Your VIBE attracts your TRIBE in sales and social media

“Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life. ” 

~ Ann Landers

However it may seem strange that I rarely have comments on my blogs, I am often invited to answer questions on QUORA (link below). 

 Sometimes I think about my answer, while other times I just let my mind go free and respond instinctively to what comes immediately to mind as in this case when I was invited to answer this question. 

Ironically, as well.  I spend the least time on InstaGRAM than anywhere else and yet it is the topic I seem to have grabbed the attention of some who value my opinion.  Thank you.  Happy to help.  Here goes:

Why do my Instagram followers keep dropping?

Hmmm, very curious question. My first immediate reaction was a question: “what could this person be posting if they are seeing their followers drop?” Without question, social media can sometimes seem fickle when it is really not. This question bodes a suggestion to examine what you are posting …. if you are only sharing your last meal, and you didn’t cook it or it’s half eaten, unappetizing-looking or just plain “gross”. Other considerations may be that others may find that you have constant posts that are self-serving or promotional :: aka “spam”. People tend to gravitate towards sincerity, ingenuity, originality, beauty and inspiration. That is only my opinion. However, I do believe strongly that your following is a reflection of what you are sending out.


Don’t despair. Being fickle can also mean you can reinvent yourself easily. I would advise you to decide what you want to be known for or identified with and setting out to do just that. Or, if you have a specific interest that is not career, family, friends or social oriented, this is a great way of gravitating towards that interest, sharing it, finding sources or resources on that topic and then share it … you can check for #hashtag popularity or observe what seemingly popular people are posting. If that seems to capture your interest, it could be good advice to follow them and observe them from a distance and see if you can pick up any great habits or even share that person’s content as a means to cast your own web to gather people who share the same vibe.

Caution: what may seem funny at 2 o’clock in the morning with your work buddies or friends may be more embarrassing at 2 o’clock the next afternoon. At your desk, avoiding eye contact with colleagues or worse if its a boss. Your online presence becomes your reputation. What doesn’t matter at 20, can be a nightmare at 40. So act your age if you must, but at least apply manners and a mom rule: if you can’t do it in front of your mother, or you risk being scolded by her, then it isn’t going to be appropriate for a wide, global audience. AND just because your mom likes the better parts of you, her opinion may be skewed …. be wary that others will like your stickmen as much as she does.

Be optimistic. There is a lot of great quotes, beautiful images, fantastic photography that are in style any time, any season. Be classy, be polite, be bold.

The #bestofeverything launch: September 20, 2015

Doing this was quite awkward.  Writing, being, expressiveness has been cloaked by the persona.  Creating a perception of someone between a fairy godmother and a twenty-something.  Full of charge-de-vive and anything is possible exhuberance.  At this quiet ponsive self-reflection.  Behind the mask of the sparkled green eyes, contently knowing that she is her own person.  

Gently casting aside any of the doubt, uncertainties she swallowed whole.  There grazed tiny bursts of wrinkles were like minute soft brushes of an artist's touch.  A rarity to see any pretty face to have light shadows in the precise right place at her cheek bone, eye brow, ski slope nose, with ski jump cut off to glide down to the lips.  The lips were neither unnaturally full or meanness thin.  

Businesses want unique and vibrant new approaches to win in the competitive environment.  It was not what anyone would have imagined.  Someone who could have been voted in as "least likely" could write without limitations.  Calm over reception, and patient on a growing following, she started to write for her heart.  Knowing that to glide gracefully into middle age, with a kinship of followers.  Those so many brilliant contributors to our world:  you deserve the #bestofeverything .  I have sprinkled #bestofeverything around the web and social media world.  

Without any doctorate, she was insightful and could burst forward and upward such incredible tales, art, photography bounced over into social media integrity.
Support good causes.  Promote the good things that the citizen's of the world who are kind, creative,, inspiring, knowledgeable and tuned in.  Landing firmly on instinctively what they craved.  To create a means to which the online or social media could decide for themselves what is popular, good, motivational, spiritual, inspirational so that readership grew.  

People everywhere turned their Twitter, their favorite bloggers, InstaGram to take the temperature of the world.  Breaths of fear on all opposing factions were felt in unison.  

UTOPIA.  Whether by history of occurrence, they forgot what it felt like to be able to ignore the mere harmless to hideous events.  

IRONIC.  As they paid less and less attention to the likes of violence, blood bursting cuts, civil unrest, boastfulness.  The immunity great to no longer watching anything violent.  It was no longer in their instincts.  Ideals to be violent or hate widdled away and became less and less.  If the world's brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, security settled softly on what could ever have been anything but an optimistic world, where hate was suffocated out by soulfull humanity,  caring for health or those less healthy.

 

Education was a social gathering, embraced by the majority.  Families had fun, hugged neighbours, and heros were scattered around.  They embraced, financed, secured, flew up the pinnacle of learning and expanding knowledge.  In its dust lay particles of what was considered high IQs a decade past.

Science was the most distinguished occupation to aspire to which was sometimes, very few, could accomplish both science and computing.  Curiosity was boosted in the children's schools, Gliding in harmony with sports as the best adrenaline rush.  

Ignorance of the past worlds, or so shortly ago, was the way to go.  To get better, stay positive, set goals you find reaching within your sight.  The goals of tarnished pasts, were left aside, like sanitation fields in our lives. 

The governments did not create controversies and were respected and revered when honored with high office based on their unified vote.  The positive examples sliced carefully throughout their lives jolting us to chase corruption, dishonesty, self-serving power, violence or war.  Which found to be settling as such a fine dust, the family's dog brushes the minuet slivers out into the air, with a push of the wind, onto the lapping waters, the sunset orangely casting a glow to scent the fish to jump out of the waters, disarmed by the cleansing that catch and the water did.

The best leaders were innovators, genuine geniuses, information,  puritists,  void of gossip, sensationalism, horror, or violence.  Honor among thieves were only known by the tales of braveness, courage, patience, and love overcame the lost souls.

The network and telephony towers were dismantled only leaving one clear link:  the internet, world wide web.  The steel from the structures of the television stations, radio celebrity mics, and leftover wire donated to the creators of sculptures and statues that were never defaced, driven into, jumped on or marked in the slightest.  

As unlike any global change, some rebelled to the sudden outlook shift.  They had once been loved, idolized and up on top at almost anything they could do on the backs of the disadvantaged, single parents, poor, uneducated, sick outcasts.  They, unwisely, thought that shananigans and soap operas would win their dwaining audience followers back to play.  Not once not ever.  They faded and dwindled to a backdrop as brick, stones, wood -- surfaces that are never once the same, the same color throughout, a roughness to the touch so that one would remove their hand.  

The glory began to be celebrated not by any specific date by occurrence ... the freedom to create anything magical was the straw that catapulted meodicracy to the sublime.  They soon became known to be the gifted.

Writers, bloggers, journalists on the world wide web, internet, softphone, communication wire were tuned into and drifting unconsciously towards Utopia where the #bestofeverything would reside.  The want of choice floated away as the wanted to keep the feeling of happiness, peace and never a cause for forgiveness.  New children, born into the world did experience punishment, discipline, authority because they were surrounded by encouragement, love, gentle pushes to the always possible fulfillment of their dreams.  

An interesting world indeed.  A prima ballerina would surprisingly chose to be harvesters of orchards of fruit, seeds into nuts, with livestock that were free of any hormones or growth expeditors.  

Like most of humanity by then, cows and horses, herds of sheep, goats or flocks of eagles, chickens or budgies were peaceful.  They lived in harmony, sharing their eggs, milk without having to once donate any meat.   The fields of abundantly overflowing vegetables were there to nibble on, never encountering fences, no need for toxic pesticides that left with the rest of rejectful and harmful former occupants.  The balance of survival had been tipped so far on the scale beaming with life. 

One of the first known rebelious cult found were carnivores.  Rejecting any sense of smell, they purposely overfed themselves with the many animals, birds, organic beings to find, experiment or test with dishes where a trickle of blood on a brilliantly white plate, is the highest honor and defining chef celebrity.  They were called the Gorgers.

There was this most incredibly beautiful place on earth.  Selled by an organic group, surrounded by fortresses and family homes, with afield of flowers skipping across the meadows as the backdrop .......... 


________________________ you, the reader, can contribute the next sentence or paragraph in your comment.  Forming the authority on what truly is what we, the people, not the media, corrupt, lying, cheaters would want us to believe what they say, instead it is our testimony of what we believe is #thebestofeverything

Would you like to read more? Tweet, post, share, pin, search for #bestofeverything_story to be continued soon .... depending on you:  I need 1000 subscribers to get that going again.  
  

social media is ALL about YOU!

Social media IS all about YOU!

A question was posed on Jeannette  Facebook (yes people interact and ask questions of their most trusted advisors privately without all the hoopla on Twitter) on which network have respondents'  found to be the best to launch their social media presence?   Initially, I was going to reply with Twitter but then realized that my LINKED IN profile says the most about who I am with links to my Blog,  philosophy OptioneerJM  interests (Pinterest), philosophy (Blog) and (Blog) out of  all the networks.  However, I stopped myself to expand to state that I would credit Twitter  for launching my#socialmedia personality to the stratosphere (compared to the others) ... honorable mention: without "working it) G+ #Google where I gained 5000#Followers compared to working it on #Twitter .  

I have also uncovered an interesting tidbit.  InstraGRAM has it's own stars, as Guy Kowasaki launched giHUGE on Google Plus.   Goolge is appearing to be a sleeper platform.  Surprisingly so since about three years ago I predicted that anything connected with Google was going to rapidly expand, really, I attest to its overall power over anything on the internet.

Bill Gates must really be shuddering and Steve Jobs, rolling in the clouds (the white ones), with Mr.  Pakard, and Mr. Hewitt smiling fondly on a company that used their core values as a foundling to a superstar of anything technology -- internet, networks, cloud, search, blogs, SEO, content, mobility, games, Playstore.  Non would disagree that Google allowed its team to study its competitors in the space they wanted to dominate:  YOUR ATTENTION.

Thus the title of this blog:  social media IS all about YOU!

Father, brother, uncle, grandfather, coach, teacher, banker, employer, boss, clergy, mentor

Where else can you be you?  

Seriously, you have to behave at church, pay attention in school, exert in extra-curricular activities, mind your manners with parents, siblings, relatives, friends sometimes, employer, boss, clergyman, partner, spouse, mentor, grandparents, and the clerk at the grocery store!  Ah-hem (deep breath).... I'm exhausted and I didn't finish ... study, pay attention to your education or else your boss or your banker won't pay much attention to you while your friends, coach, family, mentor find other things to do because you lost their attention!

Finished stretching ... then there is your coach riding you on your sport, job, career, book, audio, video endurance.  Can you stay relevant to your close circle of friends for the long run between relationships, getting married, having kids, setting up house, shopping, financial future, expertise, interests, or other activities?  


Who can you show your photos to?

Be truthful and brutally honest, nobody wants to sit through your narrative on your vacation, travels, business trip, conference, school, wedding, birth, kids activity, sport, scores, sayings do they?  How about you try sharing some photos with your blathering, shouting out, retweeting, shares, posts, profile, bio?  Why would they settle in while you pass them photos of your graduation, party, BBQ, reunion, gathering, holiday, trips, flowers,  food, fantasies when they tend to be serious about fitness, facts, favorites, family, focus.


Do people tune out when you philosophize?

Where did you get your certification, degree or Ph.D in recommending anything as important?  Do you get to write and be featured in a magazine, newspaper, radio broadcast, television commercial, event, musical talents?  Well, most of the people I know any way.  Don't feel bad.  You are part of the norm.  Which makes me wonder where do all the exceptional, inspirational, motivational, celebrity, famous, super stars hang out all together?  You thinking like me, not very many chill together.



Where can you test your theories?

So you know a thing or two is saved for self-proclaimed experts.  Most of us know about a lot of different things which circle around interests:  reading, writing, the environment, oceanography, meteorology, photography, and the king of it all:  technology.  Don't forget about art, beauty, fashion, fitness, food.  Think about it:  you wake up in the morning, and what you do makes you a participant of any number of those items.   You maybe even stretching your brain to understand about all of them.  Under technology you are using a computer, a laptop, a tablet, a cell phone, a telephone, a mobile phone, a smart phone with your fingertips so that must mean you are technology whiz too!

Fighting the pack is photography.  Some are photographers, others videographers.  But before we bow and face defeat ... we stand up to say we know just about anything about photography because we all have identification, passports, passes, reports, files, government with hands on experience ourselves so we can be a photographer of fame then.

We cook, eat, shop for groceries, nourish, exercise, shop, dress, apply makeup, learn all in the same day which makes us knowledgeable about just about everything.


Where can you learn?

Certainly, I get it.  We all went to kindergarten, elementary, junior high, middle school, high school, college, university, conference, the internet, books, libraries to assemble our knowledge.  Never all at the same time.


How do you share your love?

Personally, I like flowers, chocolates, getting it on, hugs and kisses.  Do you know that about me?  What makes you so special that you know that you have a spot in my heart? If you're lucky you will get a smile, a note, a card, a joke, an email, a bouquet of flowers, basket of fruit, my time, my attention, my loyalty, my effort, my response, and share likely except the chocolate perhaps.

#BlueAngels, #Airplanes, #SeaFair, #Planes #Seattle

Where DO you go?

Social media is   elementary my dear people.  You can do all those things, be all those people, be true to who you are, reject what is offensive, ignore what is irrelevant, find out what is going on, who has it going on, where you can go:  travel, holiday, parks, oceans, seas, islands, countries, cities, experience, challenge, react to, rise up to, reach out to, reep rewards from?  Social media my dear friends.  

#Minions #minion #banana #character #joke #quote

Who do you CONNECT with?

Besides the obvious that fall into your physical circle of influence, you can expand your influence, your circle, your friendships, your crushes, your adventures, mind, knowledge, specialty.  You use social media to do that.  Who ever said "the world was our oyster" was brilliant and a futurist who sensed that the world would end up be by what we do with those skills, experience, wisdom so that others may benefit, like, discover, recover, inspire, motivate, learn.  You sound a poem?  Very likely you have wrote one or read one, where can you do both?  Social media:  you can talk, read, act, smile, frown, inform, share, post, put forward.


Unconvinced still?

That's okay.  There are still quite a number of you out there.  You get your news from the radio, television, computer, school, company information.  But what if you could assemble that all at the same time and share it with others who may connect, share similar interests, goals, achievements, dreams on the same level as you? 


 Social media is where it's at.

Time to get with it if you want to be cool, connected, informed, known.  period.  PERIOD. End of story.  

A social media journey

Who knew what would follow when I launched this blog optioneerJM five years ago?  I remember how it came about:  My mentor and friend Donna deMan insisted that I get on board Linked In to introduce myself, open myself to career opportunities, reconnect with those I had lost touch with, and get "with it" on social media. 


Linked In

Like anything to do with social media, you don't just be there.  You have to embrace it, blend in and become active to gain the value it presents.  So I did.  I had quite a few years experience in sales and digital printing, so it wasn't too surprising that I hovered around sales groups before I jumped in.  After all, it was pretty underwhelming.  All I had to do was write about my opinion on matters others were embraced in.  What happened was, my opinion was valued, my experiences I shared were welcome.  I started to meet people.  One of the first was Mike Lehr when I commented on career advice.  Not before long, we were messaging and exchanging information after he voted and commended my comments..... he seemed to know what he was doing and had a esteemed background in intuition and even authored books on the topic. 

Shortly after, in a Digital Printing group I connected with Sandy Hubbard.  We had similar careers with printing and magazines so it wasn't surprising that she became a mentor and champion.  Sandy was a publisher and writer and encouraged my viewpoint so I thought "what the heck" I will start a Blog about sales and draw from what I had commented on in Linked In to get started.  The thought was, if it is good enough for sales types, it may be good enough for the whole world wide web.


What drove my curiosity was why was there such a fuss about "Social Media"?  I admit I was skeptical and stubborn:  I didn't want to be associated with or thought of as a time waster online.  Donna encouraged and convinced me to get on Twitter.  I had come up with the pseudonym optioneerJM by then, getting a lot of direct questions what an optioneer was?  The explanation seemed natural and easy to answer:  "An optioneer provides multiple solutions then executes to solve the problems, while gaining buy in from others."  It seemed logical:  option with re-engineering to come up with option-eer combining both. 


Twitter

I hung my handle on Twitter, linking my blog, and primarily using it as a gateway to drive attention to my blog.  It became so much more.  Sandy Hubbard was a pro and tucked me onto her side and showed me around:  First stop was a group of early adopters on social media called #USGuys.  I was thrilled.  I was starting to get some momentum to my thinking that if you can't wrap your head around something, find out why that is.  Research, read, absorb.  So I did.  Thankfully, they opened their arms and let me into the club (it isn't a club by any stretch of the imagination).  A group of people that were not only had a large following individually, but also many had started to leverage their knowledge to launch their own expertise as business opportunities.

My dog Buddy

Facebook

Admittedly, I did have a Facebook profile for family and friends AND GAMES.  I was uncomfortable letting others know that I fooled around on Farmville and Yoville, with the exception of my sister and good friend Allison Tasker.  What amazed me was on the page, the ladies whom I connected with didn't just share crates of vegetables to expand your farm.  I noticed how they shared recipes, quotes, sayings and found causes like domestic abuse, bullying and missing children.  I was turning my head around on the expansive reach of Facebook, collaborating with my new found friends from across the globe. 

I had the optioneerJM persona established by then, thus I expanded to include a Facebook Page.  I started to think that some of my tweets that were nuggets captured and shared may be of value by encompassing them on Facebook.  I discovered that many of my awesome friends from Twitter were active on Facebook and it was more intimate.  Many of my friends, like Joseph Gier and Libby Sweiger were active on Facebook and I got to learn and appreciate more about them as people by their posts. 

I was a keener by now.  No holding back.  In fact, I was a social media enthusiast.  So much so, I became a social media Evangualist, singing its praises and the wonderment of all that could be gained.  Mike Lehr caught on, set up his profiles, with me giving him hints in the background.  Almost immediately, not only was Mike embraced, he was guest blogging for some of the gurus from #USGuys.  Mike didn't need to be convinced that it was a marvelous adventure.  In fact, Mike's Blog was my first of a select few to follow of Blogs I followed, credited as such on my blog.  He was very kind and reciprocated.  That taught me one of the first lessons:  help others while being conscious of whether they appreciate it and acknowledge it by sharing back.

Google Plus, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr

I was a late bloomer to Google Plus, but the logic stood out.  I applied the same reasoning of why I used Google's BlogSpot to host my Blog.  If you want to increase your presence in social media, you can't go wrong with putting big brother Google behind your efforts.

I can't remember how I stumbled upon Pinterest, but it became an addition for my visual appetite.  I loved looking at wonderful photographs, art and images.  There is an abundance of stimuli there.  Along with recipes, how to, decorating, quotes and a multitude of many other things.  I got on board and immediately recognized what a great way to capture the things you loved and those you admired under a synopsis called Pinterest. 

I like images and quotes.  I started to marry the two, sometimes creating my own quote, other times borrowing from the well known or obscure.  Regardless, the visuals are usually beautiful . I play with InstaGRAM a little, admittedly, mostly to see what my kids are sharing.  It is fun, flamboyant and brilliantly impulsive.  I still keep it toned down compared to the others, but there is a lot to be said about the plethora of images there.  It was a no brainer to get on to Tumblr for the same reason.  I can discover fantastic images, to be shared on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

I'm honored to have made a lot of talented and remarkable connections.  Every day I log on any of the sites, I learn something and more than likely share something else.  My reputation and brand as optioneerJM has evolved from that.  Quite simple.  Very remarkable.

I will be writing a Gratitude blog shortly to personalize and thank those that helped and inspired me to be a better social media citizen to commemorate my five years on social media, starting May 2010.

#Hashtag heaven and going viral on social media

The #icebucketchallenge is absolutely #brilliant.

Unless you live in somewhere without internet connection (like where?), you may not be aware of an internet phenom that has gone viral in the past week.

As a potential social media magician i want you to participate in this. Go to Google or Bing and search the following: "Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Tailor Swift, Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga" (and just about any other famous people you want to add on that you're a fan of) separated by commas.

The results? (Putting on my magician hat, placing my fingers against my forehead, and humming 1 sec) .... Poof! Voila! The top four results fall under the "Ice Bucket Challenge".

Magic? Well, if I were on Penn and Teller's "Fool Us" they just may be social media savvy enough to know that the magic behind my prediction was the power of using #hashtags in #socialmedia.

It should explain what all the fuss is about and help explain the power of using #hashtags. What is a #Hashtag?

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A hashtag is a word or an unspaced phrase prefixed with the number sign ("#"). It is a form of metadata tag.  Words in messages on microblogging and social networking services such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, VK or Instagram may be tagged by putting “#” before them (1) either as they appear in a sentence (e.g.  “New artists announced for #SXSW2014 Music Festival” (2) or appended to it.  The term “hashtag” can also refer to the hash symbol itself.  (3) Hashtags make it possible to group such messages, since one can search for the hashtag and get the set of messages that contain it.  A hashtag is only connected to a specific medium and can therefore not be linked and connected to pictures or messages from different platforms.

Because of its widespread use, the word was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in June 2014.

Unlike most talented magicians, I am going to share the secret how this got up so far in search rankings and became a phenom this past week: when a person/company/profile/celebrity tweets, shares on Facebook, uploads a video on You Tube, +s on Google Plus using the # sign in front of the word, it creates a Hashtag. Regardless of whether it is an event, a person, insight, quote, inspiration .... if it catches on .... i.e. is shared, retweeted, liked, +d ... it will begin trending.

Before I can say "Voila!" (being in a bilingual country Canada I respectfully include my fellow patriots) .... news media outlets on radio, television, newsprint, magazines, you name it have people (this is a suspicion that I cannot verify) have professional lurkers on social media to detect emerging trending topics to a new way of sharing news versus the old way on more cumbersome production requirements while still using that old blessed competition that is striven for: being the first to scoop a hot topic before anyone else.

The old way of getting our news is not just up to the minute, it is up to the second! No professional voice overs, trusted news anchors, esteemed journalists need apply. The use of hashtags alert ALL of the search engines to the trend and OUI (YES!) it appears on the first page -- regardless of whether it is competitors Google or Bing, etc. It is there! If you just try one social media platform (hint) try Twitter, then see what is trending (it will appear on your page when you log on). Or, if you think your Tweet is subjective to a specific audience, then use it for Tweets sake: #business #Linked In #social media #sales .... tag on a hashtag and click on that hashtag (which will appear in blue) -- POOFeroni -- you will magically appear on a page of others who are using the same hashtag. Talk about speed networking!

The terminology is different and dependent on the platform but means the same thing ... it just helps some folk portray themselves as social media wizards when they speak circles around you injecting terms you are not familiar with -- another pet peeve that falls under the same category as acronyms.  I prefer to become known as an educational informant.

Yes, even you or your organization can be a magician. Watch what is trending, sprinkle in the hashtag ... you'll find yourselves cropping up also higher on search page rankings, influence scores (i.e. Klout, KRED). Now, you're a cool kid again (whoopee)! For literal telecommunication translation: The number # sign is also referred to as the "pound key" on your keyboard or phone.  

Better yet - you will be communicating with the popular kids again. Your antiquated outdated methods can be flung aside. You don't have to referee between IT or marketing any longer - YOU are now in the the KNOW! You are the magician of your own destiny.

Note: Image source: (you guessed it) Google :o)