build your beautiful self

I was sitting down drinking my coffee this morning and as usual, I spend this time waking up, reflecting on the day before and projecting the day ahead.  I gaze out the patio door and move out into the sun for morning reflection.

After I wake up for five or ten minutes, I take out my phone and pop up my Facebook app (usually facebook, and LinkedIn, but sometimes it is houzz or pinterest) and start scanning through.

More coffee, more apps, some watching my crazy animals do their thing and laughing, more app, more coffee, and on it goes until I am fully awake. After about 30 minutes, I have scanned what my “friends” did the day before, Post an inspiring message for my business, and sometimes post something for myself from Pinterest that inspired me for the day, or just go about my day.

This is the way of the world now. When you’re bored, you check Facebook. When you’re excited, you facebook or tweet. When you’re sad or mad….You shouldn’t post, but most do anyway.

Check-ins, memes, videos, quotes, bashings, buzz feeds….OMG! But somehow I, like most, are hooked! I love to see what my friends are up to, I love to help when they need helping, and congratulate them when something good happens and comfort them when they are in need.

I was doing my usual thing this am and I realized that I have a ton of “friends” on Facebook. Now that is, by no means, a smart statement by itself, but allow me to get a little deeper on the statement. I, like most others, scan the comments and posts and if I feel the need to put my message up there, I do.

The thing that caught my attention this morning is that some of these people I can completely interact with on facebook, but when see each other in person…we have no idea what to say to each other! “Hey saw on facebook you were doing this…How did that go!?” or “Hey, How’s it going…………….Cool well I have to go check on something” because neither person knows what else to say!

We have a completely Cyber relationship and face to face interaction is awkward. No wonder kids are socially awkward these days! I’m not going to throw in the “good ol’ days” statement here, and I know all you reading this are probably saying that it isn’t a breakthrough statement saying that we all don’t know how to interact with people face to face anymore.

I just wanted to get out there how this may affect your world of business with a little pros and cons session 🙂

Pros:

• You have access to a vast reach of people with friends, friends of friends, friends of those friends…to infinity! When people share your posts, it could go viral!
• You can create meaningful friendships and show people your skills, your business, or the cool things you are doing in life
• You can create a positive image for yourself
• You can showcase your talents, your business expertise, or your product line
•  It is a great tool for people to use to find you and bring you business

Cons:

• Your posts have access to a vast reach of people. If you post something in the world, it is hard to take it back even with the delete button, so be careful what you post.
• Face to face communications can become all about what you saw on social media or can become awkward
• You can create an image of yourself that doesn’t reflect the real you
•  You can get sucked into the world of social media and it can become a huge time suck for you

That was fun! It is a known fact that social media is a valuable tool to help grow your business. It can bring you closer to people, but you really have to be careful what you put out there in the world wide web. It helps to back link to your website, builds SEO for marketing purposes, and really helps people find your business in the sea of businesses. It can get national attention and give you local presence. Your friends can know who you are and what you do, but be careful. It is a time management nightmare as you can spend hours looking and paging and clicking and surfing.

If you are a social media user, be sure to have some ground rules for yourself and your business so you can use it effectively. I would also suggest keeping up with your face to face communications with people so when you see them out and about, you can still have meaningful personal relationships. That is what the world of owning your own business is about, building and maintaining relationships.

Have a Happy Sunday!  Football is here!!!! YAY!

Oh yeah…Check out my website http://www.livefree-kalmlife.com!