Shark Attacks Predicted To Decline With The Economic Crisis

The newscaster said shark attacks are directly related to the economy, because in order to have a shark attack two conditions apply:

1. People Have To Be In The Water
2. Sharks Have To Be Where People Are

Then he proceeded to explain that as the economy declines less people go to the beach (People In The Water), because they don’t have the money.  He followed that up with a stupid line that basically disproved his theory, “But surfers are not deterred by the economy, and are out in the water everyday, regardless of the economy, so they stand to have a much greater risk for shark attacks!”

Shock Attack!

Stories like the above are ways the television and radio news teams sucker you in to listen to the entire newscast by giving you a teaser headline, “Economists Predict Decline In Shark Attacks In 2009! The complete story after these commercials.”  They just baited you with a shocker.

First, why would an economist be predicting shark attacks?

Second, why are shark attacks declining?

Shocking headlines tend to grab your attention and pull you in.  You are going along on your merry way and you hear something that does not make complete sense to you. You have to know more.  They baited you.  You listen and they tease you until you are fully hooked, you listen all the way through the story until the stupid anticlimactic conclusion and you leave ticked off that you wasted your time.  But they got you.

Tweeting A Big Juicy Worm!

Social media is like that, you can keep people engaged with golden nuggets that pull people in.  You can ask open ended questions that require people to reply to you. Tell funny stories that can only be completed on your blog.

These are ways you can bait people into your sphere of influence.  Using humor, love and good information.  Seducing your audience like a fisherman uses a lure or a worm to tantalize a big bass from under the log in the lake.  He may look at it suspiciously for a few minutes, but if you don’t scare him off, he’ll bite.

Ride It Like You Stole It

As you know Lance Armstrong had a one of a kind bike stolen during one of his races this week.  The guys who make his bikes didn’t waste a second getting another bike to him.  They inscribed a great motivating quote on it that you just have to read:

Lance uses twitter as a way to stay in touch with the thousands of fans he has all over the world, and he receives an insane amount of motivation from those people who follow him!  But he makes sure that he keeps them fed with good content, he will send out videos, blog posts and pictures like the one above that inspire.

I don’t think Lance has a strategy in his use of twitter.  Instead, I believe he is genuinely interested in his fans and he allows them the chance to look into his life 140 characters at a time.  When he needs to communicate more than that, he has his images, blogs and videos.  His communication with twitter acts as a distribution center as it directs people to his more detailed information.

Fishing With Headlines

Your tweets should be the bait for the bigger story.  Like Lance, you should be giving a glimpse into your life without revealing everything in a tweet.  You should be saying to yourself as you write a status update, “take a peek, but if you want more, come to my blog, or my flickr page, etc.”  Each tweet is the headline of the newspaper, and the reader can decide if it is interesting enough to follow to the website.

You can really be sneaky and see if anyone is paying attention.  Start a story, and don’t give anyone a place to go to find out more.  If you have done it right, you will get a lot of @replies asking you questions about what you started.  Mark Joyner calls this the Zeigarnik Effect, where people have to have completeness in their lives.

On television, you see Monk always completing sequences, or putting a book back on the bookshelf to complete a series.  Same as puzzles, they are so addicting, because they are incomplete.  If you only give readers a couple of hints, it will drive them nuts until they get the complete story.

If you don’t want a riot, you really shouldn’t wait to complete your story until your next blog post…

“People with tattoos on their eyelids are insane!”

Says who? With the advent of the web, people are climbing on their virtual soapboxes and proclaiming everything from why a particular candidate sucks to why their football team is going to win it all!  Opinion, it appears, is the new drug of the 21st century.

In my previous article, I was explaining that in social media, people follow others for 3 main reasons: Information, Help and Entertainment.  But it was pointed out that Help is actually a subset of information and that the third category should be opinion.

So Let Us Examine Opinion

We can classifiy opinion as the beliefs of an individual on the basis of politics, religion, sports and really any topic that can have differing points of contention.

Look at science! We have two opposing viewpoints on the issue of global warming.  Scientists on both sides of the problem are pointing at the same data and saying that it proves their stance.  I wish they would make up their minds… I am freezing here in Florida!

Social Networks Are Good If You Are Opinionated?

Not likely. Think back to the year leading to the election of President Obama.  The opinion on twitter was shooting fast and furious in all directions.  People were aligning themselves with the people who most fit their point of view and bashed those with differing viewpoints.  I still have people who will not follow me because I disagreed with their strong statements publicly.

Yet I consider myself a moderate. But the opinion on both sides of me were over the top in many instances and I could not agree with some of the more polarizing statements. Should I have kept my mouth shut?  Probably, but why should voicing your opinion be necessary, while I should keep mine quiet because I don’t agree with you?

How Opinion Fits Into Social Media

First, you should follow those who agree with your personal mission statement.  If you do not have one, you should read “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey.  You really cannot make effective decisions without having a mission in life.

Second, you should make friends with those who disagree with you.  You can’t go through life with animosity towards people who disagree with you.  People have enough stress in one day, without having to worry about what the enemy is doing.  Make friends with the enemy and you will always know what they are up to.

Third, avoid polarizing topics of conversation, unless you are only surrounded by those who are of like mind.  Think about it.  Do you want to be the only Cardinals fan in the stadium surrounded by 70,000 Steelers fans?  How vocal would you be in that situation? How would it feel to be the only one in a group with that opinion?

If we go around bashing the opposition in battles of words, we are showing a side of us that is not very nice.  If we are looking to build relationships, do we do so by tearing down others?

In my opinion, bashers are the bullies of the philosophical world.  They feel that their opinion is the only one worth having, and anyone with differing views are inferior.  So if you don’t agree with me here, you know where the little [X] is in the upper right corner of the page, right?

Just Kidding! Gosh, Take A Deep Breath!

Social Networks like Myspace and Facebook don’t want you to suppress your opinions, that is why they have groups and fan pages for you to hang with people with your viewpoints.  In those locations you can be free to express yourself with your views among like minded people.

Don’t forget, however, that your views will be out there for the world to see, including reporters, prospective employers, potential customers and potential partners.  If you speak too strongly or say things that are way out there on the fringe (right or left), you could alienate a lot of people!

Unless your product or service is only good for people with your particular point of view, it is not a good thing to polarize your audience!

Your Blog – Freedom Of  Speech?

When you take your opinion to your blog, you will develop a following.  It will be a group of people who are in agreement with you, undecided people and those with opposing viewpoints who want to pick apart your views.  This is where having a polarizing message is good.

The more people have something to say about your topic – either for or against – is good for business because you will get traffic as people tell their friends about your message and urge them to come tell you what they think.

Conflict Of Interest

In reading this post, you may feel that I am telling you two differing opinions.  And I probably am, because if you are a genuine person, you probably ride the line between the two.  People who interact socially are usually going from one extreme to the other.  Sometimes you are talking with people and agreeing and other times you respectfully disagree.

The same is true with your blog and social networking. You shouldn’t ever cross the line of demeaning people because of their beliefs.  Even if they believe that little green men are taking over our government, they are people (while very odd ones) who should be respected.  You simply tell them why you do not agree with their position and leave it at that.

Since you do have an opinion and it does matter to you, you should share it.  Take advantage of everything the web has to offer and find like minded people to discuss things in a civilized manner.  If you treat people with respect, you are more likely to win people over with your logic than you would baffling them with your bull****.

And, no, it is never alright to push someone’s face in it! No matter how obnoxious they are!

Micheal Savoie writes, teaches and speaks about blogging and social networking for small business. He lives in Beverly Hills, FL with his family.  Follow Micheal on Twitter.

If a blogger writes on the web and nobody sees it, did they actually write anything?  You have to look at the way bloggers communicate to really get a feel for what I mean.

I just read a unique blog post from a good friend of mine.  She sent me a direct message (DM) from twitter to alert me about it.  The title intrigued me, so I went to her blog, read it and commented on it.

Social Networks are a very potent force in communication.  People hear more about MySpace, Facebook and Twitter from their sitcoms, because those platforms reached a critical mass, where people can no longer ignore them unless they want to continue being completely anonymous.

But posting on social networks just for the sake of posting is like writing just to fill lines on  page.  If you are not providing value of some kind, nobody will read you.  In many cases, people who do not provide good content become lost in the sea of information.

What is content?

Content falls into 3 major categories:

• Information
• Help
• Entertainment

Some people on the social networks are information junkies who just need to consume facts, figures and trivia.  They need a steady diet of these to keep their active minds filled with new data.

Others on the social networks have a problem that they need solved, and they look to the social community for their assistance.  They might ask where something is located, they might need to find a particular person or maybe they just need to connect with someone who has a specific talent.  In all of these cases, the distressed networkers can quickly sift through the responses to find the nugget that they were looking for to solve their problem.

Finally, the group of social networkers who are looking to be entertained are looking for laughter, music and videos that keep them filled with joy!  So if you are a provider of entertainment value, you are going to build a large following by being entertaining.

With that said, your presence on the social networks should give people a sense that they know you.  If you are using my favorite social network, Twitter, you might be telling people who you met at the latest seminar, or how you and your family are going to see a movie.  While those seem like insignificant things to talk about, they are defining you to the outside world.

Being yourself is what draws people into your circle.  If you try to be someone you aren’t eventually the facade will come off when people are around you and you will lose them.  Much better to be yourself all the time and only attract those that like you for being you.

So when you update people on Twitter, you are giving them a slice of your day, make it count by giving your slant on the topic. Say you are ready to try out the new restaurant in town, make it an event!

“I took a chance on the new Asian Restaurant in town and was rewarded with great service!”

This tells people what you did while providing information to the info junkies.  The fact that you took a chance tells people that you usually do not go to new restaurants.  People who are used to staying within their established routines will look at you as a daring adventurer and may actually venture out on your recommendation.

If you just say, “I had Pork LoMein For Dinner.” You aren’t telling anyone much, and probably irritated a bunch of people with growling stomachs!  Think of each of your updates as a part of your autobiography.  You are writing each sentence of it with the updates you choose to post!

If all you want the world to remember about you is that you ate Pork LoMein, you will blend into the scenery with all the other meal updates the world has to offer.

Remember that your followers, friends or acquaintences in the social networks around the world have more than just you to read about.  Make each update count toward them developing a relationship with you that means something.  While you are reading this, your next million dollar partner or client could be looking over your tweet-stream deciding whether or not they want to press the “follow” button on your profile right now.

Make your story be the one which makes them anticipate each chapter daily.  Once you start to examine what you find is important to you, your updates will show it… The life you change may be your own as you write your story one update at a time!

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…