Growing a following? Posting content? Getting likes, hearts, shares? Being popular?
Nope, none of the above.
Being on Social should have only one outcome and that’s to receive calls.
There really is no other outcome!
Calls can arrive through the phone or via a form. The only measure therefore should be how many calls are you getting.
Social should drive your audience to your website and then your website should convert them to calls. You need the right detail, the right call to action and the right form and all above ‘the fold’.
Once you receive or make calls you have an opportunity to convert.
If anyone is busily trying to increase a following or measure the amount of likes and hearts, please assure them that it’s the wrong measure.
He mentioned some studies that analysed words from a large set of date using LIWC. The way that the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program works is fairly simple. Basically, it reads a given text and counts the percentage of words that reflect different emotions, thinking styles, social concerns, and even parts of speech.
One of those studies they analysed 500 million tweets over 2.4 million users in 84 countries to learn about their emotional content. What was very evident that the mood of the tweets vary across the time of day. Better at the start, then it dipped (the trough) and then recovered by the end of the day.
His premise after a number of other studies, like investor earning calls, students pass rates at exams, is that we all perform differently depending the time of day.
He suggest we can all work out our chronotype by calculating when we go to bed and when we get up during a non-working day, he calls it ‘free day’. Determine the mid point of the no of hours sleep and if it’s before 3.30am we are a lark and after 5.30am we are an owl. Anything else, we are a 3rd bird.
Do your deep thinking work at your best time, your admin in the trough and have insights late in the evening.
Guess what time I’m writing this on a train back from Birmingham? 10pm! It’s remarkable easy to write at this time.
Not sure if you have noticed, there’s a new fashion trend for men. Leather shoes and no socks, well none noticeable as such. They may wear those tiny foot socks, but you can’t see them.
I would understand if the UK was located near the equator but we’re not and as such it looks totally ridiculous.
Who ever came up with the idea that men’s ankles are actually sexy or even attractive?
What is even more astounding is the fact that skinny jeans or formal trousers (pants) that seem to accompany this crazy new trend are even cut off higher so that men are making sure they expose their trendy look, yuk.
I used to work in the fashion industry, albeit the non-sexy manufacturing end and have witnessed some bizarre trends but nothing as bizarre and ridiculous as this one.
I see so many business people, whether they work in small businesses or large corporates deliver the most appalling signature/elevator speeches at networking events.
The only reason they are so appalling is because business people haven’t invested the time to create something with structure and discipline.
Michael-Don’s quote was; ‘Structure is your friend and discipline gives you freedom’.
He showed us a number of ways to examine our signature speech and give it structure and discipline.
By having us practice it in front of the group several times it allowed us not only to improve our delivery, it placed us outside of our comfort zone, where really all the learning took place.
I sincerely wish more business people in the U.K. invested a small amount of time and money in themselves in order to improve not just their speaking skills but also their signature/elevator speech to help them feel more confident in front of strangers at networking events.
Not sure about you but I’ve noticed an increasing amount of posts on LinkedIn with video clips showing us up and coming technology advances with all sorts of supposedly break-through technologies, machines, robots, rockets and other machines, stuff!
Now, I’ve been a technology fanboy for many decades a tiny futurist hoping for the world to become a better place with technology.
I was a huge fan of a British TV series, Tomorrow’s World. Many of the technology ideas presented and showcased there very rarely became reality but some did.
I worked without computers for many years, we wrote on pads, delivered hand-written memos to pigeon holes, which got lost when the recipient said they never got it (I always suspected it was in their in-tray somewhere, buried underneath all the other papers), delivered hand written pieces of paper to the telex-room or if they had to see an exact copy of the document stood next to the upright fax machine (the size of a medium size printer) for 20 minutes whilst the phone gurgled.
I was amazed and excited when I saw the first lotus notes spreadsheet, it was the biggest technology breakthrough for me who had been writing figures on graph paper for years.
My only worry is that it keeps us in a place of wanting more technology advancement all the time and when we see something new, we go oh look that would be great and our mind goes longing for that thing, the new stuff to replace the stuff we thought was cool just a few hours ago.
Of course technology is great and the futurists in Davos in January 2018 were even suggesting that because of technology we will eliminate cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes, hospitals will disappear with the exception of emergency rooms and living until 120 will be common place.
Life will pass us by if we don’t stay in the moment and be grateful for what we have in this moment.
We’ve all been labelled by society in one way or another depending on which decade or range of decades we were born in.
Even the decades that describe Millennials have been disputed and some have even decided different ranges. The USA Census Bureau believe it to be 1982–2000, basically the decades of the 80’s and the 90's.
So a Millennial born in ’82 is going to be 36 this year!
Wow and I thought Millennials were just folks in their 20's.
Both my stepsons are millennials and don’t I know it. They appear to have been born with mobile phones in their hands. It’s not my intention to judge either of them and I’m not going into detail on both of them except to say that I will be fascinated to see what long term jobs they end up in. Of course there’s no such thing as long term job any longer in fact it wasn’t even when I was working.
As I ponder how Millennials may impact the place of work, I’m seeing gaming rooms instead of table tennis tables, I’m seeing working hours stretched and redefined, home working for parents becoming common place and values/coolness being the biggest reasons why they may decide to join your company.
More insights on Millennials can be found on Wikipedia and I have to say it’s frighteningly accurate especially the Peter Pan concept, because of the members’ perceived tendency for delaying some rites of passage into adulthood for longer periods than most generations before them.
By 2020, potentially 50% of the workforce will be made up of Millennials. We better have flexible working practices in place to get the most out of them.
I’m so astounded that my fellow men have let us down and yet again scandal has landed across the headlines with men behaving badly in the UK.
Put men on their own together, add some alcohol and rich food and the blood rushes down.
I can’t think of anything worse, an ‘Only Men’ dinner!
Who wants to go to that?
When I was employed I had to attend, back in the 90’s, a so-called sports dinner, yep, you guessed right, men only! I’ve never played rugby or football, so basically the discussion ended up being about work and the weather. I’ve never been so bored. Usually they have a comedian whose stand-up routine is very blue too.
This latest scandal reminds me of the hit series on Netflix, The Crown, where Prince Phillip attended a men’s only club, called The Thursday Club and the goings on that resulted. He had to sack his personal secretary for inappropriate behaviour that resulted in his wife divorcing him. This was in the 1950's.
Here is a quote from an article in the Independent newspaper on 16th January, 1996, written by Miles Kington who obviously attended the club.
“I think I am probably one of the last surviving members of the old Thursday Club, the gang of cronies that the Duke of Edinburgh used to gather round him in the 1950s to have a bit of fun away from his serious life at Buckingham Palace. The club was strictly all-male, but that does not mean there were not women at these gatherings. After all, as Arthur Koestler once said to me, “The extraordinary thing about men at all-male gatherings is that they talk about women non-stop, whereas at mixed functions the men talk only about male hobbies such as sport, politics and cars — never about women, even though there are many women present.”
It is ironic that nearly 60 years later a similar club still existed, The Presidents Club.
I am not doubting the huge amount of good they have done as a charity, but now they have caused the charity to close down with the inevitable result of job losses and the good causes losing out too.
I’m no author. I’d like to think I’m a storyteller but I’m more like a story facilitator, helping you to craft your best story and allowing your digital community to have a closer connection with you.
By far the biggest mistake I see people make is that they write profile summaries in the 3rd person, like they are a big celebrity and their agent has written a bio page for them. Maybe you’re a speaker and your agent writes it for you?
It creates such a distance between your reader, your audience and yourself, because it’s not personal and definitely does not create any sense of intimacy.
When you write a profile, bio or summary page about yourself, write as if you are sitting opposite someone, explaining your story. Of course share what you do in business, cool, but make it more personal because that’s the most interesting part of who you are.
Write WHY you do what you do, what circumstances, opportunities got you into what you are doing today or if you haven’t found what you wish to do yet, what is grabbing your interest the most, what aspirations do you have?
Share something personal about your life too, maybe how you have moved around, how that enabled you to see the world in a different light, what effect did it have on you?
Always write in the first person, ‘I’ instead of ‘She/He’.
Social Media has managed to infiltrate every part of humanity, whether it be exposing our own personal lives or real time comments from the US President, it has become part of the fabric of society.
There are many good things that have been derived from Social Media and one of those has been the way that people from all over the world have connected to each other, families have become closer or have they?
Parents and grandparents are snooping on kids and grandchildren, or maybe they are just curious and feel closer to what they are doing in their lives?
There was a time when Social first came out that a lot of folks were saying things like ‘Why do I want to know what they’ve had for lunch?’ or ‘I have no interest in knowing every part of what they are doing in their lives!’.
Actually we’ve all become incredibly curious (nosey) about our connections and what they’re up to, to the point that we are thumbing through feeds with lightening speed, trying to catch a glimpse of news that may satisfy our curiosity and interest.
The truth is our curiosity will never ever be satisfied, we never say, oh good that post I just liked or commented on is enough for today, that will keep me going until tomorrow. We instantly look for the next post, image or video to satisfy or need.
Sad but true.
We are driving ourselves into Social Oblivion to a place where we eventually may need help to rid ourselves of our addiction to Social Media.
A few worrying statistics on Facebook. As of the third quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.07 billion monthly active users. In the third quarter of 2012, the number of active Facebook users had surpassed 1 billion, making it the first social network ever to do so. Active users are those which have logged in to Facebook during the last 30 days.
You may wish to consider deleting the Facebook app from your smartphone, it will give you at least an extra hour per day, if not more. I’m not suggesting removing yourself as Social Media these days is now an essential part of your identity.
The first ENGLISH newspaper was first published in The Netherlands.
I know that might sound like a fake news story, but it is actually true. In fact they published newspapers for Italy and Germany before they published their own.
Well it all depends whether you’re Dutch like me and then you will convince yourself that indeed it is true. Or if you are a different nationality then you will read that your nation was the first one to publish newspapers, doesn’t matter that it wasn’t in English, correct?
Either way the press have been around for 400 years and news stories are being published every single second of the day at lightening speed. Because it is news, we have a built-in program, conditioned over centuries that whatever has been published by the press is actually true. After all it’s there in black and white and surely nobody would allow the journalists to write a fake news story and actually publish it?
Roll on the internet and now we find ourselves in the wild Wild West. Basically anything goes. But our brains are still conditioned to believe what has been written by the so called press must be the truth.
I have one great example to share with you, a story that reports on bad weather. Here in the UK we are obsessed with the weather and the press know this, so it’s always an excellent opportunity to publish an article about forthcoming weather events in the UK, especially snow and wind, they make a lethal combination to get our attention.
However reporters like to bend the truth in their headlines to pull you in to their story. Have a look at the screenshot below of a headline that caught my attention. Now you may suggest to me that it’s just a coincidence, but I’ve been studying news headlines all through 2017 and have noticed patterns, especially about outlandish weather headlines that hardly ever were true.
The first part of the headline suggests that hundreds of people are stranded in heavy snow. The second part is confirming a forecast 70 mph winds set to batter London and Southeast.
The headline starts off by saying that the news is Live, so it can be misunderstood to say that at the time of that story being published, people are stranded in London and the Southeast with 70 mph winds. It’s ever so subtle but it attempts to get you to click through, which of course I did.
We don’t read properly on the web, we scan and journalists know this, you’re even scanning when you reading this article.
Can you see what I mean with misleading and outlandish headlines? The next day there were even more headlines along the same lines. I’m guessing that weather stories are clickbait for the press to get us to their sites. Makes you wonder doesn’t?
During my first Minimalist meet up the other day, the one attendee explained to me that productivity is a major issue for most people. The main reason being that there’s is so much distraction.
Whatever you are doing right now and hopefully that’s reading this article, that is your priority.
A priority for me is something that I have decided that I will be doing next for however long it takes to complete it. So for me that’s writing this article. I decided before I started that this would be my next priority. It helps that I’m on a train into Birmingham at the moment with very little to do and the decision was to either read something, waste time on social media or write about something I had learnt from a fellow minimalist. So I decided to write and allow this to be shared with others.
When you are spending time on Facebook then in that moment you’ve decided that this is your priority for however long you spend on it, which very likely will be quite a while.
There might be a dozen other things that need to be done in that moment, clearing out that cupboard, tidying up your clothing, changing the bed and many more tasks that will have to wait, because it’s not a priority.
One thing that’s becoming very clear on Social Media these days and that’s our incessant need to be noticed and gain recognition. Whether it’s by doing Facebook Lives, LinkedIn Natives, these are videos on LinkedIn by the way, or just regular or irregular posts, we have a need to be seen.
Because there’s a constant stream of noise, we are now becoming extremely good at zoning out most of the posts that don’t grab our immediate attention and most of the time our brain is searching for stuff that will makes us laugh or go ‘wow look at that’.
When Facebook first appeared, I was excited, I was so excited, I even predicted, stupidly and correctly that Facebook would be the equivalent of Google, it’s own eco-system, not needing google at all and creating its own massive web presence.
Of course I hadn’t realised it would become reality and neither did I appreciate that it would just be a massive advertising engine for brands and individuals with their tiny business pages.
And slowly over the years I have come to realise that Facebook is a monster, something that IS doing evil and dishonesty in the process. However when over 2 billion people are on the network, the marketers who have billions of goods to sell, have to put their ads there. Google isn’t coming even close.
For the rest of us, we’re all doomed into mental health armageddon.
If I see one more post on Facebook that says ‘I’ve just found out that Facebook has yet another algorithm’, I swear that I’m going to rage quit Facebook. Just kidding of course I won’t, but these messages are definitely causing me some rage!
The fact is all the Social Networks are changing things every single week. Have you ever noticed Facebook’s weekly app update with the following words:
‘Thanks for using Facebook. To make our app better for you we bring updates to the App Store regularly. Every update of our Facebook includes improvements for speed and reliability. As new features become available, we’ll highlight those for you in the app.’
What is missing from that statement?
‘And we will also adjust our algorithm every week to ensure that we continue to maximise adverts for you and benefit our advertisers and also ensure that you will see more of those in your newsfeed compared with posts and updates from your friends, family and the brands that you adore.’
You haven’t been seeing relevant stuff in your newsfeed for years and now you’re jumping on the bandwagon of tricking your friends and family by asking them to leave a message on your post and you are also asking them to send that ridiculous message to their own newsfeeds. The crazy thing is that many are actually reacting to the request and guess what they’ve all seen your message! By asking those mugs to react to your post, it won’t mean that you will see more of their posts, it just means they will see more of yours, but then again that’s the whole purpose of this magic trick and you knew that!
Do you really know what has happened to you and why you are copying others on FB? Is there a slight possibility that you’re addicted to the network and that you are believing all the rubbish that’s being posted on there?
ps. Below is the real text of a real Facebook post that I see being posted on a daily basis. I only deleted the emojis that were interpsersed after each para/sentence. #OMG!
My apologies but it seems Ive missed births, marriages, birthdays and also really important stuff recently !!!
I was wondering why my newsfeed looked so different lately well It seems like I keep seeing the same 25 people!I’ve Just found out that Facebook has yet another new algorithm. So I’m doing a simple check, with your help.
Can everybody do me a quick favour?? If you’re seeing this, leave me a comment — just a quick “Hey” or your favourite emoji or gif would be great. The more interaction you have with people, the more friends will show up on your feed. Otherwise Facebook CHOOSES who you see!
Feel free to copy and paste to your own wall so you can have more interaction as well! Technology!!
As ordinary citizens in the world we trust our leaders, right?
Wrong.
How many times do we learn that our leaders, lie, make up stories, create spin, avoid answering our questions and blame and hide behind someone else.
Queue Donald Trump’s team and you find out that many of his leadership team have indeed been very untruthful. How much we will learn after the Robert Mueller investigations have been completed.
However you don’t need to wait until then, you can learn first hand how the US ambassador located in the Netherlands has blatantly been making up stories that are grossly untrue. He even denies something he said a few minutes earlier in the interview.
Watch in this video below by the David Packman show. They do a great job of unpacking his lies in front of the Dutch press.
[embed]https://youtu.be/MBfkvWaSNKU[/embed]
Our leaders have no idea what impact they have on their citizens and the young people in the world. We’re always told how mature adults should be role models for young people. Well, I can truly say that our role models that we have elected to run our countries in the world are lightyears away from being appropriate examples for young people.
The only saving grace is that they will never be in power longer then 8 years, in the so-called civilised western world that is and usually they will be shown to be incapable or they will resign. One or the other means they will at least be replaced by someone else who can make a mess of things.
Governments, corporations, nations and investors are obsessed with growth. I know, I know it’s how wealth is created, how jobs exist and the fear that accompanies growth is not to be underestimated.
Every single day, news broadcasters are searching for stories to let us know how well or how bad we are doing with growth in our economy in the country of our residence.
And there’s absolutely nothing you and I can do about growth.
The decision is out of our hands. It totally depends how well the people that sell stuff are doing at creating more great stuff that we think we need, but really we do not.
Scott Galloway professor at NYU describes this brilliantly. He say that the four horsemen, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google all appeal to different parts of our bodies. Google appeals to our brain, Facebook to our hearts, Amazon to our stomachs/guts and Apple to our reproductive system.
In the case of growth all these companies are totally obsessed by it and their investors definitely are.
Let’s just take one of those, Amazon. Amazon is growing at an alarming rate and grabbing marketshare, share value and all the products in the world that can be sold via the web. They even own all the logistics now to bring you those products to your front door faster then anyone else.
We likely have 10–100 times more stuff than we actually need in our homes, but we keep buying more stuff and because it can be delivered faster, we are happy to buy more of it. Our stomachs/guts to buy more stuff is growing exponentially each year and Amazon knows this.
Growth might be an obsession in the world economies, but for sure the stuff that you own doesn’t need to grow any larger at all. More than likely you can feed yourself and your family for at least 90 days on all the food that sits in your store cupboards and not feel hungry.
The only growth we need is the growth in our thinking, the growth in our emotional intelligence and the growth in helping out the more unfortunate people in our society who have been dealt a tough hand.
You don’t need the stuff that you already have. So why are you buying more of it?
Because society, the retailers, the brands, the advertising moguls and governments say and convince you that you should. After all without stuff the economy won’t grow, without growth you will starve and then you will die, oh and your family will die too.
If your family dies, your name will be forgotten forever.
Wrong!
None of that is actually true is it? There will always be growth, because the population grows, whether we like it or not.
The average American home has 300,000 items. Even if you halved it for the average British home that would still be 150,000 items. Can you even get your mind around that?
It feels suffocating doesn’t it? And it is, stuff causes dense energy in and around you, causing you to feel demotivated, depressed and lethargic. Have you ever felt what it feels like when you have tidied up any clutter? It feels good doesn’t it?
We have all been brainwashed from a very very early age that we need stuff to feel good and actually it makes us feel bad, it gets us into debt and then we don’t find a way out.
The very first concept of a Smartphone is said to have been envisioned back in the mid-1970s, but that idea didn’t come into fruition until almost 20 years later when IBM’s Simon Personal Communicator first showed its face in 1992.
Most of us will consider that Apple’s release of the iPhone in 2007 was the start of the smartphone revolution. It probably made the smartphone a commercial success and killed all the others off in the process although they didn’t know it yet until years later.
Today your smartphone has become an extension of your hand and occupies a large part of your brain too. You have literally hard wired your brain to be connected to your smartphone almost all of the time. If it’s not actually on your person, you will very likely be wondering where it is, wanting it to be back in your immediate surroundings, preferably your hand or at least where you can see it. Tethered to your power lead, making sure it has enough battery life in the worry that it might actually run out.
Most of us complain of not having enough battery life although manufacturers have been increasing battery life every single year and whenever a new smartphone comes out. It may even be one of the biggest reasons, subconsciously of course, that we upgrade our phones every year, when actually there’s no need to. It’s an illusion that you need more battery life. The reason your battery goes down so fast is that you spend more time thumbing your way through it, more than you ever did.
Remember before smartphones, if you are old enough, there was nothing to do on the mobiles of those early days, apart from making calls and texting, the battery used to last for days. And batteries today are thinner and last longer and because we’re constantly on them it means the battery is being used constantly.
Not the manufacturer’s fault, it’s your fault.
You place your smartphone by your bed at night and pick it up first thing in the morning. You check it more than 100 times per day at least, at the very least.
It is so bad that it’s believed that research needs to take place into the psychodynamics of these technologies, in terms of the emotional and possibly psychopathological function they are serving in people’s lives.
Next time you pick up your smartphone just know that your brain can’t function without it, you are literally hardwired and addicted.
I heard a great quote on a podcast by The Minimalists who had their friend as a guest on stage, his name is JP Sears. A very funny guy and his YouTube channel is a scream, he really doesn’t take life seriously at all and neither should you.
His quote was:
“Don’t believe your beliefs”.
Wow that really struck a chord with me and got me thinking, just a bit.
We form many beliefs over our very very short lifetime and they either serve us or they don’t. But what if none of them were actually true and we made it all up, because society showed us stuff and we decided to believe that stuff.
Wow, now I am really questioning my own beliefs and wondering whether what I believe is just a load of nonsense and none of it is actually reality. Now that would really mess with my mind, in fact it already is.
There is good news though. As most of our own beliefs are limiting beliefs or negative beliefs, then actually this is very very good news, because none of them are actually true, none of them, not one single one.
If anything would set you free then this should but for some reason the hardest thing for anyone of us is tackling our limiting beliefs.
He had another quote.
“There are 2 kinds of people in the world. Those that believe that they have limiting beliefs and those that are in denial believing they have no limiting beliefs”.
It’s a bit of a tongue twister and it’s so true, we all have them, every single one of us.
It’s worth repeating, “Stop believing your beliefs”.
There’s so much hype these days about bitcoin and many different (1,300) crypto currencies are going on the bandwagon too. Governments are supposedly coming up with the rules and regulations for trading them too. Likely that the US stock markets will be first.
Doesn’t this go against the whole concept of bitcoin? The whole reason is to exclude the current monetary system in existence and that includes governments, right?
There have already been crimes committed in the short existence of bitcoin and people have gone to jail accused of using bitcoin to sell drugs and use it for money laundering. Interesting then that nobody has gone to jail for the 2008 global financial crash and banks receive tiny fines for their banks being used to fund terrorists. There are suggestions of a two-tier system being created.
Bitcoin is not a physical currency, like we know today and many commentators suggest that it will never be a mainstream currency either.
So why has the price gone up so significantly over the past year (2017)?
For me it is the same reason the stock market goes up and down, ‘emotion’.
When investors and the public influenced by investors start discussing a way of making lots of money, albeit in a currency nobody can actually touch and hold, everyone’s emotional brain engages in that direction.
As soon as something rises so fast it has the potential to drop even faster. Remember the .com boom and bust?
Warren Buffet, probably the world’s most successful investor has suggested to stay away from it, but what happens when other famous investors do go after Bitcoin? Does Joe Public follow too? Trouble is experienced investors do not have their money in one basket and that means they spread their risk. Joe Public will likely take their savings and invest it into bitcoin with the potential of losing all their money, invested in one non-mainstream currency.
Or worse still they will bet on the currency going up and down, which will likely cause stress and fear.
As humans we are consumed by greed and it is true that greed for money and stuff runs through everyone’s veins.
My philosophy is simple. Unless you are happy to lose all your investment, like gambling then invest, if not, stay away.
I am not qualified to write about this because I’m a man?
However I have witnessed throughout my previous 28 year employed career how men behaved around me towards women. How senior people wielded their seniority to take advantage of women and kept them in fear of losing their jobs.
I must admit that at times I feel ashamed to be a man when I see those stories of sexual harassment. Whether men think that they were different times or not, they believed (believe) it was (is) acceptable to behave in this way. I appreciate that men are sexually assaulted too.
To think that my brothers, that’s what we’re supposed to call each other, carried out these crimes towards women really doesn’t make me proud of them, not in the slightest.
In my employed career I saw how senior more mature managers sexually harassed and assaulted young women during the annual Christmas party. In those days it was laughed at and people shrugged their shoulders. But every year we knew the same thing would happen and many wondered who would be his victim this year. As far as I know the person never got reprimanded and I was far too junior to say anything. And yes I do regret not saying anything, but I could have lost my job and I had a mortgage to pay. This made me a victim too!
In addition we know that men carry out abuse towards 1 in 3 women, which makes me feel sick. This means I know many women who are living in silence and fear or have left their partners trying to repair the broken pieces of their lives. It also means I know many men, but they remain unknown to me, who are the abusers who carried out these crimes. I worry sometimes about the men that I might call my friends.
There are still whole countries, religions and regimes who treat women in a subservient manner and this means that the world will continue to carry out crimes towards women and nobody is doing anything, all governments are guilty.
I am proud of the women who are standing up against this and are saying that #timesupnow.
