Blogs aren’t about control
It’s tempting to think that you are in charge of your business. It might even look like you’re the one calling all the shots. What we often fail to remember, however, is that, at most, we control just one thing. . .ourselves. We are responding to the situations we find ourselves in and doing our best to create the situations we want to be in.
When thinking about blogs perhaps it should not surprise me that people often worry about how much control they’ll have.
What if I don’t want people to comment?
What if someone leaves a comment I don’t like?
What if someone links to my blog from an inappropriate site?
While you do have choices about what happens on your blog, you can’t control the other person and what they do elsewhere. Sure, you can disable comments (or not post a comment), yet that doesn’t stop someone from leaving that same comment somewhere else. To me however, that seems like saying to your audience, “Please do business with me someplace else,” rather than seeking to engage them directly on your blog. Obviously there may be some people who you choose not to interact with or do business with, but that’s an entirely different matter.
Read great thoughts about business, control, and social media
- Wendy Piersall seeks to answer the question, How Can You Keep Control of Your Brand with a Blog & Social Media?
- Valeria Montoni suggests that, You’re Asking the Wrong Question
- Geoff Livingston describes how, Fear Kills Social Media Efforts
“Social media involves conversation and conversation involves moving away from controlling the message. That’s a big shift for a lot of people.”
~ Valeria Maltoni
