I am Learning the Social Web Media Networking 2.0

In case it’s not obvious, I’ve only the most hazy idea of what Web 2.0 and Social Networking really are. I looked Web 2.0 up on Wikipedia and have decided that’s something I will hire people to do for me, if there is anything to be done about it besides just throw it into conversation every now and again. Perhaps on a resume if I ever decide to get a job “2008 – Implemented a Social Network using a dynamic, keyword rich Web 2.0 platform rubric automation application.” Doesn’t that instill much confidence? I thought so.

I put Web 2.0 aside for the Tree People to deal with (I’m a Forest person, I need the Trees, but I can’t say that I understand the Trees) and pulled on my boots to go wading into the exciting new waters of Social Networking, in order to grow my vast corporate empire.

It’s hard to go from being the big dog of a very tiny internet community to being a virtual nobody on the outside. I’d forgotten what it was like when everybody doesn’t know your name, when you don’t know if you really belong. I can’t say that I wasn’t tempted to call “Retreat!” and retire to my own little web cocoon but I was determined to persevere and make sense of it all.

The most common piece of advice given to bloggers looking to build an audience is to go around commenting on other people’s blogs. Your comment should be useful and engaging and in return the blogger is supposed to come around to your blog and make a comment. Sort of like the Victorian ritual of going visiting and leaving cards, only with more pressure because you can’t just say “Hi! I was here, now come see me!” Remember, you have to add value to the conversation, so it’s not enough to just say “I liked it” even though I would kill for that kind of feedback. Some people are good at being insightful and engaging; I’m a simpler sort of commenter. I like things, I am grateful for advice, I think people are swell. Perhaps there should be a separate section for compliments that add nothing to the conversation but are just nice things to say.

Armed with this advice, I set off to find blogs to comment on, which is time consuming but fun. Who doesn’t like to read great blogs? And when I felt like I had something to say, I commented which gave me not a small bit of anxiety because I didn’t want the blogger to feel obligated to come check out my site and leave a comment. There is no way to say “Hey, even though all the experts told me to comment for the network building, I really just wanted to say I liked your stuff and you don’t have to come to my blog, although if you want to that would certainly be okay. But wait until next week when I’ll have some quality stuff, okay? Because let me tell you “Stuffing in a Cup”? Not my best work” and not sound like a tool. Some people might be charmed by my gawkiness but these are busy people who write well, they don’t need my sort hanging around.

Actually, I have to confess, I found this one blog MomGrind written by the talented and gracious Vered. The first post I read, I thought it was pretty thought provoking, so I linked it on my forums. Then, she had another one that had these hilarious pictures in it, so I linked that one, too. Then I friended her on Facebook and now, I’ll be frank, I am paranoid that she thinks I am stalking her and/or am looking for a loan. If you’re reading this Vered, I am harmless, I am just very enthusiastic about sharing things I enjoy.

Which brings me to StumbleUpon. I don’t actually understand how it works, but boy do I love hitting that thumbs up button! For the enthusiastic sharer, it’s a dream come true. I’ve also heard that it’s useful for getting traffic, but I haven’t thought of a way to ask people to stumble my posts without feeling like I’m putting them on the spot. What if they hate my stuff? What if they hate me and want me to fail but are too nice to say so? And you’re not supposed to stumble your own stuff, so I’m not sure what to do.

When you are the first person to thumbs up a site to StumbleUpon, a screen pops up asking you to put the page in a category and add tags. There is a part of me that says “YES! I win!!” when I am the first person to discover a page, and another part of me that dreads it. What if I put it in the wrong category and all the people who see it aren’t interested and it completely and totally sinks? What is a good tag? What if the ones I pick aren’t good ones and the people who would like this site never see it and I’ve failed the very person I wanted to help? Do people even want me to stumble their sites? For all I know a Tracy endorsement of a site is the kiss of death. I thought of asking people if they minded if I stumbled their site, but it felt a bit too needy and again, I don’t want to put them on the spot and have them feel obligated to say “Sure! And I’ll stumble yours, too!”

You can see that it’s my life’s work to never, ever put anyone on the spot. Social networking is not for the codependent, that’s for dang sure.

My newest adventure is twittering. For those that don’t know, Twitter is a social networking site where you leave 140 character tweets and people can respond to them and forward them. It’s actually a lot more fun and interesting than it sounds; people share links and ask questions and give answers and will even help you out. For example my new friend The_Gman, I can just direct message him and say “Hey, what is a no follow, should I do it?” and he’ll not only give me an answer, but provide several links. BTW, he does the SEO, which is another thing I am trying and failing to understand. All I know is that you search for “can humans eat dried cuttlefish” I am the second hit and I am damn proud of it. Anyway, if you are looking for SEO consulting, he would be a good person to know. Once I learn enough to ask him a smart question, I am totally going to do it.

Twitter is an awesome resource but not without it’s share of anxiety producing dilemmas.

To start, unlike say Facebook, you are encouraged to “follow” people you don’t even know. As in, search for people in your niche that look interesting and just follow them. They can follow you back if they want, but there is no obligation. The problem I have is that I’m not sure what my niche is. I try to be funny but saying your niche is humor is kind of a tall order. And you can tell by my complete regard for sentence structure, poor vocabulary and lack of lush, descriptive phrases that I’m not a “writer” so I’m not sure if I should make that my niche and just pretend like any funny I produce is a coincidence. People expect a lot from humor writers and frankly, I’m not sure I’m up to the challenge. Food – I eat big slabs of things called “brown candy” so I don’t know that they’d want me. Mommy blogger – I do have kids but I’m not sure if that’s enough to be a mommy blogger. Blogger, period? Is that too wide? Is smorgasbord a niche? That’s kind of what I’m after, a bit of everything in tasty little bites.

My strategy now is just to follow people that seem nice and/or interesting and/or added me first and just enjoy the conversations. There is angst in that, too, because I’m not sure if just jumping in there and commenting on their tweets is okay. I know they say it’s okay, and you’re supposed to participate but I just hate bothering people. It’s nice when they answer back, very nice and warm and fuzzy. When they don’t, I assume they are busy doing very important things and will remember me with fondness next time they see me. Probably not true, but good for my mental health.

I try my best not to come off too weird or like I’m trying to buddy up to them to do the social networking. I think my problem is I’ve read too many articles on how to use Twitter to your advantage and I’m paranoid that everyone else has read them, too and they think that I am trying to put the slick twit moves on them. After putting people on the spot, my biggest fear in life is coming off smarmy and that’s a very real risk for people doing this sort of thing. I could just be myself, but what if nobody likes me that way? It’s a much less crushing blow to the ego if people don’t like your persona, then they are just idiots that don’t appreciate social networking performance art.

So far, this has been a fun, if angst provoking experience. You have to be willing to put yourself out there. I know it seems like I already put myself out there by having a blog but doing this says “Hey, I think I’m good enough to share myself with the world. I’m trying. I’m giving it a shot. I could fail”. That’s pretty intimidating but faint heart never built big blog, so I’ll keep plugging away. Who else is with me?

You can follow me on Twitter, if you want. You certainly aren’t obligated to. In fact, forget I asked, it was stupid and impulsive. I’ll follow you though, just leave your ID in the comments.

If you have a blog that you’d like to share with the IHMMB community, feel free to post it here. Guest posting is enabled and we’d love to meet you.

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Tagged as: blogging, facebook, social networking, stumbleupon, twitter