I Didn't Know There Was a Rat in it!

We love you Ratty, sorry you're not coming off too well in this blog.

A story I grew up with, a story we all grew up with, a story about a bad ass hare and an easy going tortoise, I am of course talking about the epic tale called “The Hare and the Tortoise”. It’s a story that is much loved by people the world over and it really makes us believe if just for a moment that if we keep our heads down, believe in ourselves and keep going, well we might just get to where we want to be. Whether this is becoming a millionaire or beating an arrogant, know-it-all hare it doesn’t matter, the principles are the same.

For me I think this concept is something we all want to believe, something we all even say we believe but how many of us actually live like we believe it? Not many you can bet. For most of us think one way and act another, leading to a life of frustration, disappointment and being average and yes landscape architecture is no different.

Not that there is anything wrong with being average or being normal if you like, it’s just that if you had a magic lamp gave it a rub and out popped a genie who was willing to offer you anything you wanted, you could have it all, the life of your dreams, anything, anything at all, do you really think anybody on this earth, no matter what their circumstances would say to the genie “Genie I wish to be average”. I doubt it! Therefore I conclude that nobody will ever feel fulfilled in their lives if all they ever do is be average, no matter how content or peaceful they are with it, being average will slowly be met with regrets, disappointment and a feeling of emptiness, which people will try and fill with superficial modern day conveniences, pursuing life’s of pleasure rather then fulfilment. Pursuing a life centred around themselves and what people can offer them, instead of living a life centred around each other and what they can offer people.

In the recent story I read about the tortoise and the hare, there was an extra character involved, one that I never knew of before, he was the rat and he only entered the race because other people were talking about it and he didn’t want to miss out, so he jumped in, just to be like everyone else, you know, just to fit in, who wants to miss out on all the commotion.

Let’s recap the story by taking the three characters:

The boastful hare: He’s expected to win; he’s got all the natural ability in the world and is born to be fast and powerful.

The humble tortoise: He’s a slow animal, certainly not designed to be fast and even lacks the ability to run, a clear outsider with not a snowflakes chance in hell of winning against a hare

The Rat: He can run, he can train really hard, he can be smart and run right, sure you could say he has potential and sure if a tortoise is going to run I guess the rat might as well run also. Nothing to lose, right!

So race day comes, and they all line up, the hare, the rat and the tortoise, the gun fires and they’re off, straight out of the blocks is the hare, speeding far, far ahead and then the tortoise one foot in front of the other, step by step, slowly but surely, lagging way behind the hare, but of course we all know how this story ends so I’m not going down that road, no I’m going back to the race, where we have the rat!

Now this is where this story gets really interesting, the rat takes one step forward, a good step, fast, confident, full of energy, but unfortunately another step does not follow, as the rat decides, just as the race begins that he will never beat the hare, sure he’ll beat the tortoise, very easily in fact, but the hare not a chance, and who wants to finish second, who cares about second place. So straight away the rat gives up as soon as the race started because he knew he could never beat the hare. And guess what the rat didn’t beat the hare and can you guess what again, the rat never ever beat the hare, in fact the rat will probably never beat the hare not now or in the future, because the rat knows he can’t win. Meanwhile the tortoise goes on to win the race.

The rat was not slow nor was he fast, he was average and because he never tried to be anything else other than average he stayed average and he got average results. The world is full of rats and hares, with all sorts of natural ability that blow your mind away, the truth is most of the hares rely too heavily on their natural ability and most of the rats never stop believing they are average, it takes little steps, no matter how slow or how small, it takes little steps one after another, in the right direction to get you where you want to be, and I guess sometimes it takes an insignificant rat to remind us of that.

So what kind of landscape architect are you:

A.      One with natural ability, that you are destined to waste. (not always, but very often the case)

B.      One with average ability that you believe right down to your core

C.      Or one that knows where you are going and you take small but significant steps to get there each and every day.

If you think you are C, well then prove it to yourself, ask yourself right now, “What little step did I take to get me closer to where I want to be?” If you can’t answer that simple question then you are not C!

Disclaimer:

This writer of this blog has nothing against rats, tortoises or hares any references to them are purely metaphorical, in fact the writer of this blog is a vegan and he loves all of god’s creatures, even the ones that pollute the planet day after day.

A Facefull of Facebook

Status update: Facebook is Awesome

Facebook is not becoming a great tool for marketing, networking and socialising and it is certainly not becoming a tool for making money, Facebook is not becoming any of these things, because Facebook “IS” all these things. I know it, you know it and pretty much anybody who isn’t oblivious to what’s going on in modern day society knows it.  Will it last much longer, I’m guessing at least five more years, possibly more, but with a world full of creative, ambitious and hard working people it’s inevitable that something new, different and exciting will take it’s place. What? I have no idea, when? Like I said I reckon about five years more before people jump onto the next big idea. But for now we’ve got Facebook and it’s cool, fast and affordable, did I say affordable I meant to say practically “FREE”. Get yourself an internet connection and just like magic your connected to the world’s largest social network in the history of the world. It’s filled with a diverse range of people with an equally diverse range of interests.

So you have three choices:

1: Ignore this truly awesome wave of potential

2: Use it at your leisure

3: Grab your surf board, put on your wet suit and ride the crest of one of the most incredible waves we will ever witness in our lifetime, enjoy it, love it and reap the rewards.

Like all waves no matter how spectacular, they all come to an end to allow for other waves to come behind it, that’s the nature of the beast. So don’t worry about the wave crashing, just enjoy the fact that it’s here and is ready for you, in fact it’s inviting you, screaming at you, calling for you and wondering what the hell is taking you so long. So be a Facebook snob or be a Facebook genius, it’s up to you.

So why am I typing this blog, oh yeah I’m going to tell you how to do it and give you a link to an incredible guy who will blow your mind with his ingenious ideas of how to capitalise on Facebook.

Like everything I teach to friends or family I break it down into steps, so why should this be any different, so here’s your “Seven Steps for Facebook Success”.

Step 1

Choose for views

 Pick something that motivates you, something you’re interested in, for example I’m a Landscape Architect so surprise, surprise I set up a Facebook fan page called “Landscape Architects” and you can click onto the page from the badge at the side of this page. I set it up to promote awareness of the industry, to keep me enthused about the profession and encourage me to stay up to date with all the latest activity in the world of landscape architecture. I have big plans for this page and well I won’t go on but watch this space!

Step 2

“My Mom says I’m great”

Invite every one of your friends and family to join the page, initially your page will be full of people who want to support you and not people there because they want to support the actual topic of the page. Ultimately you want people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer but at the beginning it is great to start off with whatever people you can get.

What this does is it breaks the ice, it shows that your page is generating numbers and that whoever joins won’t be alone on your page, which is a little embarrassing as I started a page which completely flopped, it was called KITY and was aimed at helping people to find resources for learning languages on the internet. It was a disaster and I got 3 fans, one of those fans was me. This is why it is essential to get whoever you can get at the beginning; it’s just for moral support and to show potential fans that you’ve got something other people are interested in.

Step 3

Sow your seeds

It’s all well and good wanting to reap a great harvest but the crop won’t sow itself, you’ve got to stay active, that means a minimum of one new post every day, always keeping it relevant to the page. Creating a new post every day is all about getting into the habit of doing it. You simply have to set aside a time each day whereby you sit down at the computer and dedicate 15 or 20 minutes to posting something that’s interesting. Post it, leave it and allow it to get a response or two, initially a lot of your posts won’t get any responses, don’t be disheartened by this, it’s just part of the process, it will work out, you have to be persistent with this. The more you do it, the more you will learn what kind of posts get the best responses, for me the best responses come from posting up my own pictures and tagging people in photos, also I get a lot of action when I leave the fans with some thought or suggestion to dwell on in the status updates.

Step 4

Create a Source

This is really easy and involves you helping out people who are trying to do the same thing as you, all you have to do is go onto the search tab on Facebook and type in the keyword that relates to what your page is trying to promote, in my case that would be “Landscape or Landscape Architecture” and so on.... this will give you a whole list of similar groups and fan pages that are on face book, what you do now is you join and “like” every one of them. Why? Because it allows you to be involved with all their posts and status updates, meaning you have a constant pool of relevant knowledge that your page can benefit from, allowing you to pick and choose only the updates and links that excite you, making your page completely unique because unlike all the other pages all the information is filtered through you.

Step 5

Be Cheeky

Look in life you don’t get anywhere unless you’re prepared to stick your neck out from time to time, and you know with a little practice you can be very clever about it and almost verging on the world of being savvy. A term used to describe, sharp, cool and slick business people.

A great way to promote your page without paying any money is to copy and paste your link onto other similar pages. Be clever about this, don’t just start posting your link everywhere, you will get blocked and people will report you and you may even get your page cancelled by Facebook.  To do it right, look for the right angle, read through other pages, see if they posted anything that compliments or is of contrast to something you have posted, leave a nice comment about their content and then place in your own link, kind of like saying, “well if you like that, you’ll love this”. This way it is not just a cheeky way of promoting your page for free to like minded individuals, you have added value to their page by giving them a relative comment or question, meaning that it is more likely that they will actually take the time to look at it.

When your page starts growing in numbers and starts generating content based on the fans input you can have a little more confidence with this tactic and instead of simply posting on the page find the pages that reveal who the administrator is, contact them directly and request that you will post their link on your page in exchange for them doing the same with their page. This is a much more effective and efficient manner to conduct this tactic as it means that 100% of their fans will be notified about your page as opposed to when you posted on their page yourself, where only fans that go directly on the page will see your post. This will only be a fraction of the total number of fans that the page actually has.

Step 6

Chit about chat

This is simple, obvious and very essential, if somebody posts on your page, REPLY, acknowledge that you appreciate the comment, generate conversation, let it develop into something bigger. You have a duty to your fans, you must respond to them, individually at the initial stages of the pages development and then reply in a more general context as comments build up. Ultimately you want fans to have great discussions on your page with you only thanking them for their comments and not actually being involved in the conversation at all.

Step 7

The Double Slap

So you’ve invited all of your friends and since then a whole host of people have also joined, however there are still a large number of your friends that are likely to not join at all. This is when you slap them in the face, not literally of course, every now and again, share a post you have put on your fan page on your personal profile, this opens your page up to all those people that refused to join the page and allows them to change their mind, I know you want people to join your page that are genuinely interested in your topic but you should never close yourself off from a potential fan, when anybody “likes” your page, Facebook does an incredibly nice thing for you and notifies all of their friends, opening you up to potentially hundreds more fans.

So there you have it, seven steps that you can put into action today, there’s literally nothing stopping you, all you have to do is do it. Just like the NIKE sports slogan “Just Do It”, stop thinking about it, it’s a great idea and packed full of potential, so once again, all together now, you at the back, yeah that’s right YOU, are you ready, let’s say it “just do it” a little louder please..........

“JUST DO IT” thank you NIKE for that wonderful slogan J

Now has promised at the start of the post, I’m going to give you a link to a fantastic guy that knows and understands Facebook like the back of his hand. Check out http://www.crowdconversion.com/facebook-marketing-video/ you won’t be disappointed, this man is a genius with a lot to offer you, in fact you’ll notice some of the ideas I mentioned are actually based on things he says, he’ll offer you a great deal by way of communication and promoting your Facebook page and if you’re great at it and pay attention to him, who knows you may even make some money out of it.

Best of luck creating your Facebook fan page and like everything in life you get out of it what you put into it.

Check my page out my fan page “Landscape Architects”, access it by clicking on the badge at the top of this page.

I hope you have as much fun creating and having a Facebook fan page as much as I do, as far as my page goes it has been running since March 2010 and is now approaching 700 fans with my sights firmly set on the 1000 mark, it recieves almost 4,000 views daily and at it's peak it averaged 50 new fans every week for five consecutive weeks running. 2011 is going to be a big year for us and I can't wait, life is great so is facebook and so are you! 

Take care,

Scott.