FOCUS on building a tribe online on all social media, not merely a following

#CalgaryBlogger
(c) Jeannette Marshall
 @optioneerJM on Instagram
@postingfromedge on Twitter
Original ART
#aPaintingFool hashtag capturing posts

FOCUS is the arrow that
shoots you to the moon!

Tackle one day at a time,
one task a day, scoped out,
scaled, cost analysis,
homework done.

THAT FOCUS can make or break you
trying to juggle too many priorities at once It is 100% contributor of any ONE downfall or failure.

Whether it is a personal life speed bump ~something that takes you out to left field, completely takes you off your game.

Or a slap in the ass from the making of income to support yourself, your family and significant others.  

It could be at FULL WARP speed coming right at you and even Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock could avert disaster from.

Watching a family member go through the struggles of survival, chronic pain tempered with oxicotin medication that evolved into dependency, then frozen so they turned to "street drugs" to soften the excruciating pain and diabetes side effects.

They ended up dying in the care of a medical facility in B.C. whose medical team had written off as an addict.  Not receiving the same care as what society deems acceptable.

Everything kept coming at em:  financial struggles where things became sources of money, compounded by multiple health infliction that were increasingly attacking mental wellness.

"WORRY stems from the lack of focus."

~ Jeannette Marshall

#CalgaryBlogger

#QUOTE

EVERYONE struggles to COPE

Nobody gets a pass.

One woman's agony is another person's mother or sister.

A new job, nerves, insecurity, lack of confidence from it taking years to find employment.  ~It's just another struggle someone else is trying to conquer.

WHEN YOU do too much at once
Something is going to cave.  No one is Wonder Woman or Superman or lives in a bat cave with extraordinary wealth.

For every PROBLEM there's a SOLUTION
How you tackle it is dependent on FOCUS.  Getting out the paper, with a pencil and drawing it out.  What is in front of you?  What is preventing you from realizing your dreams?

You can't get without steps
Identical to pigs can't fly.
You have to break it down.
Once you see what is in front of you:  it could be three columns or two.
You have to be able to break it down by steps, you can't leap over tall buildings, nor can you get to the final finish with that.

Let's keep it to three to maximize formula

COLUMN A ; PLAN A;  PLAN B
For example:  Accept new job
PROs and CONs on scale of 1-10, 10 best
Financial implications:  Income -expenses less> living costs (mortgage/rent+utilities
+phone/cell) = leftover for gas, smokes, drinks, groceries

OR, you can define COLUMN A and B to be simply on financial metrics

Then you start to focus on one item at a time.  What step allows you to move to the next step towards the final accomplishment?

IF it is a new job, use my "30-60-90 day Plan" to map it out so that you can hit the day running.  BONUS if you hand it to your boss before you're even hired - showing you can break it down to steps and timelines.

Just starting this off, you will discover how much you have been scrambling to accomplishment way too many things at once.  Naively thinking that you can finish in all quick swoop, while distractions from the other important matters that are falling behind too.

By setting a FOCUS, you can teach yourself discipline.  You force yourself to realize that in order to get this over with, you have things you may not want to do, perhaps someone can give you advice?  

Sidebars and unfocused activities, deviate from finishing anything, missing deadlines, mentally scattered.  It can give the impression that you are indecisive or a stumbling buffoon when you are anything but.

I see people who are in leadership who can be like this.  It is from the inability to divide and conquer tasks.

When you start to draw the plans out, follow the steps, adding new steps you discover on the quest, adjust timelines, deduct costs or delays.

That is really no different that what a Project Manager does:  

1)  Determine the project scope:  What the completed result will be, what is required to finish it, who will be required to work on it, how the decision making process works, what the budget is, how overruns on costs will be reported?  Who and how will third party resources be determined and/or accounted for by cost or by delays or time improvements.

In this, you are drawing out what your focus should be based on what the pros and cons dictated should be the highest priority.  The more honest and detailed you are, the easier it is going to assess and debrief on how it went.

This is discipline.

That is focus.

don't be a NINKOMPHpoof: practice the Golden Rule

Sometimes I really do find my fingers shake a bit to restrain myself from joining in and ranting like a lot of other people do when on social media. 

Other times, I sit back, I read, I click on links to read more.  I'm in learning mode then.  That can certainly settle me down a bit.  

However, one person I know very very well, and love very very much, in real life, knows that I'm not always so poised and restrained.  I did go on a flurry of reTWEETs earlier today.  

It could be virtually conceived by my reTWEETing I was reacting to what I was reading.  I was.  It upset me.  I had a "poor me" reaction.   The subject would know who I am talking about.  

Yet likely that person doesn't read this blog, or any of my blogs for that matter.  Doesn't read my Tweets, unfollowed me on Instagram, Facebook ages ago.  

Aha!  There was still a way to make connection:  I sent out a series of reTWEETs of that person's.  That was after finding out that this beloved RELATIVE (yes, it is a family member, which makes it more sensitive you'd think?) UNFOLLOWed me on Twitter too!  I did whine by sending one previous tweet to a Twitter notorious person who was one of my first influencial follow backs on there had just unFOLLOWed me.  

I was a lot more calmer at that point.  Although I was perplexed how someone with almost 300,000 followers on Twitter actually takes the time to unFOLLOW someone who you had been side by side for almost seven years with.  

You think they're ticked off after that much time?  Well, hardly since the last interaction I was supporting something they were working on.  Granted, that had been quite a number of months ago.    

Maybe they figured out that I had found a great APP or social media tool that helps me better define my audience, they would be right.  

That I'd written a little bit more about takers on social media who take, ask, want, post for you to like or reTWEET and then basically ignore you any other time.  That goes with the territory.  Just because someone follows you on any of them, there is no small type agreement that you are signing to promise that you will read, like, share, comment, rePIN, rePOST or reTWEET everything that individual does.

Can you imagine the drastic plummeting of following if that were the law?  If the reversal of these images were true and it was social media that became cobwebs and tumble weeds?

Imagine the loss of blogs, books, ebooks, audiobooks, pages, websites dedicated to telling people how to use social media for their greater purpose, regardless of what that is, for example:

* More readers
* More viewers
* More consumers
* More buyers
* More applause
* More followers
* More hashtags
* More page views
* More subscribers

What would happen if you could only follow someone that you promised to endorse, support, champion, read, share, like, comment 100% all of the time.  Who could keep up?

Possibly the takers, because they are already conditioned to taking without offering anything in return.

I'm not saying both of my Twitter twitches today were like that.    Only one, because of the long term following compared to the actual number of followers this person has, how could they have conceivably singled me out to unfollow?  I thought I was well within the positive engagement radar.  

I have preached a lot about the Golden Rule:  treat others as you wish to be treated yourself.  In the world of karma credits, if you unfollow someone for some obscure reason, you are not treating others as you wish to be treated.  In fact, you may want others to feed your ego, tell you how fantastic you are, share your stuff, like it, subscribe, repost and share.  

For that I may have been guilty.  Maybe I haven't been as "engaged" lately as this person had decided.    I hadn't been rude, or annoying either.

Well, maybe I have been annoying.  I have used this fantastic social media service that has allowed me to be better engaged with those reaching out to me while revealing who is just a taker.

Create content on social media that sticks

The power of creative visuals

Most of us learn by reading blogs like this or observing a great example by someone else and then adopting the idea.

Google Plus (G+)

In my opinion, Google Plus (G+) displays images the best.  I was fortunate to be one of the initial adopters of G+.  What I like about G+ also is that the stream is not crowded unless you are following bazillions of people.

Guy Kawasaki

Guy is the first person I first initially noticed always had a strong visual to compliment his posts to emphasize his posts on G+ and whom I adopted this idea from his lead.

I've written about it, and walk the walk all the time by including strong visuals.  I do like powerful photo images and keep a folder on my PC desktop to host some of my favorites.

Art

Creates strong visuals also and artists can always use the boost when you credit them for their creation.

When I'm in a certain mood, I will pull them out, look for a quote from a Google search that I feel compliments the image.  Then I have it for posting on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus mostly.

You can do a Google Search on anything.  I will do the search and then pop into the images tab across the top of the page (not just the answers Google has supplied) to see what goodies I will find.  It's not always foolproof and sometimes I have to hunt a little harder.

Google search result for "Best of Pinterest Images"

PINTEREST

Is like my file cabinet that I want to keep to reference later on.  You can sort things by topic or categorize however you are inspired.  When you pin anything, it is displayed on Pinterest's main page, so it can filter across the screen of unknown Pinners who can like or rePIN it themselves.  It can attract new followers.

FIND ME ON PINTEREST

QUORA

Asked me this question to answer:  "How do you create content on social media that gets noticed?" and this was my answer, unedited, fresh from the source:

1. Include powerful images. Visual creativity can be another talent that is rewarded by using images in posts.
2. I like to find images around the web and use them for my blogs. Along the way, when I find an image that appeals to me, I will adopt it, add either my own quote or one that resonates with the message I’m trying to convey.

• HOW TO ADD TEXT TO IMAGES: I’m not an elaborate user, have had to experiment a fair bit, and apply trial and error to get it right. I use MicroSoft PAINT. Lately, I’ve experimented with adding borders to include my quote so as to avoid ruining the image or if I don’t want to have text running across it.
• PEOPLE LOVE QUOTES: I can be inspired to create a quote while I’m blogging and extend it to share across social media.
• IDENTIFY yourself on your creations so that if your quote/image is shared, your name is carried.
• IMAGE SOURCE: I try to include the photographer or artist to give them credit and recognition as often as possible.

By invitation

What I have found to be cool is that after creating these quotes with art or photos for a while, you may find yourself invited to groups to add or share content.  That is a nice reward for being prepared to do trial and error. This can increase awareness tenfold because the likelihood is that others who share the same interest, are likely to LIKE or SHARE your stuff.  If you customize it, then it should stand out.

Gratitude

Using your manners and going out of your way to thank people, attracts notice.  As with KARMA, you attract what you send out.  Never underestimate the powerful attraction of being polite.

How to use Paint to add text:

I will show you how I create the right atmosphere to 

share a quote.  Here are a few tips when using Paint:

  

You can get a pretty close match to your text 

color by using the dropper 

Just add text:

1) Select TEXT icon

2) Create Text Box

3)  Select color (click on dropper icon {the color you selected before for the border should still be saved} then choose the font, text size, boldness, you want.

and VOILA!

Give it a try

Certainly, there are apps and software out there to help you create your unique masterpiece like CANVA, etc.  However, since I started using PAINT, after trial and error, I've become more adept at using it.  I may not be a graphic designer, but I know what I like when I see it.  PAINT allows me to fiddle around and be creative.

Experiment

Sometimes, I admit, I don't always find what I am looking for, so I just create it.  I use my mouse as my drawing tool, whether to create or enhance an image.   Obviously, I need more practice.

I certainly have fun fooling around on PAINT.

Social media is the pen pal of communications

I profess to have this inside scoop on social media.  Yet how can I be?  Especially, since I work full time and was launched among the sweat and tears of looking for work, five years ago.  (Yawn, you've heard it before:  it all started on Linked In where I met Sandy who guided me into Twitter, graciously introduced me to people on the clicking edge of social media.  The rest of us were soon to be groupies, drooling at the incredible talent this world we live in together is so talented!!  

Aren't we all so lucky that we don't have to rely on our TVs, newspapers, magazines, radio any more.  Well, certainly, we are an information consumption oriented folk who may eventually be considered the early adopters.  Long long after the visionaries sat around a library table, having a few beers together, deciding to join forces to prove a point to the rest of the world.  Passing notes is not disruptive, bad behavior is rarely found among day dreamers,

Yet, what is this world it has become?  You can't get into trouble for passing notes (unless you are Donald Trump, or a raging has been star), because there is this BIG THING called social media.  Where you can speak your mind, share what you know, share what you love, share what you consume, want to consume, whether anyone is listening really.  Well, at the start anyhow.

That is at its core:  it thumbs its nose at conventional discipline for doing what others perhaps expect you to do or be.  Good things happen to great people is its mantra.  Why there are people that become overnight sensational storytellers, photographers, authors, writers, historians, foodies, models, lonely hearts clubbers retired from the frump frumping of the you should be out doing something beat.  

Embarrassingly, there others that take to airing dirty laundry, opinionated beyond reason because they aren't being held to question .... often.  There are some that may have some fame, notoriety who won't settle to being a small number .... they want to have a very BIG ..... numbers represented by followers.

Heavens, a young lad in the middle of nowhere to most people (until the world finances crumble remembered its name) Canada, to get young tweens (pre-teen 9-12 year old) girls hearts to tremble with love and adoration, who could go off and actually achieve fame and fortune, if not always good.

It is a place where so many can share one shadey association by saying or doing some stupid things that can get you minimally laughed at, smirked about, quoted, replayed, rewritten, if not quietened to the hummmm and tsk tsk of a once adoring audience or group.


Social media has created a revolution of expression, artistry, music, events, global proximity that has never been seen before.  Imagine ... in just a few years, our kids will site library visits as a mandatory curriculum field trip, like we used to visit museums in our time.  

The most notable are honorees immersed and embraced by every form of traditional medias who are feeling overwhelmed driven into survival mode, clambering for funnel of advertising revenues that are being distracted elsewhere.  

 As a study on millinial short attention spanners dropping their parents methods of obtaining news.  Where anything called Daily news, Daily mirror, Daily anything falls into the background of THE NOISE.  The noise is created by individual people of all ages, all cultures, all races, all types of family dynamics, domestic arrangements, from the learning to the learned are the ones who matter now.  They can decide what is important by creating #hashtags that catch on like fire, drowning out some of the noise we need to hear on health, economy, poverty, bullying, violence.  

Are we creating a world that we are creating our own robotic existence?  Do we only pay attention to those that think the way we do.  Where the heck did guru come from?  Do we open our empathy or does it increase our apathy.  The scientists, not typically known for gregarious characteristics, may be drowned out by dishonesty, falsehood, scams, SPAM, and the loudest of all:  PICK me, SELL me.

Like children with a gift packaged in a gigantic box, we are only playing with the box:  the computer, and rapidly being overtaken by smart phones.  The complicated and cumbersome are being tossed for the aesthetic more pleasing, better working, customized, following partner that goes everything, asking for so little:  just read, like, share, write, communicate, post, blog that it has to give you.  So portable, easy to access, quick, painful, joyful or hopeful these little instruments allow us to read, look, watch, admire, visualize whatever we love.

Like masters, our behavior lends the devices our respect, finances, images, opinions, hearts, needs, and lessening humility.  

The real geniuses of social media are the ones that use it as a tool to communicate, teach, share, inspire, motivate others to want to be better.  Not just hope to be better.  We only get better when we interact with others.  The fact that we have such a great opportunity to gravitate towards those that tend to share our own ideals, visions, outlook, positions on important matters, or less important matters.   

Has an elementary child ever heard of the term of PEN PAL?  

Does anyone really have to wait for a music CD to hit a retail store anymore?  With iTunes, Spotify and the whole she-bang, their kids will never have heard of half of the things we have now?  How about a wallet (there's an APP for that), an album (you download a song, not an album, you silly), or wondering when their favorite author will publish their next novel (oh dear, um, sorry if you don't read from your smartphone or tablet).

How many of us have the anti-social in our lives?  The ones who have discovered a text message (sms) is far quicker than an email, haven't quite caught on to an all persons in persons meeting without having to spring for flights, or hotels, or airport parking to join with their colleagues for an immediate and important conversation virtually personal appearances by all with 100% attendance.  The ones on a teleconference call are the cousins to the emailers.  

In all of this midst, it is confounding the advertising gurus and disgruntling the brands who want to be captured, not optionally, viewed or read.

Well, one thing is certain and obvious to me.  We're all adapting together and trying to draw in the outsiders and refusers to get on board.  A key board that is.

Mute instead of block on #Twitter

Feedback from family members was how annoying my #RT (retweets) and mentions on Twitter because they clog up their Twitter feed. They subscribe to Twitter instead of partake in it.  They want to see what is trending or what is going on.  You can get a quick traffic report or weather forecast quicker than anywhere if you tailor your follows based on the information you want to get quickly.   Granted, if you don't have a lot whom you follow, the more active ones can appear to take over your stream.  How inconvenient to have to scroll through the clutter of one or two when you are trying to find out how your drive to work will be or if you should confirm an outdoor pursuit if the weather is uncooperative. 

I understand how irritating this can be from the outside looking in. Many see is it as a continuous stream of tweets that make no sense, have no useful information or appears as a group of names.  That is, unless you are in the tribe, have a crew, or building an online brand for career reasons.  

To be a positive Social Media or Twitter citizen, you may want to consider and abide by the rules:  if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. More to that:  it is a reciprocal culture and a must to acknowledge and either respond directly, #RT or *star favorites is an alternative to not appearing in your stream.

Note:  there are some influential Twittizens that include you on their radar and in essence are promoting you to their followers or a specific group of followers.  To ignore is to fall out of that loop.  That explains why you see so many #RTs.

Personally, it comes down to manners.  Silly as that sounds.  In my view, if someone takes the time to include @optioneerJM in their Tweets, I should  thank or #RT as a form of being polite.   You will be dropped eventually if you don't acknowledge back.  Recently, I started another experiment and that was to reply with the lovely photo that I chose to be my page background because it was seasonally inspired and communicated love.

On the upside, if you are interested in analytics or follow leaders in  algorithm like Klout or KRED, you factor in not so much the quantity of followers you have but their quality.  I know, I've promised my take on these measurement tools a while ago, and will get to that eventually.


Be kind.  Be polite.  

Try mute instead of blocking. You can mute a specific user who you find has taken over your feed on Twitter.  They are not trying to be rude or obnoxious.  They may simply have a lot of followers and interactions.

Some go so far as to block, which irritates me from its ignorance and sometimes pettiness.  

Some take it to the extreme by using the block feature.  Often it is driven by ignorance or pettiness.  

You can temporarily mute someone if you find they are overwhelming your feed.  Here are instructions straight from Twitter:

Muting users on Twitter

Mute is a feature that allows you to remove an account's Tweets from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking that account. Muted accounts will not know that you’ve muted them and you can unmute them at any time. To access a list of accounts you have muted, visit your muted accounts settings.

Some important things to know about mute:

• Muted accounts can follow you and you can follow muted accounts. Muting an account will not cause you to unfollow them.
• Muting an account does not impact the account’s ability to send you a Direct Message.
• You will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from any muted account.

For muted accounts that you follow:

• @ replies and mentions by the muted account will still appear in your Notifications tab.
• Tweets from a muted account before the time the account was muted will still be displayed in your Home timeline.

For muted accounts that you do not follow:

• @ replies and mentions will not appear in your Notifications tab.

To mute a Twitter user on the web:

Muting from a Tweet:

1. From a Tweet, click More at the bottom of the Tweet.
2. Click Mute.

Muting from a profile:

1. Go to the profile page of the person you wish to mute.
2. Click the gear icon  on their profile page. This brings up a drop-down actions menu.
3. Select Mute from the options listed.

Once you’ve muted a user on the web, you will see a confirmation banner. If you made a mistake, you can click Undo to unmute a user right away.

Slick and easy peasy 
 
Like most platforms, Twitter has support and resources available to help your user experience.  As a matter of fact, I found these instructions directly from resources by Twitter.  

You can also retract sharing your Tweets with Facebook, because you can accidentally be repetitive in any feeds by how you are linking them.



Like any good friend who tells you have a piece of parsley is stuck in your teeth, the intention is to help avoid even mild embarrassment.  A friend did message me privately, asking me if something was wrong with my feed because she was seeing posts duplicated 3 or even 4 times.  It forced me to realize that I had to do some homework on many are being bottle necked into Facebook. Truthfully, it is important to me not to irritate my "friends" on Facebook because there is more of a personal touch.  I embrace the more interaction, comments from those I select as having positive influence.

I am now leaning towards being more ruthless under that select group.  Everyone agrees with me that they see some people who post only their own stuff and only comment or reply if it is within that post.  It's like they're unaware or borderline selfish that they never comment or like anything anyone else posts.  It seems a little too "me me and more about me" even if they think they are being helpful.  

If you see a photo that you like, a quote that resonates, or just someone sharing a memory or experience:  acknowledge by at least liking it (signifies you're paying attention).  Those that take the time to comment, create mini conversations.  

There are some fabulous people out there that I'd like to read more from or get to know better.  I hardly can do that without actively searching out specifically.  You got it, the same problem happens on Facebook.  They think if you have liked something from a particular person, you want to see more of their posts.  Similarly, if they tag more people who all comment and like, they will continuously be in your feed.  That's the nature of the beast.

Ego is prevalent on Social Media


If all you do is post and interact with only those within those posts, I suggest you create a page so that your fans can chose to subscribe to your page, and you put all that stuff on that page to relieve the rest of your followers from having their streams bottlenecked with your fan club.  What I'm suggesting people, is take personal inventory. Try to perceive how you look.  You could be shocked when at least 50% don't follow your page or may only be responding because they are being polite or reciprocal. 

Heeding my own advice, I have experimented with content creation services.  To help me stay in front of those interested while I'm at work or living life, I have preselected the best of 500pics and "Mashable" on Twitter.  Funny, I chose to post images from InstaGRAM any photo shares with #Calgary or #yyc on Facebook.  Puzzling I'm sure to some, like my kids, who wonder why I'd posted something that is unrelated to me or I don't know them.  I don't actually want to give up on it entirely, because it does show a finger on the pulse on all matters related to Calgary.  

I tend to experiment first before I go all in.  I posted over the weekend that I was going to start to trim my Facebook friends -- if there is little interaction or only self-serving for them, I was going to start weeding.  Like gardening, you have to get rid of the weeds before the flowers can bloom.  I want to see all the golden nuggets that I may be missing.  Interesting, one amazing social media influencer acknowledged one of my pics and we had a mini conversation which amounts to interaction.  He had either read what I'd posted or is like-minded:  interacts with those that tend to be more genuine.  


The tools are there, use them.  Twitter offers more help with the Mute functionality on smartphones and how to backtrack if you decide to change your mind:

To mute a Twitter user on iOS:

Muting from a Tweet:

1. Tap a Tweet from the user you’d like to mute.
2. Tap the ••• icon.
3. Tap Mute and Yes, I’m sure to confirm.

Muting from a profile:

1. Visit the profile page of the user you wish to mute.
2. Tap the gear icon. 
3. Tap Mute and Yes, I’m sure to confirm.

To mute a Twitter user on Android:

Muting from a Tweet:

1. Tap the overflow icon. 
2. Tap Mute @username and confirm.

Muting from a profile:

1. Visit the profile page of the user you wish to mute.
2. Tap the overflow icon. 
3. Tap Mute and Yes, I’m sure to confirm.

How do I know if someone is muted? 

When you visit the profile of a user you have muted, you will see the red mute icon. 

To access a list of accounts you have muted:

1. Navigate to your muted account settings on Twitter.com. You will see a list of every account you are currently muting.
2. From the top of the list, you can select to view Accounts you follow that you have muted, or All accounts that you have muted.
3. You can unmute users by clicking the red mute icon to unmute. 

Note: Accounts you follow will list the users you are both currently following and muting. The All tab will display all the accounts you’re muting, including the ones you are following.

To unmute a Twitter user:

1. Visit the muted user’s profile on Twitter.
2. Click the red mute icon  to unmute.

Unfollowing, blocking and reporting accounts as spam:

In addition to muting users, you can also unfollow users, block users, or report accounts as spam. Please read those help pages for more information.

There you have it.  Now you don't have to permanently delete someone important (like your mother who dabbles in social media).  You can mute and unmute based on your current mood.  I could see myself doing so once I've #RT someone respectfully and momentarily want to better sift through the tweets.  With almost 12,000 followers, I still want to interact personally as much as possible.  Or, I'd like to prove value with my personal thoughts, ideas, or share images or articles I find interesting.  I would rather they not be muddled in with a bunch of my good manners or social media code of ethics:  to acknowledge and thank those who take time to make me a part of the experience.  Heavens, I'd be horrified to be considered SPAMmy.  I'll leave SPAM as another topic of importance to discuss later on.  

My dream is aligned with my goals: to be a digital specialist for a specific company I have in mind and I'm building my reputation just for that.  Ironically, I was doing my research on their reach and looked them up on Klout.  That was when I discovered that I hadn't connected Facebook to Klout and that certainly impacted measurement scores.  How goofy is that?  Not surprisingly, my score went up a few notches immediately.  Yes, I'll write about that too:  How building your brand online can help your career.

Practice the golden rule.

Treat others as you wish to be treated yourself. 


Manage your expectations.
  
If you expect to be treated with respect, ensure you are being respectful towards others.