principles of contribution

Transcript: In our last post we promised a follow up for making your contribution social media ready. We have a few basic principles that if followed can help your content avoid being ignored and capture the attention of your second and third circles. The first of these principles is to lead with passion. Find something you are passionate about and pursue it. We see so many people using social media just for the sake of using the technology or for shameless self promotion. If you aren't passionate about your work it will show in the quality. . If you want your contribution to capture attention, put your heart and time into it, there are no shortcuts.   The next principle is possibly the most important. Find a niche, become the expert, and dominate that niche. Stop trying to contribute content, products, or services that attempt to meet everyones needs while sacrificing what makes you unique. We see so many round pegs trying to fit in triangle, star, and square, holes instead of embracing the fact that their passion, experience, and knowledge makes them the expert to dominate a specific niche no matter how small or eccentric. Fill your niche and rock out! The next of these principles is to make sure your contribution is rooted in story. Story is the essence of the human condition and it is the best way to process, package, and get your audience to remember information. This goes for everything from your blog posts, instructional videos, presentations, and even your resume. The bottom line is that people are suckers for a story. If your contribution has an amazing story, it will travel and it will be remembered. The last principle is important, especially in the social media context. So many social media groupies fall into the "expert's trap" where they are really excited to show off their knowledge of a particular subject on go on to ad nauseum. Don't fall into this trap! Keep it short! We have found that when people view content online their attention span hardly last more than 5 minutes. We have ...