Love your style and your posts. To me, you have an “A” online brand. Hope to meet IRL soon. Best, Mike