{"id":3894,"date":"2018-06-17T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-17T09:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/?p=3894"},"modified":"2018-10-19T17:47:37","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T17:47:37","slug":"a-stranger-is-worth-more-than-a-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/a-stranger-is-worth-more-than-a-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"A Stranger is Worth More Than a Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

The campaign to delete Facebook is trending again. I say again, because this isn\u2019t the first time. Facebook lost 6 million users in mid-2011<\/a> after one particularly uproar-inducing redesign. People predicted the death of Facebook then, too.<\/p>\n

Ironic that they used a hashtag this time.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a great Wikipedia article that plots Facebook\u2019s many rough drafts on a timeline<\/a>. It\u2019s evidence of how much we overlook the rewriting process when we think about a \u201csuccessful\u201d concept and its evolution. It took a lot of time and anguish for Facebook to become Facebook in its current omnipresent form.<\/p>\n

In 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Pages, which gave companies and public figures their own spaces on the platform. It was a big step for the corporate and marketing worlds. Even then, many established products and brands had come late to the Internet. Some didn\u2019t even have a website.<\/p>\n

Facebook Pages put companies in direct conversation with their best and worst customers for the first time. Nestle\u2019s Facebook Page became infamous for trying to delete its dissatisfied customers instead of hearing them out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Facebook Pages also represented a big step for personal branding when they were opened to the public. It wasn\u2019t long before all of us got an email or three inviting us to like the Page of a coworker, a former classmate, or a best friend\u2019s cousin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a really good writer\u2014the best in our family\u2014you have to check him out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such encouragement went on before and after Facebook Pages, of course. \u201cPlease visit my website.\u201d \u201cPlease follow my Twitter.\u201d These digital solicitations are no different than the flyers under your windshield wiper that say, \u201cPlease visit our new storefront,\u201d except a storefront usually has more thought behind it.<\/p>\n

Just the other day, I received a notification to sign up for a blog entitled \u201cEverything in My Head.\u201d Based on the title alone, I did not sign up.<\/p>\n

We know how to spot a headline we don\u2019t want to read. We know exactly what we \u201cLike\u201d when we see it. But we have no idea how to direct that critique at ourselves. As I wrote previously, everyone needs readers and editors because we can\u2019t see our own mistakes and blind spots<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When I started teaching, an old friend contacted me to help him set up a blog and a Facebook Page. He sent me a writing sample. When I suggested the same edits I give my students, he politely said thanks and ignored the advice. Interest in his work never moved beyond his friends and family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell maybe I just want to write for my friends and family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

No, you really don\u2019t, <\/em>I thought.<\/p>\n

Small businesses suffer a high failure rate because people don\u2019t develop their ideas. It\u2019s much easier to join the current pyramid scheme or open yet another pizza joint than to startup the first Starbucks when no one drinks espresso or create Netflix when there\u2019s a Blockbuster Video on every corner.<\/p>\n

People should never fall in love with the first drafts of their work, but they do.<\/p>\n

A lot of my students will end their online assignments with invitations like, \u201cTell me what you think in the comments section below.\u201d Even big brands will try to appear interactive by asking customers to \u201cJoin the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interactivity is inspired, not solicited. Your friends have received enough requests from other friends. Yet if any friend reaches out to you tomorrow with a clear, concise, and interesting idea, you\u2019ll click Like in an instant.<\/p>\n

It was one of the hardest truths to learn long before social media: you don\u2019t want people you know to follow you. You want strangers.<\/p>\n

Good authors and entrepreneurs spend their time creating work that will interest people they don\u2019t know. When strangers respond with something more than a thumbs up or snark\u2014when they respond with their own thoughts and ideas\u2014then you truly have something. You have a conversation.<\/p>\n

You might even have a customer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The campaign to delete Facebook is trending again. I say again, because this isn\u2019t the first time. Facebook lost 6 million users in mid-2011 after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,56,57],"tags":[111,216,138,215,91,55,101,51,52],"class_list":["post-3894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-course","category-ivoice","category-linkweek","tag-audience","tag-brand","tag-draftthink","tag-facebook","tag-idea","tag-interactivity","tag-process","tag-voice","tag-writing","post_format-post-format-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4138,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions\/4138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotkalm.com\/bumpspark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}