I’ve been thinking a lot about social media recently. It’s a huge buzzword, and I’ve gotten a lot of questions from My Right People about what it means, how to do it, and what to expect.

The kicker was a guy I met at an actual physical networking thing last week asked me “Have you been able to monetize Twitter?”

(Monetize being the buzzword I most deeply detest, with the possible exception of… well, no, there’s no buzzword I detest quite so much. Don’t get me wrong — he was quite a nice guy; he just asked a question that happened to push a couple of my buttons.)

People are clearly anxious about this whole Social Media beast. It must be complicated, right? It must require you to learn new, confusing tasks, or change your monetization strategy (blech), or at the very least do a whole lot of research, right? And since everyone else is already doing it (or has hired a Social Media Consultant to tell them how to do it or do it for them), you’re way behind, which means that in the ultra-fast Internet-enabled world, you’re already last week’s cat food, right?

(“Last week’s cat food.” I just made that up right now. I am so funny sometimes that even I can’t stand myself. But I digress.)

No, no, no!

Social media requires no such anxiety, nor does it mandate increasing (or shifting) your budget or rewriting your business plan. No!

Here’s the point of this post: You are already engaging in social media.

This is a Heart-Centered Tech Tip because I really want this message to be comforting, possibly even anxiety-reducing. And to do that, I don’t want to tell you you’re all wrong about social media (that wouldn’t feel comforting at all, I’m guessing) or that you need to learn something new (hello, anxiety!).

I just want to take your hand for a minute and help you meet yourself where you are, and only then gently suggest that you take another baby step forward.

With me so far?

OK, good. Because if you are, you are either a) reading this post on my blog, b) reading this post as an email message, or c) reading this post in your RSS reader.

And all three of those activities totally count as social media. (In fact, my opinion is that the majority of the internet counts as social media, and that’s why I’m so insistent that you’re already hip-deep in it.)

All right, so you’re already “doing” social media. Um, what next?

Well, what’s next is definitely not “monetization.” It’s connection. And when you take a baby step to reach out to other internet users, you build and deepen that connection. And from that web of connections will come new ideas, new friends, new challenges to your limiting beliefs, new jokes (having fun is important, dammit!), and maybe possibly even new ways to make a living.

So let’s take a baby step. You’re here with me on the blog (if you’re reading this via email or RSS, head over to the actual blog post), so why not leave a comment? It’s pretty easy. I promise not to laugh at you. I’ll even give you a topic: What internet buzzword irritates you the most? You can even pick “monetize” if you want, but I’d love to hear some others.

Your comment doesn’t have to be lengthy, profound, or backed up with statistics. Just a baby step. I’ll even respond. And that’s what completes the social circle — I’ve posted something, you’ve responded, and I’m engaging in dialogue with you. Even if it’s a short dialogue, we’ve connected. Bingo! Social media!

If you want to take a slightly bigger step (and you have an account on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere similar), do leave a comment, and then tweet (or post on your Wall or whatever) something like this:

I’m reading and commenting on @wendycholbi’s post on annoying Internet buzzwords. What’s YOUR favorite? http://bit.ly/2Qid61

In fact, you can just copy and paste the exact text above into Twitter, your Facebook status, or pretty much anywhere else (yes, that weird-looking web address will actually work — because Twitter limits tweets to 140 characters, special services have been invented to provide short URLs).

See what you just did? You joined the conversation, and then you told your Twitter followers what you were doing — and in so doing, invited them to join in with you. I’ll respond to and acknowledge any of you who tweet about this post, by the way, just as I’ll respond to those who comment on this post. I love being part of the conversation!

The amazing part? By joining (or starting) even one conversation, you are “doing” more social media than most people. In an Ittybiz post by Johnny B. Truant that’s ostensibly about the psychology of marketing, I found this gem:

“…the online content that you actually see (tweets, blog posts and comments, forum posts, whatever) is produced by a very small percentage of the people actually online. Most people lurk, the whole thing working like a theater with only a handful of actors onstage.”

Truth be told, I’m mostly a lurker myself. I read far more than I comment, and whole days will go by without a tweet or Facebook update from me. I’m figuring out for myself how much time I want to spend actively engaging vs. exploring and reading. And so can you.

So join me, won’t you, on the journey to social media mavenhood? It can only happen one comment, one tweet, one conversation at a time.