Box Scores, Nov. 23-29 – “SM Purists, Conversations & Serendipity”
Well after a thankful week full of Thanksgiving thankfulness (and a weekend spent learning about ice fishing for/from one of our awesome clients), the Deep Bench crew is pleased to bring you this week’s edition of Box Scores. We’ve got some stellar posts from some top notch pros, so read up on their wisdom and give thanks that, even after Thanksgiving is over, people are still providing fantastic content we can all learn from.
-“Why Social Media Purists Won’t Last”
A great start to Box Scores comes from Jason Falls at his blog, Social Media Explorer. Jason shares his thoughts on the increasingly-popular “social media’s great, but you need to make money too” mindset. In his words, “Conversations do not ring the cash register.” The good thing is he supports his point with solid logic and a pretty “kick-in-the-butt” inspiring attitude. Read up. Your profits-driven bosses will be happier, and you just might be too.
-“Are You Getting Off Track With Your Readers”
This one is for our fellow writers (both copywriters and blog writers) and comes from the ever-informative Copyblogger blog. James Chartrand explains why keeping your readers engaged with a tight focus can really make a difference for them and for you. Read up if you want to make sure you aren’t losing your readers with rambling paragraphs and seemingly-innocent (or “funny”) tangents.
Drifiting Creatives have a pretty fantastic story that’s worth reading up on when you have the time if you haven’t heard it yet. For now, however, we’ll share this post with you and let you do the background research on your own. As creatives, they’ve got a tough task of connecting with clients quickly and easily. Questions do this, but as they put it, “Asking questions is pretty easy, but asking the right questions can be freakin’ hard.” Then they share how they overcome that hurdle. Which begs the question… do you ask the right questions?
-“Careful what you share, it just may start a conversation”
Having seen the topic of this post unfold live on Twitter, this Communications Conversations blog post from Arik Hanson was a fun one. It may or may not involve an individual who brought a massive Mac desktop into a Caribou coffee shop, but more importantly is this fact that Arik points out: “You never know what’s going to interest your community or spark a conversation.” He then lists some great ways to spark conversation with YOUR community. Read them and, in the tradition of last week, be thankful.
-“Why Serendipity Shouldn’t Matter”
You know any post that starts off with “I’ll be contrarian to my good friend Chris Brogan” better be a good one with the fierce loyalty Broganites show. Luckily, Christopher S. Penn brings up some great points in this post on serendipity and how much of our “luck” we truly do control. His concept he presents is a cool one and, as he puts it, “More than a few spirits perked up as they [people doing a certain exercise] realized just how much of a hand they had in their “luck.” Your luck starts with you and the efforts you take on to make luck happen. Read Christopher’s post, remember that fact and then make yourself lucky.
And with that, we cap off this week’s Box Scores. Hopefully you enjoyed the mix of inspiration, insight, and introspection. More importantly, we hope you had a great Thanksgiving and we hope you’re as ready as we are to rock some socks off and change the world this week. Nothing like coming off a break well-rested and prepared to make a difference.
Make sure you let us know what you think of this week’s posts by leaving a note in the comments section or speaking up on our Facebook page. And just in case we missed any great posts you feel are worth being included, let our community know by sharing a link below or on Facebook. We certainly appreciate your input.
Photo (“Give thanks!”) c/o KevinDooley. Thanks Kevin!