DISQUS

It’s funny.

The more clients I have, the less time I seem to have for contributing to the conversation.

At first this was a concern to me. After all, it was my blog and my Tweets that were at one time, representative of my knowledge and track record in the medium.

Now, not so much.

I have a wide variety of social media case studies I created, with some good and some not-so-good results that I can share with a potential client. Along with my years of experience in traditional marketing and selling, this goes a long way toward differentiating me from the average “conversationalist”.

Educating potential clients is certainly a challenge. Most of them know so little about social media, that it’s hard for them to compare the strengths and weaknesses of potential consultants, while most consultants know so much, it’s easy for them to paint a rosy, one-click picture of what social media is.

Malcom Gladwell wrote The Tipping Point and Blink, both bestsellers and both full of thought provoking concepts about the way things work in the world.

These are BIG ideas that Gladwell cooked up using lots of authoritative ingredients; thought produced elsewhere and results of work done by others.

In the meantime he’s been roundly vilified and praised for the work he’s produced.

Those who vilify him feel he’s just a populist hack who’s built his celebrity on the backs of hardworking academics and other professionals. Yes, he’s accused of being a tissue thin celebrity journalist/hack/writer who has no business espousing such weighty theories just because he’s got connections in the publishing world.

Maybe.

I’d argue that his success is based on his ability to marshal disparate and highly technical data and translate it into engaging prose in such a way that the average person can make good use of the information.

Does he have “authority”? Maybe not exactly as this group seems to want to define it.

Is he just a celebrity? He certainly is now.

But Gladwell’s celebrity, combined with his gift for making prosaic sense of The Complicated, enables him to reach a large audience, disseminating both his ideas and the ideas of others to do with what the reader will.

I’m not sure I see anything wrong with that formula. Cause Celeb is nothing new, and so, if a blogger has celebrity (authority) and successfully uses their celebrity to promote thought leadership – even if it’s not always on target – what’s the difference if we call it authority or celebrity?

When somebody finds the secret recipe to get people to listen, they have authority.

A Congressman once told me that every letter his office received represented 10,000 voters; one who had the gumption to write the letter and 9,999 that felt the same way, but for whatever reason, didn't write.

Maybe the folks inside the fishbowl represent the tip of the iceberg, I don't really know.

I think I mentioned to you when I went to a recent Media Bistro event nobody was even documenting the event with a still camera, while at a typical Social Media get together, you're likely to have more than one person streaming live video.

I really think the current limited level of engagement has something to do with the general technophobia that permiates most of society, income barriers to Internet access, the ADD world we live in, and the passing of time.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that most people don't engage in online social networking toi the level we do, but the truth is, we really ARE first adopters.

But, remember this, MySpace has over 300,000,000 registered users. Last time I checked, Facebook was breaking through 60,000,000 while Twitter was only approaching the million user mark.

It's early for some of the sexier networks. People are jockeying for position to capitalize on the phenomenon represented by Twitter (and I DO mean REPRESENTED by Twitter) for the same reasons people have done so with the advent of every technological breakthrough.

There's gold in them thar hills.

1. In one (can be hyphenated!) word, how would you describe your career, culture or identity. E.g., “I am a(n) Communicator.”

2. Do you think this identity has been represented well in art (including fiction, film, poetry)?

Yep.

3. What do you typically do on long trips (plane, train, auto) for entertainment?

Read fiction.

4. What traditional paper & print media, if any, do you read on a regular basis?

National Geographic. Newsweek.

5. What is the last fiction novel or short story you remember reading? When was this?

The Keeper by Sarah Langdon (Herper Collins) - just finished it.

6. What is your preferred genre for fiction and/or non-fiction?

Non

7. Would you rather read a novel or listen to it?

Read

8. Approximately how many page books do you buy in a year for yourself or other adults?

40

9. Please pick up the book nearest to you now. What are the first and last words? What is the title?

"There" "Language"

10. You’ve just been given $300 gift card to Borders right before a 3-week trip to an ‘off the grid’ island. What do you buy?

All my friends' books.

11. What connections, if any, do you see between social media and traditional fiction?

New angles for fiction. Already tons of Young Adults titles with Social Media themes. New delivery methods. Easier for authors to self promote and "be seen" by publishers, agents and media.

As a writer who hops back and forth over the fence you’re riding I’ve learned to tiptoe around Social Media when I’m over on the writer’s side.

I’ve spent a couple of years converting souls over on that side of the fence, evangelizing first the benefits of MySpace, then Facebook and now Twitter for their self marketing strategies. Over this time what I’ve found is, people are the same whichever side of the fence you’re on, and wherever you find new technology, a fence ain’t far away, dividing those who adopt from those who never will.

Some people jump the fences like Olympic hurdlers while others wait, wait, and wait some more lest they risk getting over to the other side only to find themselves lost and disadvantaged in the world on the new side of the fence, handicapped by their lack of tech savvy.

Writers are also a notoriously wary crowd, vigilantly defensive of nefarious agents and other unethical predators promising them a publishing deal if only they just sign here.

I recently offered to provide a tutorial to that same Yahoo group you refer to, and was roundly ignored by the more than 8000 members of what is arguably one of the most active Yahoo groups in the writing community. When I thought perhaps my post became buried in the blizzard of other activity, I took another run at them. This time I wasn’t ignored, I was politely told not to spam the group.

But the salesman in me, the writer in me and the social media evangelist in me doesn’t see a bunch of stuck-in-the-mud naysayers over on the other side of the fence, but lots and lots of opportunity.

Hi Christine,

I didn't get the chance to introduce myself before I hadda run out of Jeff's breakfast gig, but I saw this post on and thought you might be interested in my attempts to explain Twitter.

Maybe next time we'll both stop yakking long enough to meet. Not that you were yakking....