How much time do you spend working on your Web 2.0-cross voting network? Don’t get me wrong, a network is vital, the right network can propel you into social media marketing heaven. But, there comes a point where watching your story rise on digg and constantly plundering your IM contacts becomes notworking, not networking.
You become so desperate you ping the weird stalker you hoped would go away, but you are so desperate to squeeze those extra votes out of the tube you are willing to dance with the devil.
The law of diminishing return kicks in at some point, where you would get more out of working on your content than doing the ping-tango with your IM crowd.
Should you even have to ask your network to vote for you? If you’re content is good enough wouldn’t they vote for it anyway, or are they in the same frenzied vote-begging mode?
Do you find yourself submitting your own stuff constantly to sites? Why are people not submitting it for you? If you are new, then this happens, but if you have been producing content for a while and you are still not on the radar then maybe you need to spend more time on your content.
There is no big secret to making great content, the most important factor is time. you have to spend a lot of time on content to make it fantastic. And how can you do that if you are constantly on IM chatting about the latest plot twist on Lost or Twittering away about the chocolate bar you are eating.
I am as guilty as any for wasting time networking, but I love to chat, I love to meet new people and it’s very easy to justify it as work and not for what it is, notworking.
Later I will talk more about building your network.