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Weekly UpdatesRecently, I had the opportunity to deliver a presentation at the 2009 Business Women's Forum, and one of my slides from my presentation said simply:
"People who stand in the middle of the road--get hit."
What I mean by that is, part of being successful with social media is having an opinion. Most businesspeople who are unsuccessful using social media either have nothing of value to say at all (read: posts or Tweets about pets, food selection or hairstyles) or they take a middle-of-the-road approach to issues.
Neither of these approaches serves anyone--least of all the people who consume this material. The first type of content falls into the frivolous "who cares" bucket, and the second kind is confusing.
If you're blogging, Tweeting or podcasting, people are looking to you for information and direction. They may not agree with you, but they want to know your definitive take on matters. Otherwise, what's the point of reading your stuff? They can weigh one side and the other themselves.
There are some blogs that are purposely constructed to provide both points of view, for sure, but I'm not speaking of those blogs here. I'm focusing on businesspeople who blog who are scared to have an opinion for fear of possibly, maybe, sometime-in-the-future offending someone.
As a former mentor once said, "The risk of insult is the price of clarity."
And, even good ol' Dr. Seuss says: "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
P.S. And further to that . . . chances are, if someone is offended by what you've said or written, that person wouldn't make a good client/strategic alliance/colleague for you, anyway. :)
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