Last week, I visited Edmonton to learn about how the city is working to become the technology hub of Alberta. When I was there, I had a few drinks with a
local writer and musician. He told me that he had just joined Twitter a few months ago and was still figuring out the best way to use the tool to promote his articles, new book and music through social media.
We got on the topic of how telling your story through social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is like a performance. There is definitely an art to effectively communicating your message through these channels. This “performance art” requires a lot of strategy and practice in order to deliver an engaging story to your target audience.
It got me thinking a lot about the different types of performers that I follow every day and how they measure and perfect their craft.
Measuring your performance
One might argue that tools like Klout and TwitterGrader are the new tabloids of the social media world. After all, they do tell us how well we are being received by our followers and help us to determine how to increase our influence and popularity. They also tell us when our followers are losing interest so that we can figure out how to adjust our message to improve whatever bad behaviour had turned them away.
Learn from the masters to perfect your craft
Many great actors study with masters to teach them how to be the best that they can be. Regardless of what industry you are in, there are likely a number of “master performers” who you can learn from. All you have to do is start following them through the social media platforms on which they perform. Social media listing sites like Twellow and WeFollow are great resources for finding the top performers in your industry. They also help like-minded performers to find you.
For more information about this topic, check out my previous blog about some of the influential storytellers that I follow in the corporate space and why I think they matter.
If you have suggestions on how to better perform a corporate story in front of an online audience, I’d love to hear about it.