When your goal is to get others to plant seeds on your behalf, there’s no doubt that the relationship has to be a two-way street. In other words, you’ve got to give to get. Be seen as a generous person, an individual who shares content others have created and not solely your own, and, over time, people will want to return the favour.

That’s what I began to think about when I caught a post titled, “Top 20 Ways to Share a Great Blog Post” by Ben Parr over on Mashable.

Read the post from the abovementioned POV and think about how you can become a more generous blogger or content promoter.

And, incidentally, the Mashable post, which was written on March 29 (yesterday), has been posted to Twitter 854 times, which, again, highlights the give + take nature of sharing.

Give: Link to other content you find most worthy or helpful to your audience.

Take: Create content others would want to link to and enjoy a little exposure too.

So, what are some of your secrets to sharing content?

Hats off to friend and colleague Adele McAlear (blog, Twitter) for being called upon to offer her expert advice for an article in the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business.

Adele offers advice for a new site called Lysted.com, challenging their plan to engage and grow their audience through a Facebook group.

I’ll let you read and form your own opinion about the company’s efforts and Adele’s thinking. Here’s the complete story:

• The article: Wooing the Facebook crowd
• Adele’s post about the article, complete with advice on growing a following on Facebook
• Lysted.com

Quick dig: Planting Seeds online, as Adele’s been doing dilligently on Twitter, her blog and numerous other social networks, has brought her great exposure, valuable connections and, ultimately, a mention in an very influential business newspaper. The result? Adele received two direct inquiries from business people interested in social media. Whether they lead to business opportunities or not, these are two opportunities you could almost definitely agree wouldn’t have happened had she not been extending her web presence by planting seeds online.

What are some of your success stories as a result of your online efforts?

Last week, with all the buzz of the new Skittles web effort starting to fade, I asked where people stood. Was the effort wasted, or was it good that a brand put itself out there, had a little fun and experimented with social media?

A video (see sidebar or visit this link) of a discussion between Jackie Huba (blog: Church of the Customer; books: Creating Customer Evangelists, Citizen Marketers; Twitter: @jackiehuba) and David Armano (blogs: Logic + Emotion, Experience Matters, Business Week; Twitter: @armano) was the catalyst for the discussion.

Without further ado, here are the results:

(For RSS readers: Agree with Armano: 39%, agree with Huba: 26%, both have good points: 11%, let’s move on: 24%. Total votes: 39)

My take? I’m with David and others like Mack. I find it hard to watch all the criticism come down on a brand that’s trying something different. Too much knee-jerk thinking by people who preach experimentation in this space and then jump on companies that do, as if they could advise the client better.

Good on Skittles for trying. The buzz created was interesting to watch. Did it sell more candy? Well, it did in one case at least. Will it have a long term effect? The answer to that depends largely how they grow the seeds they’ve planted and engage those who have joined their Facebook page, have connected with them on YouTube and all the other networks. If they have a long-term plan in place to handle the different networks and get their community going, this just may turn out to be more than an experience. It can be a resounding success.

Last call on your thoughts. What do you think?

Earlier this week the online world went mad in reaction to Skittles’ new “website”. (I encourage you to take a look if you haven’t already seen it.) Fact is, it’s not so much a site as it is a compass to different brand-related social media chatter and communities.

Readers of this blog will ikely agree that it’s a real Planting Seeds plan in action.

The question, though, is what the plan really is. Is it a stunt to gain some short-term buzz? An experiment that’s helping Mars (Skittles’ parent) learn about the social media sphere? The two sides are nicely debated in this video and in these posts by Jackie Huba and David Armano.

So what I’d like to know is what you think. As a result, I’d encourage you to take part in this Twtpoll or share your thoughts in the comments below. Next week, we’ll look at the poll results and see where everyone stands.

For added insight on this topic, please check out the following posts:

• Skittles Social Media Experiment, Fad or Trend?
• Skittles.com social media experiment, what’s really important
• Launched: Skittles.com
• Skittles new “website” leaves a bad taste for some
• Skittles’ social media campaign: FTW or Epic fail?

Now that you’ve done your research, what’s your opinion?

When you put your social media plan into place and begin to plant seeds online, you have to understand a few key things that will shape your Social Media Mindset. Start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Do I understand the spirit of social media? In other words, do you realize that you have to keep things real and maintain an authentic voice?

• Do I understand the time commitment involved? Being engaged in social media requires a real commitment of your time. According to Matt Dickman, this could/should be up to two hours a day.

These are the basics. What happens next, when you’re fully engaged, is that you start to see ideas in everyday situations and your mindset evolves. An experience at the bank can lead to a blog post. You’ll tweet a link to the article you read in the paper. A must-take picture gets posted to Flickr.

An antennae goes up over your head and, suddenly, you want to share everything. What’s interesting, though, is how your mindset can evolve.

When I first started blogging, almost anything I experienced could lead to a post. I had a blogger’s mindset, as Ben Yoskovitz explained a while back. Now that I’m blogging and engaged on Twitter (among other networks), I find that my instincts are changing. I’m thinking in 140 characters more and more.

Yesterday’s post is a good example. I tweeted that cartoon about 12 hours before I posted it to this blog. Why? Because it was easy. And fast. Not that blogging isn’t any of these things, it’s just that Twitter is more. Like the new Bell Canada campaign, you can highlight the “ER” at the end. Twitter is easiER and fastER.

That’s not to say that blogging doesn’t have its place. It does, obviously. It’s just that each network you join or community you create may have it’s own purpose. It’s own benefits. Be flexible enough to evolve your thinking. Allow your mindset to change - and then focus in on the network where your thinking leads you.

You may only have time for one. But maybe you’ll have the mindset for more.

So where’s your head on this? Do you have a different mindset depending on the network you’re involved in? Let’s discuss…

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. This cartoon was published in today’s Montreal Gazette and the paper’s editorial cartoonist, Aislin, is award-winning and brilliant. I’ll let the image do the rest of the talking.

For fun, check out Aislin’s archive.

Credit: Aislin, Montreal Gazette, March 3, 2009

Tags: MontrealGazette, Aislan, Editorial Cartoon, Twitter, Planting Seeds, Planting Seeds Online, PlantingSeeds.ca