From the "Content Creation and Optimization" workshop session of the "Pay It Forward" series, brought to you by Women Grow Business and Network Solutions. Facilitator: Tinu Abayomi-Paul of Leveraged Promotion.

1. The "Because" Exercise
From the "Content Creation and Optimization" workshop session of the "Pay It Forward" series,
brought to you by Women Grow Business and Network Solutions.
Facilitator: Tinu Abayomi-Paul of Leveraged Promotion.

2. Contents
The "Because" Exercise
The Goal of the "Because" version for Social Media Content Goal Setting
How to Do the "Because" Exercise
Making Your Results Useful
About the Workshop
About the Workshop Facilitator
Other Titles by Tinu Abayomi-Paul

3. The "Because" Exercise
The "Because" exercise came out of a coping mechanism a friend taught me to help me deal
with being a chronic worrywart.
Whenever I couldn't get out of a worry loop I would call her up or meet her in person. I'd
tell her what I was worried about, then she would say "why", in rapid-fire fashion, until our
conversation got
● profound
● ridiculous, or
● very clear.
For example, just after college I began to stack up medical bills, which i worried about
constantly. We did the because exercise until I realized that "because then I'd become a banjo-
playing hobo living on the back of a commuter train" was not a realistic fear, and laughed the
whole thing off.
The idea is that the recipient of the why question doesn't get time to think, they must just
instinctively respond. It bypasses the way we tend to edit our thoughts into acceptable
parlance.
The Goal of the "Because" version for Social Media
Content Goal Setting
When we're not clear about why we're doing something, it gets more difficult to figure out how
to achieve our goals. Many of us have objectives we believe are clear, such as "get more leads."
But how many more leads do we want? The obvious answer is "as many as we can get" but
is that actually true? If you got a million leads tomorrow, could you follow up on all of them?
Would a million visitors crash your server? Are you set up to process a million orders?
How many more leads do we want? And why do we want those leads? This exercise helps us
get to the root of what we want out of social media, so we can figure out whether it's even
possible to achieve them.

4. The goal of this exercise is to get more clarity, depth or focus. It's important to get to the root
of why you want to use social media to meet your goals in order to know what content to
create to reach that goal.
For example, if your goal is to establish trust with your current client base, you'll want to create
content that answers questions existing customers have. If you want to increase traffic to your
website, perhaps the solution is to start a blog where you can fill a need in the market for
certain types of information.
Once you understand how to serve them, creating content in that space becomes a much
simpler task.
How to Do the "Because" Exercise
1. Get a partner, preferably in person. Video chat works well too. Doing it over the phone
works but the experience is most fully realized in person.
2. Choose one person to be the questioner. The other person is referred to as the
recipient.
3. The questioner now sets a timer at two minutes and asks the first question, which
is "What is your ultimate goal with social media?"
4. After each answer, the questioner should follow up with the word "Why?" as soon as the
other person is finished talking. The recipient should answer back just as fast, without
thinking until time is called.
5. When time is up, the recipient is to write down:
a. their best "because",
b. any new epiphanies about their goals, or,
c. if they got stuck, why they believe they got flustered.
6. Switch places and repeat steps 2 - 5. The recipient is now the questioner, the previous
questioner is now the recipient.

5. Making Your Results Useful
Once the exercise is completed, use your insights to create a more specific goal.
Your goal should have more specific information now. Instead of "I'd like to become a thought
leader" your goal will be more like "In order to double my client base by this time next year, I
want to create a weekly podcast that will establish me as a thought leader in x industry."
Before continuing to the next exercise, your social media goals should have as many of the
following as possible
● measurable outcome,
● a projected timeline for achieving it
● a well thought out target market
● an idea of your lead format (text, audio, video, images)
● an idea of who will be generating the content
You'll be using your "because" answers in the Dumb Question exercise, next in the "Socialize
Your Business" Content Creation and Optimization Workshop from Women Grow Business and
Network Solutions

6. About the Workshop
The Socialize Your Small Business series from Women Grow Business is a series of intimate,
free workshops designed to help you figure out whether you can get more impact out of your
activities in social media, with the same amount of work – or even less.
The idea behind the series is to Pay It Forward - many of today's most trusted thought leaders
realize that they didn't arrive at a full understanding of today's rapidly changing technology
alone.
Read more about this workshop in Women Grow Business, and in Network Solutions' blog.
About the Workshop Facilitator
Hi, I'm Tinu Abayomi-Paul, a website promotion specialist, and author. You may sample
more of my hints, tips, and guides in:
● WomenGrowBusiness.com,
● About.com,
● Site-Reference.com,
● Site Pro News,
● Promotion World
● Amazon
● Web Pro News
● Search Engine Guide,
● Search Engine Journal,
● American Chronicles,
● or on my own sites, FreeTrafficTip.com, LeveragedPromotion.com and

7. AskTinu.com.
I also serve on the Network Solutions Social Web Advisory Board.

8. Other Titles by Tinu Abayomi-Paul
Here's my current public list of active do-it-yourself guides. This does not include co-
authored selections, separate services or membership sites.
Fast Traffic from Facebook Pages
http://www.freetraffictip.com/011-fbpagesfast/
Fast Facebook Traffic
http://www.freetraffictip.com/0-fast-fb-traffic/
The Google Bundle Special
http://www.freetraffictip.com/2011googlespecial/index.php
Twitter List Secrets
http://www.freetraffictip.com/010-twitter-lists/index.php
Expertise Marketing
http://freetraffictip.com/0-expertise-fast/index.php
27,000 Visitors
http://www.27kvisitors.com/
7 Secrets to Massive Traffic
http://freetraffictip.com/09/massive-traffic/
The Original Evergreen Traffic System http://store.payloadz.com/details/784902-
eBooks-Business-and-Money-The-Original-Evergreen-Traffic-System.html
Social Media Traffic Tactics
http://www.freetraffictip.com/1socialmediatraffic/
The Original Facebook Unhyped Networking Book http://www.freetraffictip.com/1-
facebook/