Is it Easier to Talk, but Harder to Be Heard?

One of the questions I’ve been pondering lately is “how do I become noticed in a noisy world?” I think this goes right along with the question “why do some people make it big and others don’t?” I am in the middle of reading Michael Hyatt’s book Platform: Get noticed in a noisy world. I’m almost half through and still am not quite sure how to apply his ideas to my own work. Like most books I read, they discuss how to link things like blogs, podcast and social media together to form a platform. But none discuss how to begin the drive of traffic. They all act like traffic will just come, but maybe it does when done correctly.

Yet, I can’t help but wonder how difficult it is to get noticed in today’s technological age. There are about half a billion people on Twitter and those people post 58 million tweets a day according to Statistics Brain. They also site Facebook as having over one billion users and a little over 54 billion “pages” for artists, politicians, etc. I like the concept of Twitter because it is a rolling screen of posts. Nothing is prioritized, although it can be organized by hashtags. However, with 58 million tweets per day, how much is really getting noticed? Then there’s Facebook, which prioritizes the posts according to topic and interest. That’s seems great as well, but figuring out how they decide what to show is frustrating. Knowing that I can’t reach all of the people who like my page without promoting it (which of course means cost), is more than aggravating.

So, there are plenty of places to get heard, which is great, but there is a lot of noise. A lot of the advice I’m reading right now goes back to the product—in fact Hyatt is big on that. So my books have to be good, I get that. It’s more important than ever to make sure things are edited, sent through beta readers, edited again, designed, formatted correctly, etc. It does irritate me when authors write a book one day and then put it out in public the next. That adds to the noise. And, even though mine is quality, I still have to compete. So, getting noticed has to be more than just quality, but I agree that quality will keep mine alive…hopefully.

Another piece of advice I have heard is to be personable. Don’t just say “buy my book” in every post. In fact, let only 20% be about me. But define personable but still promoting. That’s my trouble. Posting pictures of my dogs may be personable, but will that make readers want to follow me? I can’t be something that I’m not just to attract people, and nor should I. How do we get noticed, then?

I have to admit that I don’t have any answers to this. Just posing the question and thinking it through. Right now, I’m just resting on being kind and presenting quality work—and being willing to learn and grow on the topic.