I signed up for Project52 this morning. Basically, its a group of bloggers that are going to try and blog once a week for an entire year. From the website:
Project52 is a personal challenge geared toward getting fresh content on your website. The goal is to write at least 1 new article per week for 1 year. Because we all know what it‘s like to procrastinate on our content. A website is not just a fresh design that can be uploaded to the web and forgotten about!
I’m struggling to write a post a month these days, but I can definitely give this a go!
After reading this post on Mashable about how to deal with Social Media conflict, I thought I’d share some of my experiences of with the launch of the Incredible Connection blog.
1: Don’t take it personally
The first thing I’ve definitely learnt is not to take any of it personally. Sure, people often are responding directly to something you blogged about or tweeted, but its more about the subject matter they are upset about or responding negatively about. People have called me some pretty nasty things since launching the blog, but I know that if they ever had to meet me or enter into a civil discussion about the issues, their opinion about me personally would change.
2: Think before responding
Take the time to assess what the person is commenting, blogging or tweeting about before replying. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction to a situation only adds more fuel to the fire. More often than not you will find people responding on your behalf or trying to explain the situation before you need to step in, so hold back a while if the situation allows for it.
3: Stay positive
When you do respond, always thank the person for taking the time to respond. Once thanked, it becomes easier to formulate a response that is appropriate to the situation. The Mashable article talks about finding something to agree with and this is also a great way to find middle ground with the commenter. I’ve found that in these situations, staying positive and responding directly via email to a person goes a long way than just shutting down any false or negative comments.
It’s been a brilliant 2 weeks for me as part of Younique. Even though the Cape Town side of things has been a little quiet, I have been kept busy with the World Wide Creative crew doing some web development for them. Finally I’ve started to work with people that actually speak my online language!
Younique
As [...]
If you are a blogger or Wordpress fan, I hope you planning on attending Wordcamp SA on the 23 August 2008! Also, if you register before Monday 11th, you will receive a free Wordcamp SA t-shirt!
Go and register here: http://www.wordcamp.co.za/wp-login.php?action=register
There are going to be some really awesome speakers, as well as full media coverage from [...]
