Adam Kirk Smith

- A. Smith Blog - Leadership in Life

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#080: Credibility Is Necessary for Leaders

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About two months ago, I had a phone conversation with an editor friend of mine that I will probably never forget. She kept asking questions about me that she wanted lengthier answers to. Whatever I would say about myself, it just wasn’t enough, and as a result, she would then dig deeper. The issue was that I typically let my work speak for itself, and don’t usually care to ramble about my accomplishments. She finally said, “Adam, you have to learn how to talk about yourself more. People want and need to know more about your work, and you need to give that to them.” I simply replied, “I know”, and I began talking about something else to divert attention to a different topic. The truth is that I have never felt very comfortable talking about myself for extended periods of time in a conversation, as I have always been afraid that it would come off arrogant, or as bragging, or as overconfident.

The phone conversation that day got me thinking about the online world as we know it. Everyone is trying to sell something, everyone has something to say, and everyone wants our attention. There is much more junk on the internet than there are diamonds, or even diamonds in the rough for that matter, so we are forced to wade through all the junk to find the gems. Giving people unbridled accessibility to their very own platform has created this madness. This is why it is so important to find our audience, and to build trust with them. And a great way to start building trust is to repeatedly produce great work. Don’t become known for producing junk. When those who have found belief in the message you are sharing, they will share the information you need delivered, both online and by word of mouth in real life. Yes, producing credibility with your team, or audience, extends your reach even further.

A great way to start building trust is to repeatedly produce amazing work. Click To Tweet

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quitting twitter

This post is about a musician and twitter, so of course I had to write on this.

John Mayer is a musical/lyrical genius, so he’s got some credibility when he says what is creative and what’s a waste of time. He’s a busy guy. We’re all busy folks.

I’m listening to what he has to say.

As many of you know, John Mayer quit twitter. And some of the reasons that John gives for quitting are pretty valid.

I mean, 140 characters is a pretty small amount of letters to make something that is of huge value. A blog would definitely be a more of a place to make something of substance since you can use as many characters as you want. The only time I’ve seen twitter on its own make a big difference for the good is with twitchange, but even with that people found something wrong with it.

That’s the thing. No matter how much good you do, someone will always find something wrong with it. No doubt.

Back on subject.

I guess twitter is a good place for sending your tweet readers to another site of yours. But, even with the basic use of twitter we want to show people what we are doing and our agenda for the day. This is where we push folks over on our blog, website, photos or whatever else there is. I need some clarity on all of this, so maybe it will take some time to think about it.

Would the time spend on thinking up new tweets be better spent on thinking up better blog posts? Thinking up greater music? Coming up with chapters for new books?

Do you think Mayer brought up any valid points? What good uses have you found with using twitter?