When I was 11 years old, living in rural Alabama, one hot summer I joined a local football team. The school where I was attending at the time didn’t have a football program, but a nearby school did, and a couple of my friends convinced me to join them in playing football.
My good friend and I were on the ‘midget’ football team, and my friend’s two older brothers were on the ‘pee wee’ football team. To be honest, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of playing football for a school where I knew no one. But my friend wanted to play, and my dad encouraged me too, so I sheepishly agreed.
On the first day, we were lined up and the coaches did a series of drills designed to help them figure out what our skills were. Who could throw, who could catch, who could run, etc. I noticed how all the other players were kidding with each other and the coaches. These were all kids that attended this school together, so they were already friends. Everyone knew everyone else, and being an introvert, that made me realize that I had no business being there. No one knew who I was, and as the coaches lined us up for drills, a sense of dread came over me. What was going to happen when it was my turn to catch a pass from the coach? Of course I was going to drop the ball, because I was nervous as hell, and then everyone was going to stop and say “Who is THAT kid? The one that can’t catch?”
Yeah it’s funny how a kid, especially an introverted kid that didn’t want to be there, can overreact.
So I watched as the line in front of me got shorter and shorter. We were lined up and the person at the front of the line would run down the field, and the coach would throw them a pass. Four kids in front of me, then three, then two. Funny thing is, I wasn’t worried about dropping the pass, I was worried that the coach wouldn’t know who I was (how could he?), and that he’d tell me I didn’t belong there because I didn’t go to that school. So by the time the kid in front of me ran out to catch his pass and it was just seconds away from being ‘my turn’, I was almost scared to death. All the worst-case scenarios ran through my mind; The coach wouldn’t know who I was. I would drop the ball and everyone would laugh at me. The coach would laugh at me. Who knew.
The coach watched the kid in front of me catch his pass, he clapped and shouted encouragement to him. Then he turned and grabbed another football, and turned to look at me. This was it.
Then he did something I will never forget; He looked at me, smiled slightly, and said ‘Ok Mack….go get it!’. And he winked at me! The man winked at me! At that moment, all the irrational fears of an introverted 11 year-old kid in a football practice he didn’t really want to be at, immediately disappeared.
I ran a route that would have made Jerry Rice cheer, and if that coach had thrown that ball 10 feet over my head it wouldn’t have mattered because I still would have caught that ball. When that coach smiled and winked at me, he was saying ‘You can do this!’. And I immediately knew I could.
“So Mack” you ask, “what the hell does this have to do with social media?”
I think the lesson is to remember that you sometimes need to lower the bar to encourage interaction. It could be on your blog, your community site, Twitter, where ever.
Believe it or not, there really ARE people out there that have never left a comment on a blog. AND some of them are a bit intimidated at the idea.
Laugh all you want, but many of us have been there ourselves at one point. And maybe it’s because I am an introvert, but I always keep these people in mind when I create content. Look at my last post about social media rockstars. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s probably not the most mentally taxing post you will ever read. But that post (hopefully) was very easy to leave a comment on. It got several comments here, and many RTs on Twitter.
The idea is to occasionally (at least), create content that’s very easy for people to interact with. Making your content more accessible. Because the more people that interact with your content, the better the experience for you, and everyone else.
Try lowering the participation bar, and see what happens. Try saying “Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!”
That just might be the ‘wink’ of encouragement they were waiting for…
Pic via Flickr user pdubs.94
How inspirational ! I can totally relate to the 11 year old. The other great lesson is that Everyone can be a enabler to the next person.
I guess that is the link to social media.
Yes Karima, and that just leads to more connections and a tighter network.
I can totally relate. I have the same fear when it comes to certain things. For as much as I am an extrovert. When put on the spot… especially when someone is trying to show me an example. I tend to lock up. I know this situation is ONLY an example but it could happen everyday. Relationships build business I know this and I have been sitting on the sidelines instead of being in the game. I have to learn the playbook better to be able to find where I fit in this world. But I too have those irrational fears.
How did you conquer yours? Do you start random conversations with people to find out more about them?
.-= Jamie Favreau´s last blog ..Social Media to Save the NHL (Last installment a bit late) =-.
About random conversations, almost everything I tweet about on Twitter is marketing and social media related. But every once in a while I will tweet about something off the wall, favorite movies, or music, or food, or something completely different.
What I find is that the people that reply to me when I am tweeting about these random topics are almost always people that I never talk to otherwise. It’s like since I ‘switched gears’ and picked a different topic, they then found a connection with me that they couldn’t when I was talking social media.
And since we make that connection over those random topics, it’s easier for them to connect with me, and me with them when we talk about social media!
I couldn’t be more in agreement with you. Being new to the game makes you see things from a different perspective than how you big dogs see it. I hope that as I learn more and grow in this business, that I never loose that perspective. For the past 2 years I have done nothing but read books about technology and marketing, and search and learn from blogs.
I only recently made my first comment, and it was after starting my first blog. The post I wrote yesterday touched upon this subject a little. (http://fertilemarketing.com/Blog/tabid/61/PostID/9/Who-took-the-1st-5-steps-off-of-the-ladder.aspx)
It seems that there is a nice learning curve for small businesses wanting to run their own web marketing campaign. Nobody knows how, or where to even start. They get hung up on the massive amount of content available. Luckily I’m a fast reader, but the same isn’t true for the majority.
I hope to keep the bar low to help the many small business owners “climb the ladder” faster so they can focus on the action part of web marketing and not stumble along the learning curve.
Thanks for thinking about the newbies!
I hear you Jeff. Someone once said that the good thing about social media is that now everyone has a voice.
And the bad thing about social media is….that now everyone has a voice.
As you touched on, there’s just SO much information that it’s hard to filter it down to find the relevant information that will help YOU. I think that’s what we need, better filters so that everyone can find a way to get the information of value to them.
Mack
In social media I think that everyone needs that nod of approval or a little push to be motivated to leave a comment or to reach out. Think of how many times when we enter a space where we have not been before and how big it seems or so unfamiliar. The first feeling is how does this work or am I doing this right as if not, you are not accepted but if you are doing it right and are accepted, you return and repeat. Familiarity breeds confidence to continue.
Some people are apprehensive to comment as what if they say the wrong thing or there are so many other comments that it would go unnoticed. As more and more people join the space and learn how to interact with it, the need for acceptance grows but yet the amount of comments does not always. Just as something so simple as the coach knowing your name took every bit of fear out of you and ensured that there was no chance you were going to miss that ball, someone who has never commented or is new to space/blog needs that encouragement to share their thoughts to be a part of the team.
Hi Suzanne! I think not only do the ‘lurkers’ or ‘newbies’ need encouragement, but when they take that first step, we need to acknowledge that. When I am in #blogchat, the tweets are often coming too quickly for me to respond to every one. But if I see anyone tweet that this is their first #blogchat, I will always reply to them and thank them for coming. A very simple way to reach out to someone that takes that first step!
I work with a lot of virtual assistants and this is very common among some of them. They are afraid to leave a comment or do any kind of social media work. They think they may make a stupid comment or will be ridiculed in some way. It really is the same feelings the unpopular kids in school have.
I encourage them to just be them self and to not force a comment, to just start small, maybe add just a short sentence or say that you liked something that was said.
.-= Heather Villa´s last blog ..What to do When the Ship is Sinking =-.
Heather I hear you, and this is where I *hate* how some people in this space are viewed as ‘popular’. Because what happens is we are unintentionally ranking people. If someone is deemed to be ‘popular’, and I see that I have one tenth of the followers that they do, it’s too easy for me to think that I am NOT popular. And that I can’t comment on their post.
In many ways social media can be very cliquey, and I hate that.
Mack,
I think this is great advice, depending on the purpose of your blog.
If you lower the bar too much, you may disappoint those readers who have been with you for a while, and they’re looking for the real content. If bloggers are always lowering the bar, who’s going to take readers to the next level, and raise the bar of thought and insight. If it’s a blogger’s responsibility to educate and insight, is lowering the bar not counterintuitive?
Wouldn’t you now be better suited to raise the bar on your content, but create a design and navigation that draws in those beginners/introverts and gives them a place to get warmed up?
Perhaps based on your story, it’s not about changing your content (you still had to catch the ball) but rather about adding a personal, friendly touch to help the reader become more comfortable (the coach saying your name and winking at you).
Like I said it depends on the goal of your blog. Mashable lowers the bar as much as possible because they are very focused on producing content that beginners feel comfortable with. If that’s not your goal, then lowering the bar on your content may not be the best idea.
David
Community Manager, Scribnia.com
.-= David Spinks´s last undefined ..Response cached until Thu 4 @ 18:57 GMT (Refreshes in 2.43 Hours) =-.
David you’re right, I don’t think this approach works for every post, and honestly if your content is always ‘easily accessible’, it likely won’t be as valuable to your readers, since it won’t be pushing them to think in new ways.
It’s a tradeoff, I think.
Nice post Mack! Totally agree on it, I’ve been following your blog for a while and have not commented 🙂 though I have shared the ones i like out on twitter. It is important to lower the bar and be accessible to a larger audience as people do tend to get intimidated by the SM gurus or Subject Matter Experts even if they do have something of value to share.
Thanks Shane! I appreciate your first comment, hope you’ll stick around! What’s your Twitter name, I want to make sure I am following you and that everyone else here can as well.
This is a wonderful post; what a great visual you created with the trauma-filled pass-catching line. It is a challenge to remember to add a “wink” to our social media efforts, like building our fan base on Facebook. We are concentrating on interactions, not numbers, and believing that engaging is more important than collecting. There is no formula to draw out a comment or a thumbs up, but we remember that other horrible place in school: the lunchroom. So, we are adding a friendly “come sit with us!” to our messaging. It’s supposed to be fun, not intimidating!