Writing a blog in the hopes that you’ll get noticed — or hired — is extremely passive-aggressive.
Most people who’ve made money have made it by pursuing it. Therefore, they respect what they recognize, which is a desire to achieve. So, by pursuing work and striving to get their attention, your actions resonate with them.
Meanwhile, posting amazing free content to your blog on a daily basis, and then hoping someone will someday think, “Gee, I wonder what he’d do if I paid him,” is the antithesis of go-getter moxie.
Consider the guy who claimed to land a job by manipulating Google. He didn’t just get hired because he was creative; he got hired because he got noticed.
He could have also written a blog post about how great he was, and then hoped that his six art directors of choice would find that post while Googling, read it, realize he was a genius and call him for an interview.
But that would have been stupid. And desperate. And passive. And failed.
Stop being all of those things.
Does That Mean I Should Self-Promote Endlessly?
No. No it does not.
Look at that Google guy again. Did he spam the world with his joblessness? No. He targeted six art directors he knew he’d like to work for, and he got his message in front of them.
That’s the other difference between being aggressive and being passive-aggressive: identifying the target.
If you believe in yourself, then you’ll be confident in walking your message directly to the right person’s doorstep.*
If you don’t, you’ll spraypaint your desires all over the web, in the hopes that someone — anyone — will notice you, and take pity on you, and drag you home to their quonset hut to nurse you back to health.
Do you want a specific result, or any result?
Skip the hut, and find the right doorstep.
The 5-Step Process to Get Hired Using Social Media
1. Know what you want to get paid for.
2. Do that work for free. (This is called practice.)
3. Become better at doing it for free than the people who currently get paid to do it.
4. Figure out who pays people to do it, and show them what you do.
5. Tell them how much you’ll do it for.
Repeat steps 1-5 until you find yourself gainfully employed.
But Wait! There’s a Bonus Step!
6. Write a book about how you landed your dream job using social media — and sell it.
Wasn’t that easy?
*Not someone’s face, mind you. Their doorstep. And recognize when you’ve been ignored vs. when you’ve been invited in. Adults respond to confidence; teenage girls respond to bravado. Unless you want to be employed by a teenage girl, understand the tonal difference in your delivery.
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Tags: audience, bullshit, Business, common sense, Freelance, inspiration, money, networking, perception, Social Media
Haha, pretty good points.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Paul Simbeck-Hampson. Paul Simbeck-Hampson said: Stop Being So Passive-Aggressive with Your Social Media http://ping.fm/OccBG [...]
I just have a problem with the “do it for free.” I understand that practice makes perfect, but does it have to be for free? I have to eat!
By all means, charge to use a computer from the moment you learn what
a computer is. The market, and your ability to sell yourself, will
determine what you're worth.
Personally, I wouldn't pay someone to practice when I can pay someone
who already knows what they're doing instead. But that person will
probably charge me more, and deliver better results. If another
client is less interested in quality and more interested in price,
they might pay a novice to do the same thing.
(I know, I know… This opens the Pandora's Box of “When does someone
become a 'professional?'” My answer: anybody CAN get paid for what
they do. But charging for services doesn't automatically make someone
worth hiring.)
Here's the flaw I find in arguments like yours. Particularly #3. A variation on “be awesome.”
Whenever I hear it, I think of a story I read about Walt Disney's production of Snow White, the first animated feature film.
Up to that point, Disney short cartoons were all slapstick comedies, with the music underscoring the movement and mimicking the action. Today we still call that mickeymousing.
But now Walt needed a broader sound, one that carried emotion and depth. He tried to convey this to the composer he hired. As an example of what he wanted, he played a bit of music from a record.
Slack-jawed, the composer gawked at his boss, and finally replied, “Walt… that's Beethoven.”
Walt, not getting the musician's point, just said, “Yeah.” And smiled.
Advice to “just” be awesome is easily delivered these days. Usually by people who have themselves achieved awesomeness. The rest of us are churning away, and consider themselves fortunate just to get the thing shipped.
Thank god you think being awesome is hard. The harder awesome seems,
the fewer people will strive for it. This makes becoming awesome ever
easier as the bar is lowered ever-downward due to lack of competition.
To be fair, there are different degrees of “awesome”. Clearly, if the bar is “Beethoven” (meaning they'll still be talking about and showing your greatness hundreds of years later), there is going to be very little awesome in this world.
I don't think we all need to be Beethoven on a daily basis. But I do
think it's a more proactive ideal to aspire to than simply “paying the
bills.” Otherwise, mediocrity becomes the ideal, and moving forward
becomes expendable. Personally, I reject that compromise.
Agreed.
While I may suspect I will never be Beethoven, or Michael Jordan, or Warren Buffett, I do choose to make every effort to be as good as I can possibly be at what I choose to do. I think we're saying the same thing.
But, I should point out you never said “be awesome”. You said, “Become better at doing it for free than the people who currently get paid to do it.” Frequently, the people who currently get paid to do it are very far from awesome…
Right: *I* didn't use awesome; someone who equates “get better” with
“be awesome” did.
Any urge to improve can be taken personally by those who are still
playing catch-up. (Which, depending on your field, could be anyone.)
Great thoughts, and frankly, pretty much the premise for my entire book, which you are mentioned in. :) http://www.attentionthebook.com
Love your spray paint analogy! Can I use that when I'm talking with clients? The biggest hurdle is often getting them to understand that targeting doesn't mean limiting – hence the spray paint approach.
So on point – first time to your blog … I look forward to reading more.
I love this: “Recognize when you’ve been ignored vs. when you’ve been invited in.”
Got any ideas how to begin figuring out #4? I've seen people trying to pitch companies that aren't paying, convinced that they will pay once they've shown their expertise.
If they didn't pay the last guy, why should they pay you? (Not that
they won't, but why SHOULD they?)
You need to be honest when evaluating who you're pitching, what you
offer and what you're charging. You can't give the store away for
free, but you also can't walk into a Fortune 500 company and make
ludicrous demands with no track record.
Figure out two things: what DO you do best, and what CAN you do, if necessary?
Then, find companies who need what you provide AND whose budget is
amenable to your fees.
If you're just getting started, you have nothing to offer a major
corporation. Likewise, if you've been doing this consistently and
productively for years, and you have a portfolio of established
successes, you're wasting your time if you pitch companies who are too
small, slow or clueless to make use of you.
I think our natural instinct is to always pretend we're in group B,
while secretly suspecting we'll never escape from group A. But unless
you're brand new to social media OR you're a NYT best-selling author,
the truth — and your target market — is ussually somewhere in
between. Price yourself accordingly.
Loved this post, Justin. Especially “the other difference between being aggressive and being passive-aggressive: identifying the target.”
And on the 'Be Awsome' step that everyone seems to latch on to. I think we nee to talk about the degrees of awesome. Obviously there are some major overlaps but I would argue that “Awesome” for a Fortune 500 will require different tactics and skills than being “Awesome” for a smaller / regional business or a non-profit. It's about being the best at what you do in the world that you're trying to target.
Bingo. As in all things, context is key. If you're thinking at a
Fortune 500 level, it's hard to dial it down to meet the needs of a
local cafe owner.
So we all have parallel measurements of our “awesomeness”: how good
are you at what you do, and which market is your expertise best-suited
for?
I think you hit the nail on the head: targeting your efforts makes a big difference between being noticed and being hired. Every time I walk through Times Square I can find someone who wants you to notice them, but the pros are the ones to know how to earn a buck target the right target audience (in this case, usually gullible tourists).
I also agree that shameless, endles self-promotion can be seriously damaging to your reputation, but the inverse extreme is equally dangerous. Once you've landed a dream job in social media, you still want to keep “beating the war drum” as they say, reminding people of the new levels you're acheiving and solidifying your reputation (as an “expert” if you will). I think that's the big advantage of being a blogger, like this great blog you write; I wrote more thoughts to this effect in my recent blog post about getting a job in social media marketing.
There's also the matter of tone. You can't sell yourself to your
friends like you sell yourself to potential clients, or nothing seems
personal. Likewise, you can't be overly personal with everyone, or no
one feels special (or they think you're melodramatically unhinged).
I consider this post a swift kick in the ass. Sometimes that's what we all need.
I also want to add one more thing about “pursuing it.” As an ex-sales guy turned freelance copywriter, I've picked up the phone and just made calls: warm calls, cold-calls, calls to potential clients, marketing partners, organizations,etc. If there's a dream client you want to land, you either wait forever for them to “discover you,” or you can reach out to them.
I also want to add one more thing about “pursuing it.” As an ex-sales guy turned freelance copywriter, I’ve picked up the phone and just made calls: warm calls, cold-calls, calls to potential clients, marketing partners, organizations,etc. If there’s a dream client you want to land, you either wait forever for them to “discover you,” or you can reach out to them.