Last Updated on April 20, 2020
How many times in your offline life did you feel like you were tired of all “social rules”, of all those who were better dressed than you, who drove cars better than yours (in case you had a car), of all those who had less education than you did and still told you how to see right from wrong?
Then, one day, BINGO!, you discover there is another way. The online way, where nobody cares about your car and about your clothes, where everything that matters is what you have to say and the way you say it. This surely feels good, you smile and start planning. You read a couple of books and a dozen of blogs, then you realize that you have something to say and that you can say it at least as well as those online famous people do.
And you start saying it.
When we were children, we had this saying: “could you talk in a bag, so I can listen to it later, please?”. Why did I remember this exactly now, when you are on your way to telling the world about your thoughts? I don’t know, it must be my subconscious mind, which refuses to believe what seems to be a reality:
IT MATTERS LESS WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY AND HOW WELL YOU CAN SAY IT, THAN WHO YOU KNOW AND HOW MUCH YOU ARE WILLING TO SOCIALIZE.
Did you expect it to be different? Did you expect that a solitary, antisocial bear would be successful online? Why? Only because people cannot see the cave around him?
My dear bear, you were so wrong! Who makes the online world? They are people, not robots, what did you expect? Do you want recognition? What are you willing to do for it? I can give you a few hints:
- Follow 100 people on Twitter and blog about that every other day. People like being followed, because this makes them feel as leaders. And why do you think leadership is such a big issue nowadays? People are paying lots of money to attend leadership classes, in their wish to be recognized by the masses.
- E-mail them and let them know you’ve blogged about their tweets. you are nobody, remember? How else would they know they are followed?
- Subscribe to 100 blogs (list available on request), and refresh your reader every five minutes, then whenever a new post appears, submit it to social networks, so you make sure you are the first who reveals the news to the community.
- Work hard on your social networking profile(s), invest some time (a few hours a day should be just fine) in befriending people and in voting their submissions. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t manage from the first 1000 attempts. Try harder, success is just by the next corner.
- Whenever you have some great things to say, e-mail significant others to let them know, maybe they will notice you and they will drop a line in their so popular articles about your ideas.
- Pretend you are helpless and be ready to invest in your future by subscribing to a few paid membership communities where you’ll learn the path to success. This will pay off sooner or later. You don’t have money? Well, did you try a credit card?
- Interact with your peers. Everybody is so busy with promoting their own bear fur, that very few people actually have time to notice a nobody like you. Tame them, establish a relationship between you. Do you remember the “Little Prince” and the fox? In the beginning, the fox was just a fox, a nobody, but then, when he tamed it, it became “his fox”, “his friend”, somebody noticeable amongst all foxes. So make a list of people and start taming them now.
You did all the above, you see some results but you’re still not satisfied. Well, there’s more: INFLATE YOURSELF. I don’t mean here that you should lie. You should never lie, because liars are scumbags, and nobody likes them. Just sign up with Google AdWords and buy some cheap traffic (there’s no affiliate link here, don’t ask why, Google just doesn’t like bears outside US, that’s all). Do you think AdWords is too expensive, or your ads suck so badly that nobody ever clicks on them? There is plenty of cheap traffic you can buy in other places. It is true that it doesn’t convert, but it can help you reach your goal: be sure that if you can buy enough traffic to break Alexa’s top 10,000, you’ll start to get noticed. How? Smaller bears will start to tame you, in their attempt to become big bears.
Our bear could ask himself after all this effort: “Why, then, should I strive to quit my day job and make a living online? Only to be able to move my body from my natal cave to far away ones and still be able to feed myself and to change my fur every spring? What about my spirit? Will I have to kiss tails all my life, be it online or offline?”
Do you have an answer for the little bear? Online, offline, what’s the difference? Please, have your say now.
great and stumbleworthy post!
so … what’s your twitter handle? mine is moritherapy
Thank you, Isabella. I don’t have a twitter handle. I don’t know what happens, but I cannot access twitter from none of my internet connections. All I get is an error message (and I’m trying since several months ago).
That was a really great post. Having a community and blogging friends is the part that makes it all worthwhile.
Thanks, Emma, it surely does. I had much more fun with blogging after I discovered that you can make a lot of friends and have a dialogue.
Hehehe…Great post Simonne! I wish I had included it in this weeks link post (I already started on next weeks, and you’re top of the list!) I also subscribed to you and stumbled this post! These are some very unique tips…I can tell they are your ideas, that’s so cool!
That makes it twice as good Simonne!
Hey, Bobby, it seems like we are moving the conversation from one blog to another 🙂
Actually I didn’t start this post with the intention of giving tips, but with the wish to make my readers realize how the bear in my story feels like.
Thank you for subscribing, and for stumbling, and for the lovely chat. I have to go for a while now, but I’ll be back.
Twice thank you, Bobby!
Hi Simone, thanks for approving my Entrecard advert! 🙂
I really like this post, very well written, I especially like the way you wrote it from a bear’s point of view, how refreshing!
Keep up the good work!
You are welcome, Penpusher. I’m honored you applied to advertise on my site. Thank you for appreciating my article.
I think number 7 is about the most important thing to keep in mind when blogging (other than content, of course). Ultimately, you can make as many friends as you want in various networks, but if you don’t interact with them, it makes no difference.
Exactly, interaction is the most important, otherwise your list of friends is nothing.
Absolutely no difference at all – although it does take a while to realise this, sometimes! Love the way you wrote this post – very powerful!
Thank you, Martin! You’ve got my point.
While I realize that socializing is an important part of building an audience (and I miss the socializing I did before I started a charity project), I still think that content is king. Your ideas are good ones, but I think you can socialize until your fingers ache and people still won’t visit if your content isn’t worthy. I liked your analogy, though.
WOW, what can I say. This is probably one of the best I ever read today. Socializing is very important to every venture. Offline, online — no difference.
You are definitely right, Shelly, nothing is going to come out of people visit your site and they have nothing to read. But between two people with great content, most of the times, the one who socializes takes the most out of it.
As you said, Mike, it’s the same, be it online or offline.
Great post! Very helpful, the moral is the bear should learn how to socialize, right?
Thanks Soli. Yes, you’ve got it right.