It’s no secret that I have another passion beyond marketing, one that is the very mere expression of my soul – I sing! If you have been following me on Foursquare, you might have noticed that the places I frequent often are those that offer Karaoke! Yesterday night wasn’t any different – we were celebrating a friend’s birthday at Johnny’s pub by the Nile.

On my way back home, having sung my heart out, it hit me how similar Karaoke is to my social media experience. Here’s how it goes, I walk into Johnny’s pub and join my friends at their table. I knew about half the people seated on that table, and I introduced myself to the unfamiliar faces. The place was stacked with people, some there to sing, others to dance, others to drink, with one common objective, to have fun. I wrote the song I wanted to sing on a piece of paper that required my name, the name of the song, and the code! Then I walked up to the DJ and handed it to him – I could see a pile of requests lying on the table! The MC has heard me sing before, so when it was time for me to sing he reminded me of the praises Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany) gave William Tatcher (Heath Ledger) before every dual in the movie “A Knight’s Tale“. Building up the crowd’s anticipation didn’t really help in suppressing the loud drumming noise that came from the pounding of my heart. I can’t say that my choice of song was a safe one; after all, what’s the fun in that! I sang to the melody of Elton John’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me … people where applauding me from the start and the spotlight was blinding. However, if you haven’t seen me sing before, you wouldn’t know that I tend to situate myself in a corner and close my eyes and drift into a different world – this is what I usually do to deafen the well-intended cheers of vanity and remain true to myself. After having finished, people kept nodding in my direction, some walked up to me and introduced themselves, others offered words of praise, some asked me if I sang professionally, others asked me if I would like to sing in a band, etc … regardless of how many times I go out there to sing, it is always humbling to receive such unsolicited compliments.

So how does all this relate to my social media? Ok let me break down the whole Karaoke process and build up the analogy for you. The friends I met in the pub represent my friends of Facebook, people that I already know. Through friends on Facebook, you usually connect with their friends, and this relates to the rest of the people on that table. The people in the pub represent the tweeple on Twitter from different walks of life, there for different reasons, with one common interest and that is sharing. There are millions of people on Twitter, and they all have these short messages that they try to put out there – hence the analogy with the piles of requests I found on the DJ’s table. Ironically the piece of paper is very similar to a tweet – @yourname followed by the message and then the link! The MC represents the search engines like Google – since he heard me sing several times before, he helped boost my image by ranking me way up – this is what we refer to as search engine optimization. My choice of song is very reflective of the Personal Brand I want to put out there. With so many messages out there, I had to stand out by daring to be different. The act of singing is another form of expression that obviously reflects my blog in the social media sphere. This is your chance to earn the attention of the audience by owing them with your content – but beware of vanity, it’s the devil’s ultimate sin … don’t let the flattery and cheering make you lose focus! Stand true to who you are, to the personal brand you put out there, people can easily spot lack of sincerity and that will result in your demise. Think of nods that followed my performance as retweets, and those that walked up to me to introduce themselves can be compared to people who start following on Twitter. The words of praise are equivalent to the comments that are left as a reply to your post. The other group of people that asked me if I’d like to sing in a band and investigated further about my professional experience is representative of the business leads generated as a result of your performance.

Just like any performance, you’re only as good as your last one. Make sure when you put yourself out there to make it count every single time. I have a folder on my laptop that contains more than 20 unpublished posts, and the reason is simple, they don’t uphold to the standards that I have promised my loyal readers! I prefer to post nothing, rather than simply posting anything. Remember, there are a lot of people singing out there, so you have to give your best every single time – you owe it to your “fans”. Think About It!