Gaurav Mishra says he’s “the marketer who hates the social media hustle”. And yet he finds himself hustling, as he believes much of what we do in social media is hustle:
But social media is all about the hustle, it’s all about working the room, and, indeed, working your social networks, doing anything you need to do to increase your influence and build your brand.
My response to him:
Gaurav, I hate hustling too. I don’t buy that Social Media is all about hustling. That’s doing injustice to users of social media and your readers by implying they can and will be ‘hustled’!!!
We all hustle once in a while. If the ‘hustling’ leads to meaningful dialogue/conversation/action that is visible to those who are recipients of your “hustle” then it makes sense. If it’s only about how great I am, and how great I am perceived by my community and the rest of the world, it just won’t work.
A lot of the people you mention use their social media ‘whuffie’ for causes outside themselves – is that hustling?
Building your influence and brand really comes from the relationships you are able to build with a wide audience based on solid and credible work, thought, intent, experience, energy, imagination. Not just hustling
To hustle … or not???
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
agree completely (with your reply, like i said in my comment there too).. to me, its an amusing question, more than a conundrum, because it shows a pattern… this might be over simplification, but…
a long time back, there were very few brands, they communicated their value proposition in a plain manner, people bought them, they survived/perished based on WOM and this was usually in proportion to the product quality… then commodities happened, communication lost transparency, ‘branding/positioning..blah’, and today, on social media brands are berated regularly for their one way push messaging..
a long time back, there were very few blogs, they communicated……
the difference though is that now we have a self correcting mechanism already in place, which i trust will take care of this. you’re right, readers will be hustled only if they consciously agree to be hustled
PS. it also reminds me of the song ‘chingari’ from amar prem :}
One man’s meat etc come to mind whenever this issue arises. Except in some cases, where their recent past behaviour re hustling is fully in contrast with their espoused views
I can’t help but think there is also a ‘balance’ thing.
So many erstwhile fans of Guy Kawasaki are now upset with him because close to 80% of his signal is ‘Alltop noise’. Clearly it is a hustle to some but considering only a few score of his thousands of followers object, the signal-to-noise ratio is high for most.
Many people only ever post links and never converse. I am unsure what the point of their posts is. (When I wake up, I read many things so my early morning tweets are mostly links but that changes during the day). Is that hustle? I am not sure.
two thoughts:
1. whuffie is similar to jugaad isn’t it? the intangible kind, not the obvious makeshift gadget or whatever
2. isn’t the true power of whuffie in *not* using it… or at least judiciously and not for yourself?
thanks for the comments!
manu: you are now ready to write THE book
. simple with depth and a sprinkling of chingari
shefaly: am not so sure about the signal to noise ratio for alltop! i guess guy kawasaki gets away with it because of his reputation!! On your point about conversations around links – it depends whether the links are to your own blog posts or to others. On the latter, often I read something and just share the link because I feel my community will enjoy it. Or just to share with them something I like.
niti: yeah jugaad
. silent and present whuffie i like!
Dina – random comment about reputation – it’s a funny thing, takes a really long time to build, can potentially go in a minute, take a really long time to build again, if at all.
R
I quite agree with you Dina on this one. To say that “hustling” can bring people in, in my opinion, is undermining the conscience of people who read you, and their ability to choose. I think creating “awareness” about a cause or doing “advocacy” for a cause might be a better word. I am quite new to blogging and the online world, but I am assuming, that most people here would be very sophisticated (technically and in their thoughts) to get carried away by hustling. I am sure they would know how to separate the grain from the chaff