Feb
29
Saying Hello To Invisible Friends
Filed Under Nonprofits | 5 Comments
Publicity can be a bit of a sticky wicket. Too much "look at me look at me" is just plain boring and obnoxious. Not enough and opportunities for connection are lost before having a chance to become even a twinkle in somebody's eye. Even with opportunities to connect, promotion can only go so far without some sense of community.
I think about community whenever I fire up my computer, partly because of the people I've connected with online over the years. Those connections didn't happen automatically. Somewhere along the line someone put their best foot forward, or noticed when someone else did the same.
Today I'm writing up a challenge in support of SEOs Fight Fat, in which I revisit an earlier threat promise idea about dying my hair pink. Before that I'd like to share with my invisible online friends a few reflections on cause-related connections from my past.
moar funny pictures
When my daughter was in about the second grade her school principal put out the word that she'd dress up in a clown costume and roller skate through the halls if a fundraising goal was met. That particular fundraiser was a penny drive. The undersides of lots and lots of couches were ever so much more spotless than before, the goal was marvelously more than met, and the normally coiffed and polished school principal went batwild on skates. Good, community-building fun was had by all.
When my daughter was in middle school there was a youth pastor who said he'd shave his head if the kids made a fundraising goal for a charity project. I suspect that said youth pastor wanted to shave his head anyway, because the goal was on the low side, but that's between him, his maker, and the kids. On head-shaving day he and the kids made a party of it, glorying in copious amounts of shaving cream and even some dome-top artwork. Good, community-building fun was had by all.
Years ago a fearful and filthy abandoned pet cat was living under the apartment building where we lived. He ate out of the dumpster and watched the world like a hawk, always from a safe distance. Every time I went around to the back of the building to the laundry room I talked to him, as if it mattered. I crooned to him that he was observant, smart, beautiful - a cat among cats. In a few weeks he was accompanying me to the laundry room door and the dumpster, head held high. In a few months I was able to get close enough to start cutting out mats. A quietly satisfying time was had by two. 
I will remember these things for the rest of my life.
Nobody can bottle this stuff and force it to go viral. On the giving side of the promotional coin, it's not hard to send fan mail or cast a little bread on the waters, or to give a post a Stumble or a Sphinn, or to stop by and say hello in some small way. It matters.
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5 Comments so far
[...] AbleReach had an interesting blog post (Saying Hello to Invisible Friends).Here’s a small excerpt:Years ago a fearful and filthy abandoned pet cat was living under the apartment building where we lived. He ate out of the dumpster and watched the world like a hawk, always from a safe distance. Every time I went around to the back of … [...]
I tought I taw – I did! I did! I did tee Miss Elizabeth!
Yez, iamlost haz invisible frenz tooz!
Hello in a small way.
You crack me up.
You realize, don’t you, that because you are doing this web thing anony”mouse”ly you could be LOLanywhereCat found at LOLanytime?
I seez invisible smilz!
Commumity building takes time. But I suppose doing something outragous does help to push it along and get you noticed.
You do realise that you’re going to have to bleach your hair first if you decide to dye it pink don’t you? It could take a long time to grow out if you hate it. But, you’ll definitely stand out.
Maybe I should write a blog post about how I feel about standing out. On one hand, it’s beside the point. On the other, this particular fundraiser has brought a few things to the surface, maybe because I’m dieting, too.
My neighbors know me as that quiet lady whose garden is fun to watch. Yesterday one sent his small nieces over to me to sell raffle tickets for their youth group. I attempted to chat up SEOs Fight Fat with the adult-sized set, but first I had to spell SEO, explain SEO… and I doubt any of them would remember an unfamiliar acronym that stands for an unfamiliar concept long enough to go to Google. “I do some work on the Internet” gives them a place to imagine me, when we’re not chatting about our cats or kids or whatnot, and I like the privacy of what I do, but it is so very ghost-like.
Besides, hair is temporary and something very short and green would be fun to wear at my face-to-face community’s Procession Of The Species.