Social Media, the Voice of Hope

Hey, everyone! This my first Audio Blog! Whether you are a business owner, a social media expert/enthusiast, a non-profit, or just someone that using social media for great conversations with friends and family. Social media is here to stay and it CAN and WILL make a big difference in your life. It has mine. Listen to just part of my story of what social media has been for me and what it can be for you. Click the Audio link below. The audio blog is written out as well. Be sure to leave a comment. Do say something that indicated that you HAVE taken the blog in via audio or written and you aren’t spam! Love to hear YOUR thoughts!

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As I peruse the sights and sounds of other’s blogs and Facebook/Twitter posts, I find a comment by a fellow social media enthusiast friend. She is involved with various activities of school, degree completion, social media clients and humanitarian causes. I read of her enthusiasm of how to show others the value of social media for business and leisure. I have spoken to her before of her endeavors and they are truly great indeed. Then I recall earlier this evening of a Facebook invite to a cause event. This one to support an organization that tries to prevent child trafficking and who supports those that are saved from trafficking. I’ve accepted to attend the social event who has invite other social media supporters and enthusiasts. We are an active group of people! From promoting food for the hungry, love for the abused, blood for the weak, and camaraderie for the social.

We make change – change that can affect the society we live in. This past year we have seen the explosion of the world grasping and gasping for the last news of world events like the overthrow of the Egyptian government, the disasters of Japan and the destructive weather across the U.S. – but the news traveled via social media networks. I, myself, stayed in touch with a good friend living in Japan during the tsunami and earthquake. She was luckily on the other end of the flooded reactor sites and was out of danger! I was in contact with another friend in Connecticut, after the ice storms and flooding rains of early winter, where she spent the weeks in a hotel for lack of electricity, only to come home and find her house totally flooded because of frozen pipes that burst. She told of her ordeal via social media, using it to release her frustrations and to connect with caring friends who tried to lift her spirits.

I am then reminded of a friend, newly met, who shared with me her struggle to live with your terminal illness of scleroderma. She is going to lose the battle eventually, but she wanted it to be later rather than sooner. She wanted to go to the famous Mayo Clinic for thorough evaluations so as to get the best treatment to apply so that she might live longer and without the torture of this disease. Only there was a HUGE problem. No money to go there! All of the funds she had was spent treating her husband, who has MS. How dis-heartening. I found a new friend, who will die far sooner than I would like and she needed help. Friends were looking for ways to raise funds through benefits. She asked if I cared to help to promote her cause and attract as many people to those benefit events, as I could. I agreed. How could I say no. I asked for her story to publish in a blog. [GIVING UNTIL IT HURTS. “WE’RE STILL AIN’T DONE YET!”] Here I learned the power of the written word as I tried to tell about her and her struggles to become the grand lady that she is today. Her story was heart-breaking from her childhood – having suffered from the child abuse that most people would keep secert and never talk about. Her past is what made her the most caring of all people I know. She shares her genuine care to others by counseling others as their psycho-therapist. Her Mayo trip needed an oxygen machine for travel and another $8000 to live near Mayo during their (her and her husband’s) stay for the evaluations. That money was raised with the help of social interaction, sharing, caring, giving, and participation, through the efforts of many…and social media.

I often get to speak to groups on the value of social media for their business. I am always mindful that they understand that social media isn’t just a frivolous time wasting activity, and meaningless jargon online. It has great value in changing culture, lives lived and lives lost, suicides are averted, marriage partners found, entertainment generated, income made, and on and on. Finding that niche of being effective in social media is the trick. Carelessly buying your Twitter friends and Facebook likes, won’t change the world, but your voice – your humanity of caring – can and will. My passion of sharing this with others reaches to the depth of my soul. If through my words I can bring the presence of our All-Loving God to others, and hope to the hopeless, then I shall. I know that there are many others who will do the same.

Where will you stand? Will you be social or just a stalker in this crazy noise of social media? Will you have a voice for those who are in need or afraid? It is my hope that I can bring focus to the sounds of your passion – fined-tuned, ready to communicate your soul to your audience. That is why I chose the tagline “Stand Out from the Crowd – Be Seen, Be Heard, and Be Found”.

God’s Blessings Unto You!

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Cheryl Gnad , the voice of Social Focus by CG, social media marketing and management. Providing social media services that help individuals find their voice, and businesses be found where others are looking!
Connect with Cheryl at: www.SocialFocusbyCG.com, www.FB.com/SocialFocusbyCG
and on Twitter – @SocialFocusbyCG