What is your art?  Your craft?  Your gift?  What is your unique contribution to the world? 

You don't need to label it or even create a Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr page for it.  Just do it.  Trying to label it (I'm a "marketer," "life coach," "life coaching marketer") is a trap because your work can't really be labeled.  Trying to label it only serves to diminish it and keep you stuck. 

Another way to remain hopelessly stuck is by believing the lie that your work or "purpose" is a mystery to you and that one day you will discover it if you just try hard enough. 

Let's be clear.  Nature does not obstruct our purpose.  Does the oak tree know its purpose?  How about a violet?  Your pet hamster?

Nature does its purpose, and you are part of nature.  

Only judgement itself obstructs our "doing" of our gifts by (trying to) label them or claim they are insufficient in some way. 

Are you judging your gifts?  Are you willing to start "doing" them instead? 

It’s not about your content, it’s about the transformation you create through your content.

Transformation is the real king.   

Indeed, transformative potential is the magnetizing force -- it's what attracts and “drives traffic,” not content.  Yet content flows naturally and instinctively from the power and clarity of transformative potential.

What are you doing to transform the world? 

How do you communicate it with greatest clarity?

This is your calling in life:  discover how you transform the world for the better and find a way to communicate it clearly, over and over and over again.

Hint #1:  it has something to do with bringing in the good, the true, and the beautiful.  If not, it’s not really transformative.

Hint #2:  you need to embody this transformation yourself before you can bring it into the world most effectively or at all.  You can’t sell it if you don’t own it. 

So the next time you’re tempted to focus on content, instead focus on the transformation you intend to create, but only if you want to uplevel your game and contribute to positive change in the world.

Here’s to your clarity, your content, and the transformational power of your work.

P.S.  If you like this article, you’ll love Corbett Barr and his work at Think Traffic, particularly his article, Write Epic Shit.  It’s, um, epic.   http://thinktraffic.net/write-epic-shit

With all the tools, technology, and even platforms available to us, somehow most of us are not living into our fullest potential to create, to lead, and to influence from and through these technologies.

We've lost ourselves in the technology and are missing this crucial point:  technology is a means, not an end.  The "end" is the creation of something entirely new for the purposes of sharing and evolving our world, together.

Who are you, and what do you want to say?  What is your unique perspective on the world?  What does life mean to you?  How do you see it now?  How do you want to see it in the future?  What are your greatest gifts, strengths, and talents?

Whether you've discovered this for yourself or not, I can tell you that you are the technology that matters most.  The one who is looking through your eyes, reading these words, and resonating with their meaning.

What will you do with this power?

What do you want to create?

The network and the podium are equally valid and effective ways to use Twitter.  At the end of the day, however, each of these ways reveals one common intention, which is the engagement of a community.

The podium represents one type of engagement approach, which I’ll call an "active engagement."  It is an attempt to inspire and enroll a community into a specific agenda or call to action.  The undertone here is “I AM” and “I have something to contribute in this moment.”  Active engagers who use Twitter as a podium are looking for community in the form of an audience.  At best, active engagers are real leaders and have the benefit of ALL in mind when they enlist others into their visions and calls to action. 

The network approach to engagement is a more passive type of engagement, though I don’t mean this in the pejorative sense at all.  The undertone here is “YOU ARE” or at the very least, “I’m open to what YOU have to contribute in this moment.”  “Passive engagers” are looking for community in the form of a tribe; they are as open to being engaged as they are to engaging.  At best, passive engagers who use Twitter primarily to network are the glue of a strong community and they, too, have the benefit of all in mind when they interact and connect with other members of the community.

There is nothing wrong with either of these approaches, and everything right with both of them.  In fact, I see them as being completely interconnected and interdependent.

The only pitfall, as I see it, is when we, as community members, get stuck on one side of the equation without having the range or discernment to employ the other approach at the right time.  Not employing the right approach at the right time may mean that the community does not activate its full potential or realize its goal of true engagement for the benefit of all. 

For example, if one particular community member is only ever “actively engaging” or using “the podium” of Twitter, he may be missing opportunities in the way of CO-creating with a community.  It is through co-creation that some of the best ideas and solutions come into being.  He may also be at risk of being seen as less than human in his communications and only ever pushing his own agenda, not for the benefit of all, but for the benefit of himself, and this is anything but engaging. 

On the other hand, if one particular community member is only ever passively engaging (or using Twitter for “networking”) she may be missing opportunities to bring about what SHE wants to see in the world.  Don’t we all have a unique vision and perspective that can be leveraged?  At worst, networkers maintain a lot of relationships, maybe they even take on a lot of projects, but nothing of real value ever gets put out into the world.  And putting something of value into the world is the ultimate fruit of engagement, no?

We might do ourselves a service by taking a good look at what we’re doing now and whether it is working for us.  There’s nothing wrong with emphasizing one or the other of these approaches (as I’m sure we all do), but life has a way of responding to our intentions when we become aware of what we’re doing now and where we need to grow to come into our full authenticity, our full value to our community, and to create and co-create in a way that benefits the whole.

How are you engaging?  Are your approaches to engagement fulfilling your intentions for yourself, your company, and your clients on Twitter?

PS THANKS to the #usguys for inspiring this post. 

I’ve heard many consultants and gurus write about generating content, and they often provide the same advice.  “You need to know your audience,” they say, “you need to get into their heads.  Who are they?  Where do they hang out?  What are their problems and pain points?”

Basically, the focus of your content, so they say, should be consumer-focused.

While I do believe companies need to create compelling offers that are consumer focused (but only if they want to stay in business), I believe that the other forms of content they generate (blog posts, tweets, FB updates, etc.) should be about something totally different.  I maintain that content generated by brands should not be focused on the consumer, but instead should be focused upon the brand itself and its unique view of the world.

Who are you as a brand?  What do you want for the consumer and for the world, and how do you plan to go about getting it?  What value do you bring to society in terms of your innovation, insight, and thinking?  What do you stand for?

In other words, your OFFER should be all about the consumer; your CONTENT should be all about you as the brand. 

Consumers are no longer buying solely because the offers in front of them are oh-so compelling, they are now buying because they are aligned with your deeper mission and indeed resonate with the very essence of your brand.  It is your job to make this essence transparent and ubiquitous.

If and when you are so clear on who YOU are as a brand – your values, your benefit, your philosophy, your cause – you will no longer stare at your computer screen wondering how you will “generate content.”  At the point you become so intrinsically connected to who you are as a brand at core, not only will your content enable true engagement, it will write itself.

For more information on how to develop engaging content and relevant offers, subscribe to this blog or follow me here: http://www.twylah.com/twylah 

In its simplest form, engagement begins with connection to a community or “tribe,” which resonates with what you’re selling.  It doesn’t matter if you’re selling a product, service, or simply your ideas, the initial goal of engagement is the creation of a community, big or small. 

As the leader of the community, it is your job to deepen engagement by articulating what you are selling in the form of a clear and compelling cause or mission.  This cause can then be subsumed by and for your community, which is the beginning of the growth of a “movement.”

Thus, engagement is about introducing, inspiring, and activating a cause or mission that others wish to take on as their own.

What are the indicators that you’re being successful in your efforts?  First, you begin to see the growth of a community in terms of the number of followers and fans you have.  Secondly, and perhaps more important, these community members begin to take action at your behest.

This might look like promoting your content or offers; interacting with your content or offers by re-tweeting or replying to them; adopting your speech (tag lines, mantras, etc.).  Most of all, at the end of the day, these same followers and fans take the ultimate action you intend for them to take, whether that is to attend your event, buy your book, click on your link, sign your petition, or pay for your service or product.

Engagement, then, essentially means that your community begins to respond to your calls to action.  These calls to action, then, must be compelling, transformational, relevant, valuable, and they often need to be incrementally sequenced and appropriate to the context and level of community involvement at every stage of development.

Are your calls to action compelling? Is your community responding?

For more information on how to initiate and sustain your movement and to increase responsiveness to your calls to action, subscribe to this blog or follow me here: http://www.twylah.com/twylah 

I saw a tweet today that inspired this post.  It read something like, “Relevance:  yet another social media douche-bag word.”

At the risk of seeming like a total social media douche-bag, I’ll attempt to define relevance as I see it.  To me, relevance is about acting within and responding to life as it comes by bringing forward your greatest gifts, strengths, and talents.

Responding to life as it comes implicates the now, and the deployment of your greatest gifts, strengths, and talents is about being of service for the greater good.

The Now

“The now" is important to the concept of relevance insofar as "the now" is the only time we really have and because “the now” holds the only source of true creativity and inspired action.  There is no live source of creativity and inspired action in the past or in the future.

When you’re not in “the now” in a social media context, you’re repurposing old content, doing a shell game with others’ content, or merely imparting old information without wisdom or fresh commentary.  Bottom-line, you’re not generating and creating content anew in any meaningful way.

Being of Service

Being of service is important to the concept of relevance because this is one (if not the only) way to do your part in bringing about true evolution and transformation to society – not because the world needs it, per se, but because it is a much more fun and joyous way of being, living, and working.

When you’re not being of service in a social media context it looks like you’re trying to push through an agenda rather than add to the conversation or respond appropriately to your community.

But with all this conceptual talk of relevance, it is easy to make it an abstract goal or one more thing on your to-do list (note to self:  be relevant).  At the end of the day, however, relevance is not a concept at all; it's a living, breathing set of beneficial qualities and activities that serve you and others – and a wonderful way of being in the world. 

For more information on how to create relevant content and offers, subscribe to this blog or follow me here: http://www.twylah.com/twylah