My Social Media Crusade Continues

Come on everyone! You need to CRUSH IT!

Kidding. You won’t read any bullshit “shamwow” speech here about making it rich with a 200 dollar flip cam and a YouTube account. Truth is, the power of social media is including everyone else and using their collective creativity to build something new – not just talking about yourself. Being a self promoter doesn’t make you a social media expert. No, it makes you a good self promoter.

It kills me how many people just don’t get it. However, when your follower count on Twitter approaches the 500k mark I could see where it would be easy to get a big head about yourself.

But, but – all it takes is transparency!

Not really. Not only are there lots of things that companies should NOT share (or individuals for that matter) but there are lots of things that just aren’t really that important to share with the public. Raise your hand if you care that Tony Hsieh accidentally filled his car with premium gas instead of plain old unleaded? I like Tony, but that tweet didn’t sell any shoes, nor did it really make him or his brand any more interesting. Transparency like that is really fucking boring.

I still rarely if ever see anyone actually using the creations of others (or even ASKING fans/customers) to create something on behalf of a brand. Today I read that Flickr had its 4 billionth photo posted this past weekend. How many business owners have gone to Flickr and looked for interesting photos that fans of their brand have taken. How many have you commented on, or asked for permission to use in your own online or offline marketing? If there answer is none, you really ought to go out to sites like Flickr, Vimeo or even YouTube and see some of the AMAZING things ordinary, non blow hard people are creating daily. I think you might be shocked at what you find.

Related posts on Not Will Smith:

1. Social media needs new voices First and foremost, I HATE the term social media expert, or rockstar. When I read about people claiming to be experts in the social web it makes me want to...
2. Facebook – your company’s new web site? Have you ever thought about making a Facebook page the actual home page for your business? Sounds a little crazy huh? Well, maybe it isn't so far fetched....