Keep It Simple Stupid: #ShowUcare

I wouldn’t call myself an influencer or social thought leader rather a “Power User & Social Technology Geek!”

With that being said I explained that I have a workflow/system/social media tips and tricks that I use that I believe help my stand out from the noise and more than likely is what got me on that list. I call it: “#ShowUcare Social”

So where do you start on social? Well first off you must be on the INTERNET (Yes that thing Al Gore claims to invented). But the first place you start after getting on the Internet and creating a social media account is by LISTENING & STUDYING those who are doing great things on social… Yes I said listening and studying two things I wish I would have done more of in college but thankfully social media has opened up my world to the power of listening and studying.

Now I never was a huge fan of books or reading and I often credit social media for being the book and teacher I needed early on in my career to make me sound well read and smarter than I actually was!

With that being said around turning 30 I realized that I didn’t hate reading or learning but I hadn’t embraced what I was passionate about to care enough about learning and growing. What was it that I found I was passionate about… PEOPLE!

Yes people not social is what I found out I’m passionate about and I always had been even back when I was playing sports in school, while president of my fraternity and when managing remote employees early on in my career. I’ve had people ask me for years how can I be passionate about just about anything.. even had a boss put on a year review that “Brian is so passionate I believe he could tell me about a phone book & I would be inspired.”

Little did I know the reason wasn’t ever what I was doing, but who I was able to work with and how I was able to help teach, train and inspire…

Social is my passion because I LOVE PEOPLE..

So with that being said STEP 1 of “#ShowUcare Social” is:

Learn & Listen to those who are Living Social not just talking about it..

There are lots of great books out there but there are also too many books written by people that realized writing and talking about social was a good way to get money since it was such an immature medium yet they themselves don’t live or do social like they are telling you to do…

I believe for brands and social employees to truly connect and embrace the power of social they must first have a great team, a great culture and a strategy for strong communication. So I believe a good mix is required from Leadership to Culture to Social Business to Content Management to Communication to Social Media.

Here are the books that I recommend because not only did I learn from reading the books but I also learned from engaging and collaborating with these leaders on social media daily!

Beyond the books I recommend studying and listening to those in social that you want to emulate.. How do you do this? LISTS… Here are a couple screenshots of mine:

I use Hootsuite, TweetDeck, Buffer & TweetBot for my twitter feed listening and the one thing they all have in common is the ability to make a list your news feed…

I mean how does someone I admire like Ted Rubin follow 223k people yet make everyone feel like he cares about them… Well besides the fact that Ted is an even greater guy offline than he is online he believes in “Return on Relationships” and lives it daily with his interactions.

So stop listening to the old skool ways of thinking where they want you to be stingy with who you follow on twitter…

If you want your fans to care about what you have to say shouldn't you SHOW you care about what they have to say and follow and share what they post! (Tweet This)

Use lists to organize your followers and then organize your social listening tools to view your lists as feeds..

So this is my call to action for you the reader:

1. Find who you influences you and who you’re inspired by on social
2. Add them to a list on your account!
3. Look at the lists they have created and ones they belong to so you can see who they follow and how they organize their followers
4. Start listening and engaging with your lists by using the tools I listed above.

Lastly, my goal of this post isn’t to tell you how to do social, rather to share how I manage my digital footprint and what I’ve done to grow my following, influence and community.

If you take nothing else from this post I ask that you remember this:

People follow YOU because they want to hear from YOU.. So listen and learn from those that are living social but then find out what makes YOU worth following! (Tweet This)

I hope you enjoyed this post as I wanted to provide background and also actionable tips and insights for you to find new ways to show you care!

Highlights of these 10 books & my quick review of each can be viewed here on this slideshare:

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” — Gretzky #99

— Brian Fanzo iSocialFanz.com