Strategy – or Common Sense?

Remember Mom’s advice? If you do, you can probably write a great social media strategy. That was the advice of this post, and I couldn’t agree more.

So often business makes sensible things complex. This particularly happens with consultants, I’ve found. They’re justifying their necessity to you, of course – but sometimes it can go overboard, and in arguing their worth, they end up creating all kinds of branding and systems for what are pretty basic ideas.

So here are a few more ideas that worked when you got lectured as a kid – and still work now. These work for consumer brands, but they’re just as useful for individuals to remember on social media, too.

• Be true to yourself. If you’re not edgy and down but you try to be, it’s going to show and you’re going to look dumb. Just be who you are. There’s plenty of room for you on the internets, whoever you are.
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew. A blog and a Twitter and a Facebook and a Google+ test account and a Foursquare checkin spot? Really? First, can you really manage all that every day? And second, even if you could, do you need all that?
• Say thank you. Dude, people are reading your stuff. For free. People are spending their good time taking in what you have to say. They could be catching up on their DVRs, they could be doing their bills, they could be climbing Everest, but they’re reading your stuff. You cannot be grateful enough. Best-sellers have been written about this.