With Christmas less than a week away, I have been furiously finishing preparations: buying and wrapping gifts, planning menus, and sending packages and cards to family far away.
I love seeing my daughters’ excitement in giving to others.
This season, more than others, reminds us about the value and joy we can find in giving to others.
In this season, a gift for you: I want to let you in on what I think is the secret power of social media.
Are you ready?
GIVING.
Through social media, we have the opportunity to give to others.
We can give knowledge, information, and wisdom.
We can give encouragement, inspiration, and motivation.
We can give support. We can promote others and their work.
We can give attention, admiration, and respect.
We can value others with our words.
We can bring a smile in 140 characters or less.
We can retweet and share , plus one and like.
We can give love, hope, and laughter.
We can give thanks, appreciation, and gratitude.
We can give whatever we have, to whoever we can, as generously as we dare.
The power is in the gift.
I want to encourage you to take some time during this holiday season to give to others through social media. Do it in a focused way. Set your timer for 12 minutes, as many times as you can over this season, and spend all of that time giving to others in the ways I describe above. Choose your favorite social media platform and look for ways to give. See what happens. Do it without expecting anything in return.
I’d love to hear how you enjoy your 12 minutes of giving experiment. I realize that for many of you, giving through social media is what you do anyway. Part of this experiment is the focus, dedicated time to giving. I don’t want to encourage a hash tag for this project because I want us all to give quietly. But I’d love to know what you discover through this process. So email me or return to the comments here to share your experiences.
I am the founder/CEO of the Weaving Influence team, the author of Reach: Creating the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause, and the host of the Book Marketing Action Podcast. I’m a wife and mom of three kids, and I enjoy running, reading, writing, coffee, and dark chocolate.
I was going to say I am going to try but you know what? I have been doing this already. I have had a fantastically unbelievable year on Twitter and it has been at least partly because I give. When you compliment people it goes a long way. Not only have I made friends with media stars in the fields I am interested in, I have some of them eating out of my hand. By giving, this has been the most extraordinary experience of my life. So this works. Please feel free to contact me for more details.
Great advice! I just found the sight today. I’ll be back.
Hi Becky, this is a great post! Facebook is my primary social platform. I like to think that I’ve been giving encouragement, attention, admiration, support and appreciation. I don’t know if I made anyone smile or if I can dedicate 12 minutes at a time doing it, but it makes me feel better about using Facebook already. I have recently thought of deleting my Facebook account to minimize distractions, but after reading your post, I may keep it a little longer.
Thank you so much for this post! I’ve been utilizing social media for nearly a year now to get connected with people in a very real and authentic way. What you share here is absolutely true – there is a powerful force that arises in a very Divine and natural way when we allow ourselves to open our hearts – however feels ‘right’ to each one of us.
I’ll be following your blog now as you clearly have so much to offer and guide us through with regard to social media. Love the positive and authentic energy. I’ve shared this on my own FB fan page as well. Much love to you. xoxo
I love this idea! I observe and interact on several social media sites, but I love the idea of purposefully spending time to exclusively encourage. I look forward to setting my timer and (hopefully) spreading a smile or two.
I love the idea of 12 minutes of focused time. It isn’t a lot, but what can you accomplish in 12 minutes?