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I think it's important for me to start this post out by saying that I have been entirely guilty of over-selling myself. By this, I don't mean that I have promised more than I can deliver. Nope, I can do and make and put together everything I've ever said I can. Let it never be said that I am not honest, sometimes to the point of ticking people off - but that's another issue altogether. No, I'm talking about over-selling in a sense that most of us who run our own business are guilty of: doing nothing BUT sell.
With things like Twitter and Facebook and even our blogs, it's easy to forget that we're supposed to be communicating with people. We're supposed to be engaging the people following us. They're following because they like our business and want to hear about new products and sales and all of that, of course, but along the way, they want to talk to us. They want access. Isn't that what you want when you tune into someone's social media?
For a long time, I was guilty of doing nothing on Twitter but scheduling out ad posts. Tons of them. It was dull, and I feel really bad for those of you who struggled through that with me. I'm sure I bored the pants right off of you. Thankfully a lot of you persevered, and now if if you head to my Twitter feed, you'll find the occasional post about new items posted or sales or other advertising material, but you'll find more RTs and comments and interactions - and I feel better about it. I'm working to get more original content and how tos and such happening here on the blog. I try to post entertaining and fun stuff on Facebook along with questions for other people who do what I do. On Tumblr and Pinterest, I share work and miscellaneous stuff that entertains and inspires me in the hope that it will do the same to you.
If you ever have a suggestion for something that would make me more interesting to you or that would, even better, HELP you, tell me! If it's knowledge I have or a service I can offer, I want to do it. We're all in this together, and we should all have fun learning from each other. In closing, if you do nothing but tweet ad after ad, I promise I'll try to hang in there and get through it with you... but please consider that if you wouldn't want to read it yourself, we probably don't want to either.
A lot of good advice. I think sometimes the social media is over worked by over hyping our sidelines - such as etsy, Artfire, Luulla, etc. A few years ago I had a Twitter account but closed it because all I got was spam. But guess I was guilty of the same, therefore I was merely reaping what I had sown.
ReplyDeleteYou truly hit the nail on the head when you wrote: "please consider that if you wouldn't want to read it yourself, we probably don't want to either." Thanks for reminding us, it is a message that needs to be said and repeated often since we do tend to forget. :)
That's been my guiding principle lately, and it's surprisingly hard to follow! I think we all get pretty giddy with the freedom of advertising for free, of having that much access to such a large audience, and it can be difficult to get a grip on the right and wrong ways to use it. It's definitely still a process for me. It helps to know I'm not alone in that!
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