If you want to use social media to build your audience, attract new volunteers, sell your artwork, or change the world, there is one thing you can do to make your campaigns more dynamic, interesting and effective.

Use social media personally.

I don’t mean create a personal account from which you do work things.  I mean use Facebook to reconnect with your college friends and “like” photos of your nieces and nephews.  Use Pinterest* to design your dream home and look at photos of food and shoes.  Use Twitter to meet new people who get excited about the same subjects about which you care.  Sign-up for Google+ to see if any of your friends are there–and to get a sneak peek at how people who love new stuff do social media before the general population shows up.

Don’t Skip This Step

People who are influenced by social media use it because it’s fun.  Because their our lives are brighter when we can log into websites and see what our friends are doing and what they care about.  Because social media sites are places where we make new friends.  We don’t force ourselves to use it for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon because we read somewhere we needed to be “present” before people would start listening to us.

No matter how dedicated you are to your cause, until you really understand social media from the perspective of people who like it, your heart-felt messages about why people should follow you will be as effective as a used car sales pitch at a cocktail party.

On the other hand, once you grok  the intrinsic value of social media, your tone will shift, “social media success” articles will start making sense, and you’ll begin to understand how, when, and with whom  to connect so your messages are not only accepted, they are welcomed–and spread throughout the network.

In other words, everyone wins.

*Pinterest is invitation only right now.  If you want an invite, leave a comment and I’ll send you one.