She was waiting at a bus stop coming home from the hospital the other day and an older lady starts to talk to her about being late for the eye doctor because the bus is running late. The woman is very concerned and has been debating which of three buses to take and has been jumping back and forth between all three of them (had she just picked one and actually gotten on one of them she probably would've made her appointment okay). But anyway, she is not ceasing to speak to Heather and so Heather says completely deadpan, "Well," and hold up her blind cane, "you can see what happened the last time I was late I for the eye doctor" Really really really long pause. Then the woman finally laughs. I think Heather was slightly evil for trying this joke.
Why is Rob telling us what a nut job Heather is? Well because last night she was leaving her Feldenkrais class (which is a movement class - they have chronic pain people take it sometimes) and it was a rough class during which she had trouble not crying. She was walking to the bus stop and she burst into tears because of one of those super intense overwhelming pain times where you can't hold it in anymore and you are just screaming and crying in pain. When she could bring that under control a little bit she had to figure out if it was safe for her to get on the bus where she couldn't really lie down at all or if she would just wait it out somewhere at the hospital or go to the ER and get a bit of relief. She hasn't gone to the ER in years but she went last night - she didn't check in though, she just laid down there (lying flat helps reduce some of the pain) for a whole variety of reasons - she doesn't want to tell her story again, she doesn't want to be labeled a drug seeker, she doesn't want them to think she's being manipulative and trying to highlight that the schedule they have her on, which forces her to leave the house and do something at the hospital almost every day of the week now (and ride public transit back and forth which tacks an 1 1/2-3 hours each way) is too much, she didn't want to be condescended to, there were a whole bunch of reasons. She shouldn't necessarily get on the bus or try to cross streets if the vertigo is too strong and then if she gets too disoriented because of that it gets troublesome and nobody really wants her screaming on the bus, lol. So what's a girl to do...
Marketing on the internet is often like making the decision about whether or not to go to the ER - it's about perception. Will this person think I am commenting on his blog just to get the love back? Or will he realize that while, sure, there may be an element to that, there is definitely something specific to his blog that I like which is why I am able to point to that and say something about it as opposed to just saying - hey, nice blog, come look at mine. Or if I friend someone on Facebook - will they get that I might actually think that their status updates are funny.cool.interesting.smart and pay attention to that and go check on them and want to form a business relationship or will they just assume that I am in it solely for myself. Will they realize that if they only approach me with their 'stuff' , not even noticing when I am responding to their stuff and promoting their stuff, that I will be unlikely to respond super-positively to that and that the relationship that does form will, in fact, turn out to be superficial and won't lead anywhere.
Developing relationships online take time. And I don't always immediately notice somebody's Diggs or all the Tweets and Buzzes and whatnots out there. I do spend more time looking at various people's ones as I get to know them and get more interested in what they have to say and recommend. Then these are the people's ones whom I am likely to re-tweet and to re-digg. As I connect with people on other networks I find that some people seem to be better at reading what people have to say than others- I've had messages sent to me where they clearly didn't read my message. Then after I reply back and they reply back to me -it's just more generic stuff, no real reply back or any indication that they actually read that message either. And then I think - well, that's someone I think I can take off the list of people I am going to spend time trying to connect with - because let's face it - limited hours in a day! I can't connect with everybody. And so many of you guys are fantastic! So I'd rather invest the effort there :)
So....why did I start this off with 2 silly stories...because we need the humor to humanize us. We need the humor to let off steam. And since the point of the post today was that although marketing online obviously entails a bit of trying to get something for yourself - you are also trying to connect with other real live human beings out there!
So happy connecting!
Rob
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