Welcome to Playing Internet – the blog that helps conscious entrepreneurs use a positive content strategy for marketing their business.
Playing Internet™ was created as a service in the spirit of the internet itself, to share knowledge. Through the power of blogging and use of a positive content marketing strategy, you will build credibility and authority in what it is you do while expressing your own uniqueness. Using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and other platforms is another way to spread your message. The main purpose of Playing Internet™ is to help conscious entrepreneurs, authors, and coaches become more adept with social media because furthering the reach of their heart-centered messages increases social good and benefits the world.
You will find a variety of free content on this site about how to effectively maintain a blog and use social media for your business. In addition, there are coaching programs available for people who work better being guided through a process instead of figuring it out by themselves.
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Read on for the Playing Internet™ story…
The Conscious Entrepreneur
In 2011 I discovered, and fell in love with, the concept of the “conscious entrepreneur”. I am completely enamored with the process of a person discovering their strengths and passions and then creating a successful business using them in a loving way! It’s so natural for us to share the things we love and are good at. And I often want to connect with people that I stumble across online because I love the message most of you are providing and I want more! I don’t want to forget about someone who writes positive articles or has a really interesting program or book that can help me be a better person. But you don’t always have a profile on my favorite social networks and even if you do, you may not actively post on all of them. I often ask questions to small businesses on twitter and get no response. I’d share a link to one of their programs on my Facebook page and never get a “like” or thank-you in return. I don’t think they mean to ignore me – everything I know about these business owners is that they are great, loving people who don’t want to be like that. I’m sure they want to follow the appropriate etiquette for each of these social networks. So what’s up?
To satisfy my curiosity, I analyzed the social network activity of a bunch of my favorite solopreneurs and authors. Not many up to date blogs (if they even have one). While some of them are active on Twitter and Facebook, at least half of them only broadcast information trying to make sales. Ouch! Sometimes they ask questions (probably because some marketing person told them to “engage” people by asking questions) but then they never pick up a dialog with any of their followers who reply. And it hit me — many of you just don’t know how the tools work! Do you even know how you can tell if someone is engaging with you? Do you know how to organize your followers so you can nurture your different relationships? Are you overwhelmed and think it takes too much time to figure out or to actually participate every day? For the ones that do properly engage, it doesn’t always seem that the links you are posting are optimized with analytics for tracking. Don’t you want to be able to tell which content is being shared? And why aren’t you posting at the most popular time of the day for that specific social network? I have a lot of work to do! People need my help! I need to tell you about all these little things so you can make the most of your efforts and the time you are spending online.
Being an Author
Around June of 2011 I was looking for a new project to sink myself into and I decided I wanted to write a book. My plan was (and still is) to write a book full of inspirational short stories that are historical non-fiction. I think re-telling the past in an inspirational way will be a super fun challenge! To figure out an approach to accomplish this, I researched writing coaches and publishing processes. During some of these sessions I was surprised to learn that writing and publishing coaches are teaching authors that they need to have a complete marketing “platform” in place if they want to get published. In fact, part of the book proposal itself is “what is your platform”? You know, how are YOU going to market this book? What is YOUR reach? I was really shocked by that. These authors need to start building their platform before they even write their book! Well, at least I know I’ll have that part pretty easy since I already know all about how to make websites, blogs, and use social media. I have even established a good base of connections that I enjoy engaging with on a regular basis about all sorts of things.
So I set out planning my “platform”. First part to be the history website that I’d get in place before I started writing so I could establish myself as a subject matter expert and grow a following while I learned about writing a book. But I never even got started on that. One night it just hit me. Since I am going to start a new company again, and get new accounts setup all over to do social media marketing and spread awareness of my “history inspiration” concept, I might as well document the process. I should take the time to write it all down, record the steps, and share with others that really need to know how to do this.
See writing and history, those are two of my hobbies. But my experience, my training, and my passion are all with the web, eCommerce, and social media. In the 15 years before claiming my role as a Social Media Coach, I established myself as an expert business analyst, technical architect, and trainer. I specialize in personalized eCommerce and content management integrations for companies like Sears Holdings, Target, Walgreens, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, McGraw Hill, Newell-Rubbermaid, Northwestern Mutual, iExplore, Nike, Meredith Corp., CNA, and many more … In other words, I speak “internet” without an accent.
Back in the 90s, when it was new, I was considered a Personalization Specialist around the Midwestern United States. Personalization started out as “Hello Rachel” showing up on the homepage of a website and has now grown in to customized Google search results and Facebook streams. The gift I have developed, that I feel compelled to share with the world, has to do with my knowledge of internet applications and the need for all you loving business owners to be able to spread your message further.
Spreading Social Good
When I first heard of the term “social good”, I spent a lot of time reading and learning about the concept. Most of what I found alluded to it being more of a corporate movement – kind of a corporate social responsibility thing. But there are some great thinkers out there who believe that use of social media by corporations to spread social good has a real possibility of making a significant change in the world. I’m on board with this 100%. And while I do care about corporations practicing social good, I think it is a concept that we all can embrace. By being a small businesses or solopreneur with good values and a positive message to share, you are helping your community. You are helping the global online community if you have a web presence. And being on social media networks is a web presence.
So I very much feel that the mission of Playing Internet is to guide all of you that have established a business with a good heart and a valuable message. To provide you with the tools you need to be able to deliver your message more effectively and through more channels. I have the ability to understand technical nuances and explain them in a very easy and approachable manner. This is because I have such a strong web technology background and also have spent so much professional time explaining technology to non-technical people. I am sharing what I know in a way that can be of benefit to you and am doing it in what I believe is a conscious, socially good, way. I am sharing my knowledge so that you can learn how to put your positive message out there for your target customer to find. And, according to my calculations, we will have more happy people and a happier world.
Founding
Playing Internet™ was created by someone who uses social networks. A lot. Personally, and as a consumer, I feel that if you are not on a social network I may not do business with you. This is on principal. If I like you, I want to tell my friends about it. I want to be the one that discovers you and the first to show my friends your new product. If you are not on a social network, and I like you, I WANT you to be on a social network. I WANT you to confirm that you are as neat as I originally thought. I WANT to be reminded to do business with you. Many of the small businesses I find online have some really great stuff out there, only I can’t share it with my friends, which is a bummer. I want to help you get your knowledge and books and products out into the world, specifically on through blogging and on social networks, so there are cooler companies out there and my friends and I can be happier having access to more brain candy (i.e. neat topics or products to think about).
Love is all around you…
- Rachel
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