Winning at the Social Media Game: O. V. F.

About five years ago, I decided to “up my game” and learn more about using social media effectively to increase the number of clients for my new offerings of editing / copy editing services for authors of anything non-fiction.

Not much happened for about a year. I didn’t even really know how to use LinkedIn; I had been on Facebook for several years, but I didn’t realize how different LI was!

I got lucky. Somehow through finally doing something right, I got linked to John White, MBA, who was already showing others how to use social media successfully (you should see him now!). He invited me to join a small group of LI colleagues, who were helping each other learn and succeed.

I will always be grateful to him for that.

One of the first lessons I learned from him and others was so simple I had to laugh:

Offer. Value. First.

You cannot arrive at any writing / professional platform, announce HERE I AM and expect the world to bow down and anoint you as the next influencer.

It just doesn’t work that way. No one will care.

But what did John and others mean by offering value first? (And this works for all platforms, not just LI.)