Social Media Stage Fright: a New Wave of Public Speaking

You’re standing in a room full of your peers and they’re waiting, expectant. You’re breathing faster than normal and your hands are sweaty and suddenly you forget why you’re standing there – until you remember. And you keep going.

While social media anxiety may be less drastic in its form – it still exists and I’m about to explain why. The pressure’s off since we’re physically disconnected from our audience, but social expectations and a basic human need for acceptance still apply.

I spoke with four business professionals in the Saint John area about Facebook, Twitter, and how we relate.

Kathy Craig is one of them. Even as an experienced public speaker, she says social media is more intimidating to her than a crowd. I find that fascinating. And I see her point.

When we meet someone in person, our personalities are channelled through everything: body language, the way we speak, the time we spend listening versus interrupting. We don’t have this opportunity online.

“The tone is hard to judge on Twitter. Sometimes I think ‘oh that’s sarcastic,’ and then I reread it and I think, ‘maybe not.”

Craig sees herself as more of an observer on social networks. People’s intentions are often unclear, especially when we don’t know them.

“In public speaking, if you say something and offend someone you at least have the opportunity to explain yourself or apologize.”

But in social media it’s so easy dismiss our peers; all it takes is the click of a mouse.

Craig favours public speaking because we think through our message in advance, we know where we’re going, and we have the opportunity to finish.

“I still have a difficult time on social media; saying what I want to say. I’m really careful and it takes me a while. I know when people tweet they often just – out it comes. Not me, I have to really think about it.”

This notion resonated with another woman I spoke to. Anick Michel finds it difficult to fathom how many young people mindlessly engage in social media.

“With my generation, you’re always thinking of the potential hands it could end up in... I find sometimes to post a very simple line; you end up having to think a lot harder because you think ‘Am I going to sound stupid?’ You’re almost second guessing what you’re posting.”

Michel pointed out that when we give a presentation, our biggest fear is that we’re boring. This couldn’t be more truthful of social media. There’s an expectation to maintain a recent profile photo and the trend is in high-quality candids. We look for approval in others.

“When you do a posting you’re hoping that somebody will laugh or somebody will agree, or, you know, it’s almost like, a fear of the sound of crickets.”

We also experience a time constraint when engaging an audience through social media.

“If you’re giving a presentation you might have 5 minutes or an hour. You have so much time to grab their attention or you lose them,” Michel said.

In terms of the online attention span, the scale shrinks dramatically.

“You have so many words to grab their attention.”

Tracy Hanson is the project coordinator for Uptown Saint John. Tweeting and updating the company Facebook page are built-in to her daily routine.

“From what I see, a lot of people are catching on. Facebook has a large demographic but Twitter also, a lot of the businesses, especially uptown, are using Twitter a lot now.”

While Hanson recognizes the culture of social media fear around her, she’s not personally intimidated by it. She does her best not to offend people, both online and offline. She says it comes down to personality.

“You run into people that are pretty blatant; they have really strong opinions on things and they don’t mind expressing them. – And that’s fine. If it offends someone then that person doesn’t have to follow them.”

It’s difficult to say whether or not social media is essential to the success of new businesses. But Hanson can’t argue that engaging in the online platforms will only stimulate growth.

“Anything online scares some people still which is kind of crazy, but there’s also a huge opportunity that they’re missing too – a huge audience that’s free.”

Anne McShane is a local entrepreneur. She own and operates The Feel Good Store, and she’s also an avid tweeter. Even as someone who loves social media, she still has moments where she has to mentally check-in and ask herself, “Who do I want to be?”

She sees a carefree essence in the younger generations that deters the older ones from adapting.

“We use it as a tool and we’re somewhat comfortable, but your generation – it’s a voice. It’s literally a voice box. It might as well be plugged right into you. You’re so comfortable and transparent and – reality show – it actually is amazing to us.”

Kathy Craig says social media felt totally unnatural in the beginning. She later took the Sociallogical course, despite going in as a skeptic. She found herself surprised.

“I had no idea that it had become that pervasive in our society. For me, it was a real eye opener and it made me say to myself ‘okay Kathy, get on board here. You’re not too old.’”

In spite of all the challenges in adjusting to this new media, it pays off. McShane still has her ‘whoops’ moments, but continues to engage because it’s what she believes in.

“Social media is a godsend to be honest. Because what it replaced were the conversations you used to have in public meeting spaces all the time – back yard barbeques and different places that you would have these conversations. People don’t get together like that. A lot of people commute, there are different ways people interact. This replaced that.”

Have you ever felt stage fright posting comments or content online? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Only 25 tickets! » [Event] Sociallogical Uptown #Learnsocial Time Crunch awe.sm/5dQg2 #livelifeuptown

— Sociallogical (@soclogical) January 14, 2012

Community: The Foundation of Inbound Marketing

Imagine yourself building a house without a foundation. At a glance, it looks perfect. But beyond what meets the eye are structural flaws that will inevitably reveal themselves. Appearances will never substitute for lasting, grounded connection.

Your blog or website can be SEO optimized, you can host webinars, but none of these techniques offer more than initial impressions if considered an end. Think of it as a missed connection: you met at a party, had an amazing conversation, and never crossed paths again.

Marketing has become more about relationships than anything else. To engage customers is to grow a community. A strong brand is powered by real people; active, involved, and listening.

Inbound Marketing in a Nutshell

To put it simply: inbound marketing means drawing the right kinds of people to you.

Traditional or linear marketing is based on interruptions: billboards, commercials, telemarketing; essentially "buying and begging," as Halligan and Shah, cofounders of Hubspot, put it in their book, Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs.

The authors use the last US presidential election to explain why the traditional approach based on broadcasting is dead, stressing the importance of two-way communication. They argue that while Obama used Facebook as a means of creating a dialogue with voters, McCain saw it as a way to talk "at them." And so inbound marketing is founded in interaction.

Why it’s Vital to Business Survival

By establishing what social media platforms suit your business and using them to attract customers, you lure people in on their terms. More importantly, you open dialogue, and it is those interactions which will define and grow your brand.

Social engagement was always a part of business. Whether through conferences or product launches, presentation has always been crucial. But the way we communicate has changed significantly, and respectively, the business world must adapt to new trends.

The good news: social media has one major advantage: it's instantaneous. It allows us to connect the masses in seconds, transcending time and space. It also provides equal opportunity, there's no "fighting for the mic" so to speak. Above all, it gives a human-feel to business exchanges.

SEO expert Nick Stamoulis furthers this notion in a recent post on Business 2 Community:

"Your social profiles let current and past customers interact directly with your brand, which helps establish a strong trust factor. People want to do business with other people and social profiles let you create a personality for your brand..."

Hippies Who Had a Point

In E Content Magazine article "Grateful Dead Content Lessons," Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott gives us an analogy for inbound marketing that establishes 60's rockers Grateful Dead as more than a bunch of shaggy hippies.

At a time when up and coming artists were banking on album sales, the Grateful Dead went against the grain; putting their energy into touring. They even engaged their superfans by setting up filming and recording stations at live events. If the Dead understood anything, it was how to build a strong community. What no one realized was that their business strategy would foreshadow the most relevant principles today. Scott writes:

"In an era when it’s difficult to make money using the content business playbooks of the past, it’s fascinating that the counterculture ideas of the Dead may hold the key to the future."

Have you thought about how to build a community around your brand? It's time to #learnsocial and strike up a conversation.

New Year Plan: What Sociallogical Will Do in 2012

In 2012 we will be useful to people who want to learn how to grow social, community-empowered businesses. Not that we weren't in 2011, but usefulness will become our obsession as we put the work of setting up a business and figuring out who we want to be behind us.

1. Our courses will be essential tools and our partners will be fellow mentors.  In 2012 our online courses will become platforms for other consultants and team leaders to use to educate and mentor their own people. So people can learn when they want and connect with people who can mentor them for many years to come.
2. New courses we produce this year will be even more helpful. Online social business courses that drill down into professions such as public relations, human resources, as well as skills such us understanding video in daily story telling will all be part of our releases in the New Year.
3. We will share what we learn through our social channels to keep people on top of current ideas, approaches, strategies, and tools. And we'll do it in a way that makes sense for each network. For example, we will share and converse a bit differently on Google+ than we do on Twitter because people relate differently and have different expectations on each network.
4. We will make sure that our people are available and accessible. Using new tools like Clarity.fm we'll be helpful when people need us most.
5. We'll be online and in the flesh, building relationships and sharing our insight with people who want to change and grow, and become more human in how they approach business and the people that they help.

A Growing, Collaborative Work Culture

To try to explain the culture we intend to grow in 2012, I couldn't say it better than Jason Fried in explaining how his company, 37signals operates (below). We use their products and consider them the most useful and helpful tools in our daily operational toolkit. It makes sense that they are bulit by a culture that is the model we are growing Sociallogical on.

Jason explains it best himself in this interview with Inc Magazine:

Useful, Partner, Produce

Following Chris Brogan's suggestion, our 3 words for 2012 are: Useful, partner, and produce. In addition to being useful, we will seek to partner with great people with great insights who can help us produce useful products, content, and advice.

It's going to be a great year!

[pics] Cool photos from the elephant parade in London awe.sm/5ceuP #learnsocial

— Sociallogical (@soclogical) December 31, 2011

What is #learnsocial? A Community For Learning Social Business.

#learnsocial is a hashtag used by people who are learning social and mentoring each other on growing social businesses. If you want to get in on this conversation, listen to users who use the tag in their posts on Twitter and Google+ and start using it yourself.

A hashtag is a community. By using tags and listening to them, we all stay connected to conversations around a community's interests.

Twitter

Create a stream in your Twitter client for #learnsocial and pay attention to the conversation and information that might help you grow in your social business practice.

Google+

Search #learnsocial and hit the 'save to search'. In the left margin you will then see #learnsocial that you can click any time to see what's being posted to the community there.

Linkedin

We also created a Linkedin Group where anyone can join and mentor each other on social business. Post an article, ask a question or answer a question on the leading business network.

Why We Started This Tag

Two simple words that describe what everyone will need to do in the coming years: learn social

Our intention is to create a community, starting with students who get a kickstart learning the ropes in our courses, who can support each other with what they are learning, useful tips they've found, and perspectives on what works, what doesn't and why.

We Are Listening

The team at Sociallogical is listening to these streams and helping wherever we can. We're also encouraging our students to jump in and share with each other while they're learning and long after they've finished a class.

In a few years we won't even call it social. It will just be business and life. But it's a big adjustment for businesses and their people. Changing how we run and grow businesses is best learned from other people. And mentorship is something we believe in.

Join us in using #learnsocial and tell us how we can help you learn.

The Lonely Battle of the One-Eyed Man

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." - Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

In every working environment there is a person regarded as the one who "gets" social media and will, therefore, figure it out for the company.

Because they are comfortable using Twitter and more, compared to the others in the company, resting on their shoulders is the weight of guiding the company through the greatest shift in how businesses work. Often this person is aware of the enormous expectation or of the naïveté of the rest of the company in perceiving this as a minor role for one person. Occasionally they relish it and rise to the occasion.

Being comfortable using a social network is not the same as knowing how to make money and grow a business in the internet age.

Social media is not a marketing thing.

...Not JUST a marketing thing. It is a complete shift in how we grow a business and it affects almost every spoke in an organization's wheel. It requires us to reconsider why we do what we do and who we do it for. For some of us, it changes how we spend our time when we work and it changes how we are expected to communicate and make ourselves available.

Having lived in the internet world for all of my adult life, the proverb above that I first heard from my brother many years ago has always been one of my favorites. There is one of these people in every company.

A lot is expected of the one-eyed man. What he really needs is for others to join him in his enlightenment so they can figure out the future together.

That's the only way that we change cultures and make progress.

Who is the one-eyed man of "social media" where you work?

Sociallogical Learn | Taking Classes to the Cloud

Snowed in at Jeff's house with laptops, Costco croissants and a french press back in January.

“It’s amazing how rapidly it all starts to fall into place once you plan out the platform you’re going to use and how you’re going to deploy it.” There, as they say, lies the rub. That’s me to Jeff in February of this year.

It sounds pretty straightforward: you set out to do something, identify the tools you need for the job and get to work. But when we started out to build Sociallogical Learn, we hadn’t done anything quite like it before – and it required some heavy lifting to get it to where it is today.

If you haven’t heard of Learn, you should check out Jeff’s launch post about it. He covers a lot of the high-level hopes and dreams that we’d like to achieve; how it benefits businesses and people alike and the outcomes one can expect from leveraging it.

As all of that fun stuff has already been hashed out for you, I won’t go into it. What I will go into is a breakdown of how we built Learn to best serve our students and mentors alike.

Learn is an ecosystem. Educators can author rich materials and assignments for students, who keep track of their readings and personal portfolio as they dive, at their own pace, deeper into the course.

Those students always have direct access to their mentors, who lead them through the different modules. Meanwhile, all parties can engage in relevant discussion around the course materials in real-time.

All of this is possible thanks to the heavily customized Drupal platform that we deployed – it acts like an operating system, allowing us to write and plug-in anything we need to fit any specific purpose. I’m a geek through and through, one that could go on and on. But there are three especially important elements that make Learn unique.

1. Real Conversation

Communication is extremely important in both learning and in social media, making it a two-fold top priority for Learn. As such, we’ve made painstaking effort to make sure that participants are able to connect on every level. Though they’re able to move along at their own pace, students are never alone in Learn.

Synchronous and asynchronous discussions with real people happen via real-time, AJAX-powered class chats and DISQUS commenting respectively, and a built-in private messaging system is leveraged for direct one-on-one contact between mentors and classmates.

Class chats are automatically archived so students can review them at any time, giving an opportunity for those who missed out to catch up on the latest discussion. And, of course, there’s the occasional Google+ Hangout.

And, hey, Learn is still a baby; it isn’t quite perfect yet. So we’ve deployed a feedback tab on every page that, when clicked, brings up an overlay to our GetSatisfaction community - every problem or question that students have is immediately brought to the attention of our team.

2. All in Context

Confusing menus and other additional overhead have no place in a learning environment. Making use of Drupal panels and views, Learn’s Dashboard provides an engaging experience for students by providing them quick access to the course they’re taking, their fellow classmates, and their personal portfolio.

Assignments and latest discussion are clearly highlighted. Once a student dives into the course, all distractions are set aside. There is no annoying advertising; no fluff to lead them away from the task at hand. Their reading progress is clearly indicated in a dedicated navigation bar and they are carefully guided through each section.

3. One System, One Roof

Early on in its development, we looked carefully at our options for the features that Learn provides today. It became very clear that courses would lack cohesion if we had students jumping all over the place to keep in touch. Now, all of this happens in the same ecosystem.

From the moment a student enrolls, to the time they’ve completed their first course, Learn provides for them every step of the way. They are constantly connected; held up by their peers and their educators, and free to plug away at the material on their own time.

We’ve all been working hard on this system. As I’ve described Learn to the people this year, I’ve heard them say things like “wow, this is the way e-learning should be.”

Now it is.

We’re still at an early stage and we have a long list of plans to make Learn even better. If you’ve taken one of our courses, please comment below to tell us how you found the structure and flow of the course and how we might make it easier for you to learn in there.

Nobody "Gets" Social Media in the Beginning. Nobody.

Everyone you know who loves using social media didn't understand it in the beginning either.

Especially in business, most people still don't quite grasp how to use it to grow a company and serve people better. And those who do were once as confused and curious as everyone else.

Turning On The Lightbulb

The first time I saw Twitter in 2007 it seemed very silly to me. At the time, people compared it to the status updates on Facebook, which to me were the most annoying feature of the new network. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to read a stream of status updates.

Until 2008 when my friend David explained it to me. We were on a trade show floor and he said "look around this room at all of these people having conversations with each other. Now imagine if you could listen in on any of those conversations and interject when you like." It blew my mind!

Now Twitter blows my mind as the most efficient way of keeping me in touch with the news and media that the people I know share.

Mentorship Is The Only Way To Learn Social

Last night I asked a few friends online if they had a eureka moment when the lightbulb went on and they really understood social media for the first time. Most of them did. But ALL of them said they learned as they went with advice from friends. It's just not something that comes naturally to most of us.

@davidalston on learning social: "Twitter was october 2007 at the PRSA show in Philly. Marcel set up my BB and I took in the show while having to work the booth. I also made new connections at the show and watched how Kami Huyse performed PR for the show on the fly."

And why should it? When we were children our families mentored us on how to socialize: "smile when you say hello", "It's not polite to stare", "look at people when they are speaking to you", "don't fidget", "open the door for the person coming in behind you". How would we have known these things if someone who cared about us didn't tell us?

No Metaphors

It makes sense that people wouldn't understand social media at first and how it applies to business. We have nothing we can compare it to. So learning how to use it is a challenge.

@davergallant on learning social: "It was a progression for me. I always knew it was a massive shift in the way we communicate. One lightbulb moment was when I recognized how much easier it was to reach our degrees of separation than before. Another was when I started investing as much in my online relationships as my offline."

Everything else the internet has brought us resembles something we already understood. Email made sense because it was the same as postal mail that we've exchanged for hundreds of years, except electronic. In Web 1.0 websites were just a new way of sharing brochures and the type of static content we find in print materials.

Blogs were the first personal, social tool that I remember having a hard time adjusting to. This new form of self-publishing seemed kind of narcissistic to me and I couldn't see myself doing it. I wondered who really cared about my opinion? Now the opinions of others make up most of my daily reading. We all adjust.

But Web 2.0 and the online social revolution has brought us a connectivity that the world has never known: Mass two-way communication!

That has never happened. Ever. And it takes some getting used to.

I'm curious to know about other's experiences getting online in a personal way. In the comments below, please tell me if you remember a moment when the lightbulb went on and you "got" social media?

Are You Ready for the Retweet? 4 Tips To Prepare

Are you ready for when your hopes come true and something you share is well received and widely shared? If your online profiles are ready to welcome new relationships, if your branded assets are consistent and you're proud of how you represent yourself online, if your social networks are linked and regularly monitored, then you probably are.

If you are ready to capitalize on your online success, it means you are at the helm and ready to start and feed relationships that could give your business the jolt you have hoped for. Potential relationships and business can be gained if you're able to thank those who share your content, answer praise and questions, and impress those who will be introduced to you for the first time online.

Organic (or "Viral") Sharing Gone Right

When something you share resonates with a group of people and they decide that it's worth sharing with their networks, the result could be exponential sharing of your content which pulls significant traffic your way. There are a few things that every business can do to make sure this wonderful opportunity is not wasted.

1. Make sure your branding is strong and consistent across platforms

Every social channel is different and should be treated as a unique community. For example, how you represent yourself on Facebook should be a bit different from how you represent yourself on Twitter since those communities behave differently and there are different social norms on each.

But it's important that who you are as a business or as an individual is consistent. You may present a different energy or style of communication on one versus another but your branding should be consistent and your perspective should never contradict itself across platforms. For this reason, organizations that have different people supporting different channels need to make sure there are strong social ties that connect those people so they all share the same vision and purpose and show the values and priorities of the business.

2. Link your channels

Your website should be your hub. Whether your main site is a blog or a product-focused site (most often both), how you let visitors know you are available on various social channels should be clear and obvious. Your website is where people go to get a sense of your professionalism and your brand identity, which makes it the most powerful element of your online profile. Make your profiles on all social channels point back to your main web asset.

However, your audience is going to come across your content on the social channels they spend their time on and rarely will they enter your URL into the address line of their browser to go straight to your website. Your content will feed into THEIR social networks. So making sure it's easy for people to dig deeper and find more about you when they want to is important.

Feed links back to your blog from your social accounts. Make sure your profiles contain links back to your website. And, most importantly, make sure your main profiles (I use Google+ and Linked because they the most comprehensive and public) and your website feature all the ways that people can connect with you and share your content. Because hopefully they will.

3. Make sure you are listening

Making sure you are setup to listen to your social channels is vitally important. It will mean that you can hear the comments made and every time your content is shared. Google analytics, URL shorteners, and filtering/monitoring dashboards are all available, often free, to help you listen and monitor what's being said about you and your brand. If you're not listening, how will you know when your content goes organic?

4. Make sure you're relating

What do friendly people do when someone says something nice about them or shows interest in them or their product? They often start a conversation. They sometimes look for opportunities to help even more. They always say thank you.

Can you start a conversation to build on your post because you are present and active on the channels where people are sharing your content?

The whole point of creating and sharing is to offer a benefit to the people we want to build relationships with. When we write content, especially focused on the interests of our business audience, we hope that people will like it and share it.

So are you ready for when they do?

Is Social Media the Elephant in Your Boardroom? This Can Help.

Avatars by Kelly Lawson

"Business has changed more in the past three years than in the prior 30." - Amber Naslund and Jay Baer

Today we launch an online course that collects the best insight, the best content, and the best ideas we have to share to help businesses understand social media and to merge it into their daily experience.

Understand Social Business is a new online, mentorship-based course curated by Sociallogical. It shares the best advice and guidance we have to give in a course that people can take on their own time and use as a resource for many years to come.

A Tool For Business Culture Change

"The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic" – Peter Drucker

Sociallogical is a company that works with the leadership of a given business to embed social into their daily operations, their posture toward the people they serve, and their methods of growing their business.

One of the great hurdles to making these changes is the current corporate culture. If a company's personnel doesn't understand social media and social business then moving that company to a place where it can take advantage of this very significant paradigm shift is a difficult task indeed. Even if the CEO gets it, not much will happen until the troops come to understand it too.

This course educates entire teams so they can make changes based on a solid understanding of what is happening in social media today and what they need to do to make it work for them.

And it is mentorship-based, so experienced mentors guide the course with discussions, questions and answers. Classes are capped at 10 people to ensure good mentorship and dialogue among the students.

The course is so designed that individual entrepreneurs and large corporate teams can join with others in the course to read, watch, plan, and understand social business together.

How Long? How Much? How Hard?

"Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight" - Thomas Calyle

As we said when we began creating this course 6 months ago with 3 sessions in Saint John social spots, "the best way to learn social is to just do it. But most of us who feel comfortable with it have benefitted from a little mentorship and guidance to 'turn on the lightbulb' so we can understand the opportunities and risks and head in the right direction."

The course is comprised of 3 chapters designed to last 3 weeks in total. But students have permanent access to the lessons of the course, so as we update and evolve the content to stay current, students can always check back and update their own views and portfolios.

Did we mention it is also a portfolio-based course? Students build their online portfolios as they move through the course, signing up for accounts and answering the big questions about the roles these tools will play in their daily business activities.

In pricing the course we have made sure that the cost is low enough to not break any business's education budget. Group rates are also available for classes of 10 or more of their people.

The only skill required to take this course is a decent comfort level in navigating and using the internet. If you can find what you're looking for in an online newspaper or play a YouTube video, you'll be able to work your way through this course. It uses a familiar blog-style format for lessons and third-party resources that are widespread and user-friendly. The material is readable, digestible, and designed for a business audience, it's not a curriculum for a master's degree in social media!

Start Now

"I wanted to leverage social media but I didn’t know how to make it work in business. I definitely got what I wanted from the course. I understand my market better and I now know how to reach it." - Dave Legere

Students can REGISTER TODAY and start working on the lessons.

Once 9 others have registered, the class will begin with the first weekly live "Chapter Chat" a week later on Sunday evening.

These chats are valuable learning sessions, facilitated by a Community Manager Mentor, in which all students meet in the course online to discuss what they are learning and to learn from each other. (Chapter Chats can be purchased at a later time for students who are not able to attend the 3 sessions included in the course)

Informed and Experienced Mentorship

"Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction." - John Crosby

There is certainly a perspective we share and it's helped us design the delivery of our courses. We could not have helped organizations build cultures of real connection and efficiency if we didn't know what works and what doesn't.

Other courses will come later but this one is the foundational prerequisite.

It’s the one designed to ‘turn on the light bulb’ for people so they can start building better businesses with their customers.

We look forward to helping many more people transform into social business leaders and breed a new future of people-centred businesses!

Find out more about the course and how to get started.

In the collage above, from top left: Judith Mackin, Peter Asimakos, Peter Josselyn, Adam Donnolly, Tracy Hanson, Sean Moore, Jamie Bursey, Jodi Nadeau. All photographed by the wonderfully talented Kelly Lawson!