Make it personal
To make a difference, make it personal…
If you want people to engage with what you’re sharing, build a connection to it.
If you’re sharing it, you are the connection.
So, if you’re connecting others to something (a story, a page, a cause, a fundraiser, a blog or a friend) tell them why you care enough to share.
If you don’t want to share your connection perhaps that’s an opportunity for reflection … why ARE you sharing it? Are you sharing out of obligation? Has sharing just become habitual? If you don’t want to be personally associated with it, why not? Why don’t you want to be connected to it? What has you feeling that you SHOULD share but you don’t want to commit your own words to it? Does it put you ‘on the hook’ for something, making you accountable? Perhaps it’s that you don’t really believe in it… The reasons are likely to be as unique as you are.
“Without strategy the content is just stuff, and the world has enough stuff.” *
Our strategy is our reason why… If we don’t have a reason for sharing something, should we? Isn’t the world already full of “stuff” … aren’t our news feeds and our emails already overfull with things we may not actually care about?
So, you’re saying Don’t Share?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not writing this to discourage you from sharing, I’m writing it to admonish you to make what you share meaningful in a trifecta of ways – to you, to the person you’re sharing for and to the rest of the world. Your personal connection may just be the difference between people scrolling on by or stopping to check it out.
If you’re not sure what to write when you’re sharing ask yourself: Why am I supporting this cause/friend/whatever? What is important to me about this? What is it about this thing I’m sharing that means something to me?
Chances are if it means something for you, it might also mean something significant for those who you are sharing with. Chances are people will care BECAUSE you care, and even if they don’t, that’s OK. It’s not for everyone.
Be generous. Make it personal.
I, for one, am always keen to know what’s important to you and why.
Heather x
PS. To clarify, I’m talking here about sharing other people’s posts, pages, causes etc, because I see so many of these pass me by without a note of explanation as to why people are sharing them. That said, it applies to whatever you write/post/share really… 🙂
*I’ve seen this quote attributed to many different people, and I don’t like using quotes without crediting the author, however I’ve not been able to pin down the true author. I’ve seen it credited to Arjun Basu, Seth Godin and others. I’ll thank each of them here.