I read great material everyday in My Alltop. On Alltop you can create your own daily newspaper of the sites that have the information you want each day. I love reading about social media and get most of my main ideas about social marketing from these posts i read on My Alltop. Most of the posts are so great that I include excerpts here to help you to discover these wonderful blogs about social media.

From Social Solutions Collective: “Common Sense Connecting: There’s No Magic Bullet!”:

The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense. ― Thomas A. Edison

Thomas Edison was on to something. My dad always said that anything worth doing takes time to do right; and anything worth doing is worth doing right. I think the two of them, Mr. Edison, and Mr. Armour, are both pretty strong in the common sense department.

One of the things I see in social media and social business is the mad desire for instantaneous results with very little work. This unrealistic mindset leads to people scurrying about claiming unrealistic things and offering their fabulous tools, apps, and programs that will give you billions of fans and followers overnight! Sign up now and you too can have a throng of fantastically dedicated followers without doing anything!

Hold the phone! What? Does any of that really seem sensible or likely to you?

Personally, none of that makes any sense to me at all. If I listen to my Dad, and I always do, I can hear him telling me I need to work hard for my good results. Mr. Edison seems to agree. Why then do we let common sense fly off into the wind and expect all sort of wonderfulness for little to no effort in social media.

I wish I knew the answer to that; I don’t. I do know that there is no magic bullet and if I want to build strong, engaged communities on my social channels I have to work at connecting. I have to use that ‘stick-to-itiveness’ that Edison spoke of. I need to have patience to develop the connection to my audience, and I need to put in the time and effort, consistently. There are no shortcuts.

So, I have three rules that I live by when it comes to connecting and social business. To me, these are the epitome of common sense, maybe they’ll make sense to you too:

1. If you believe in it, give it time to grow. Apply consistency, patience, and good humor
2. Be real; be me. Understand that not everyone will love my content and that is totally okay
3.  No gimmicks, bad behavior, or uselessly silly game playing. Share good stuff.

Happy connecting and may the Common Sense Fairy watch over your efforts!

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