Comments on: Social Media Is All About “Giving,” Right? Wrong!

By: Diana Schneidman

Diana Schneidman — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:04:31 +0000

It depends where you are in formulating your message. If you are still determining what you offer (or if you are just getting into social networking, blogging, online marketing or whatever), “giving” is a valuable way to give back in appreciation for the information you are receiving. It sure beats reading, reading and reading with no visible response.

But if you have a message, you have to get it out into the marketplace of ideas.

-Diana

By: Iconic88

Iconic88 — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:31:18 +0000

Thanks for your reply Ritu.

All the best and thanks for sharing your thoughts

By: Interesting little blogger

Interesting little blogger — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:33:09 +0000

Good point. The bad thing is there is just so much spam out there and people with blogs that don’t even know what a blog is.

By: Ritu B. Pant

Ritu B. Pant — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:54:50 +0000

Thanks everyone for sharing your views and taking the time to comment.

I just want to clarify that I didn’t mean to say that we shouldn’t be “giving” at all in social media space. Not sure if it came out that way but if it did it wasn’t intentional. My point is that while giving we need to remember that we can’t chime along with someone so often that we lose our own voice. Like momblebee said in her comment, some people help others out too much just to “be under their wing” and usually they aren’t really giving much to that person because they themself haven’t built that following to help the other person out.

I totally agree with Iconic88, it’s all about engagement. Engaging is the best way of giving as it allows you to give feedback, suggest and interact.

By: Tomboys

Tomboys — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:41:13 +0000

Nice article. It took me over a year and a half to figure this out. I spent so much time helping promote other people’s stories etc. etc. that I rarely had time to produce my own content or work on my own site.

By: Iconic88

Iconic88 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:48:29 +0000

I agree with the points from Joel ((@webaddict) and Phaoloo, giving is only part of a virtuous social media eco-system.

As in yin, there is a yang. Social media is about ‘engaging’ and ‘communicating’ with people.

The lesson in giving is that this is where the cycle of trust starts. If you want anything, you have to give first. This builds harmony & trust.

Engaging, helping and giving takes your brand to another level.

If you dont believe that assertion, try ONLY TAKING.

Instead of asking “how might this “giving” hurt your personal brand?”, try asking

1 – “what do I need to do to add value to my client(s)/potential clients business/lives”?
2 – “how does my giving add value to building my brand”?
3 – “how can I compliment my strengths with my clients weaknesses”?
4 – be genuine, engage engage engage by providing OTT (over the top) value or you will get your house blown down with one big HUFF & a PUFF

Love on!

By: Momblebee

Momblebee — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:59:09 +0000

Giving and taking. You give and you take what others give you. And you add new thoughts and ideas to the mix. I agree that you risk losing your own message and watering down your own brand if you spend all your time RT-ing everyone else. Also risky if you spend too much time latching on to someone else’s ideas like a groupie to the who’s who of social media, with comments on all their posts saying “awesome” “great post”. If you feel moved to comment, and have something relevant to say, then add your own thoughts and contribute – you know, give and take;)There are a lot of “experts” out there who act and speak as if they are the gods of social media. Yes, they are viewed as the “thought leaders” however this is all evolving so fast, that leaders or beginners all have potential for contribution and defining methods, technique and rules. Give your own thoughts and take what applies to you and learn from others.

By: Phaoloo

Phaoloo — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:51:28 +0000

Sharing or giving is an old and useless tactic before. Now “engaging” is the most important thing to do on social media. I believe it.

By: Digital Biographer™ » Posts about Personal Branding as of July 14, 2009

Digital Biographer™ » Posts about Personal Branding as of July 14, 2009 — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:16:52 +0000

[...] and bloggers to more than 100,000 sources around the globe looking to be quoted in the media. Social Media Is All About “Giving,” Right? Wrong! – ritubpant.com 07/14/2009 We hear this every single day. If you want to utilize social media and [...]

By: Julie : Tenerife

Julie : Tenerife — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:27:55 +0000

I agree that only passing on (or RTing) the stuff of others without bringing anything new to the table is a lazy use of social media. Perhaps the social regurgitator can create an image of being in the know except to those who actually do know and see the constant regurgitation for the parisitism it is.