Participation Drought

Chuck pointed out something to me today after he had messaged me on Twitter saying “you sure are tweeting a lot today…not typical of you since new jobby”.

True story.

I went on to explain to him that the new books I’ve been reading, UnMarketing & The Thank You Economy, have been essentially lighting a fire under my ass about how I personally use social media and how I need to change it for the better of myself and the community I’m surrounding myself with. I guess I’ve been more of a fire hose lately, instead of engaging with the community, and I want to change that.

I told Chuck that my first goal was to just start tweeting more. In the book UnMarketing, it talks a lot about just getting on Twitter and start engaging people. Look for conversations that you can open up, and engage in one with that person. I would be willing to bet that most people on Twitter absolutely love interaction with friends then know in real life, or with a total stranger – either way, conversation & interaction is good. This is my first goal.

My second goal is to provide some kind of value with my tweets – whether it’s helping someone out by sending them a link or just saying something funny to brighten their day. I’ve always been a person that enjoys doing random acts of kindness, so that’s my new goal on Twitter…providing value through random acts of kindness. This kind of goes hand in hand why I enjoy working on the Sparks project for Codeigniter – I had wrote about how Legacy > Money a few weeks ago talking about the project.

I had a third goal, but I guess it falls in line with my second goal, and honestly, that’s all I’ve got for now, because those 2 goals are pretty lofty and provide no clear end – there’s always room for more.

The other thing I explained to Chuck that it wasn’t where I worked that prevented my participation with the community (because that came up a little), as that was all on me – I’m the one that has been abandoning the community. I’ve had a lot going on – a lot of gym time, completely failing with freelancing, moving, new job, a lot of commuting, and basically sprinkle in little bits of laziness.

I hope to participate more, and give back more…because ultimately, that’s my end goal. I don’t care if I get anything back from it…I enjoy helping people when I can, and that makes me feel good, so I’ll just leave it at that. Follow me on Twitter if you’d like to join in on the conversation.