When you start a new adventure, it can be pretty daunting. A new job; a new romance; a new school or college. Online is no different.
The first time you join Twitter, it’s like a crazy maze. When you log into Facebook, there’s no quick set-up guide. If you want to start a blog, the choices can be bewildering.
Then you look around you, and see others that are seemingly way ahead of you. People that have 50,000 followers on Twitter; 2,000 friends on Facebook; are in 30,000 Google+ Circles; have 10,000 subscribers to their blog. You begin to doubt whether you should even be here – how can you possibly compare with that?
Don’t worry – you can’t. But you don’t have to. You just need to be you. No-one else; just you.
Think about that person on Twitter with 50,000 followers. Did they join the service with 50,000 ready-made followers? No – they started with a clean sheet. Zero. And they built. Through seeing how Twitter worked, how to converse, how to connect. But a lot of it was trial and error – much like yours will be, and everyone else’s was.
The 2,000 friends on Facebook? Some may be business contacts; some may be personal friends; some may be old school buddies. Some may even be part of the 50,000 Twitter connections. But again, it starts from zero. Just like you will, and we all did.
The 30,000 Circles on Google+? How many are actually interacting, or sharing, or plussing?
The blogger with 10,000 subscribers? With a bunch of comments on every post? With lots of social bookmarks? That all started somewhere. It went through months of no-one reading, or commenting. It takes time to build a community of readers and commenters. But build it you will.
Because you matter, and you’re building something special without even knowing it.
That single tweet of yours that someone saw? That made them stop and think, and you mattered to them. That Facebook status update of yours that a mutually connected friend saw and shared with his or her friends? That made them stop and think, and you mattered to them.
That blog post you wrote that a complete stranger left a comment about, thanking you for sharing just what they needed at that time? That mattered – all because you wrote something that might be missed by everyone else, but for that one person you mattered.
We spend so much time wondering how we can be like someone else. How we can have that person’s success. But you know what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with who you are. Right here. Right now.
Because at this very moment in time, for someone, somewhere, you matter. And that’s all that really matters, no?
image: Phoenix Dark-Knight
