You Don’t Have to Wait for a Response to Know, Do You?
In a conversation on Twitter on Sunday, I asked what I thought was a simple question.
How do you know when you’re tweeting value?
I asked it because a new guy on Twitter wanted to know the answer. I thought I might see what ways other folks had for managing the value of their Tweet stream — keeping the signal higher than the noise, not drifting over into in to useless chatter.
Many people started with the idea that they know they have tweeted value by the response — the retweets, reactions, engagement, and new followers that come from what they tweeted. So many answers basically said, “Other people tell me whether I offer value.”
I was thrown by the sheer number of responses that came back like that.
Being a teacher and a business person, my first thought was “Is this how our schools and our businesses have undermined us? They teach us to defer to other people’s opinion of value?
Isn’t putting something out there and then deciding it’s value by how people respond what network television does?
Value Is Worth
Imagine a contractor saying he would decide what a house he built was worth by tracking how many people talked about it? Wouldn’t you hope that the contractor might have a sense of quality and value before he picked his materials and assembled them?
Our reasons for sharing and responding or not doing so are often unrelated to value. Sometimes we share to get attention, without discrimination, or just to fill up the silence. Sometimes we don’t share because we’re busy, bored, tired of the noise, or uncaring.
If you offer something of value and no one responds does it mean that it has no value? If no one visits Tiffany, or Cartier for a week, will that mean that the diamonds they sell will no longer we of value?
Value is not what provokes a response — we swat mosquitoes when they bite us, but we don’t value the experience of a mosquito bite. Value is worth — what people find worth thinking about, worth using, worth discussing, worth time and attention. Value is what people keep and remember — we remember it because of how it changes or adds to our lives.
Values Drive Value — Always Did
Values drive value. We stop and notice what we value. Value resonates. Value influences. Value moves us to act on it because we want to incorporate it or add it our lives and our businesses. Finding value is its own reward. Sharing value is a generosity.
If you want to find what resonates with, influences, and moves other people, start with what resonates with you. influences, and moves you. If you want to know what other people will value, start with what you value first. If you don’t know where to start, here are three universal values you might use to offer irresistible value in what you write, build and choose to share.
- Value simplifies. Simple is elegant. Fewer clicks, fewer buttons, fewer steps in a to complete a task means less less to learn and less chance of introducing error. Simpler can move us past building to using. We do less hunting and gathering, less collecting data, art, photos, words, music, books, videos, and more enjoying, participating, reading, reviewing, listening, analyzing and sharing what we’ve collected. Anything that simplifies the navigation or the process of collecting gets us more quickly to discussing, learning, interacting, and connecting with the people about what we’ve found.
- Value saves time, energy, and resources. Who wouldn’t value something that offered more time, more energy or more resources? We need all three to process information and to make connections to people. Information and people help us remove problems, disarm obstacles, or lighten burdens. Connecting us to people who and you free our attention and time for what we want even more of in our businesses and our lives.
- Value adds meaning. Meaning, passion, purpose is what keeps us moving forward and gives us something to look forward to. Meaning is how we define ourselves and what connects us to other human beings. Meaning helps us explain why we’re here, who we care about, and how we’ll invest our time, energy and resources. Friends, family, fortune, fame, fun, faith and so many others are meaningful to people. Share what’s meaningful to you.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we stop listening for a response. Listening is a value in itself. It adds meaning to the relationships we’re building. Values attract people who value what you do. Serve them. Sharing values builds trust and trust simplifies, saves time, and adds meaning to a relationship.
Don’t build a life or a business around people who don’t share your values. They won’t value you. They won’t value your work. Why would you want to share what you value with people who don’t value it too?
Share what you know to be of value with people who value what you do. Then listen to their responses. Identify those who value you what you do and use what they say to serve them better, to think about what they might need next of value that will simplify, save time, and add meaning to their lives.
How do you know when you’re offering value?
Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss