Chapter 16
How to Be Fascinating
The primary goal of your social media activities—whether for your personal brand or your organization's brand—is to establish yourself as a fascinating subject-matter expert. The only exception to this is if you are a household name celebrity like Lance Armstrong, Oprah, or Barack Obama. If you are this level of celebrity, then tweeting or updating, “I'm at Starbucks on the way to fly VirginAmerica to Vegas” is cool.
For the rest of us, the challenge is to achieve a consistent level of fascinating information about your area of expertise. The answer is simple. First, it helps if you actually know what you're talking about. If you don't, it may be better to let people wonder if you're clueless rather than participating in social media and removing all doubt. But let's say you've crossed the Rubicon.
Then it's all about finding good stories, videos, and blog posts about your subject and providing links to these sources. For example, if you own a restaurant, then you could post a link to The Second Annual New York Foodie Photo Scavenger Hunt, Cilantro Haters, It's Not Your Fault, and Check It Out: Get Your Groceries At The Library. Do this for a few months, and people will recognize you as a food expert. And guess what? They'll come eat at your restaurant.
Then the next question is how you can find these stories, videos, and blog posts. I have four methods for you to use:
1. StumbleUpon. If you sign up for the service, you can tell it ...
