Why Social Media is Like Building a Mayan Pyramid
Many years ago, my friend Dar and I went on a vacation to Mexico. Part of the fun included a tour of Tumul and Xumal guided by an octagenarian named Senior Pinkie (really!). Senior Pinkie had been doing the tour for nearly 60 years at that point and had heard everything from "Chariot of the Gods" to the "X-Files" and set about to explain that the great "mystery" of how the ancients were able to create such amazing and long-lasting structures.
His delivery was good-humored and emphatic. "How did they do these things? How did they build these temples, ports, pyramids?" He asked us all on the bus, with a twinkle in his eye... "They thought, they planned, they set their goals and then the people worked to those goals. How did they do it?? They worked HARD. 20% did the planning, 80% did the labor. All that you see here, the port, the buildings, these were built without television, without alien invasions, without supernatural powers, these were built by people doing work! HARD work, yes, but they knew they would be accomplishing SOMETHING, they were motivated, yes! Not by whips, but by the community. They built these things for themselves and their families. THAT is the great secret. WORK. " In terms of using social media, people who are not familiar with Twitter, or MySpace, or Facebook, let alone blogs or any of the myriad of social tools out there - believe there is some magic in how others are able to make good use of these tools. Perhaps some secret society of indoctrination has the special key to using these things effectively, or maybe it is some mutant or alien race who created these tools to torment the average person with tantalizing promises of media exposure and clients flocking to websites in droves. The actual answer is that like the Mayans of old, the way to build a social media structure that will last and be successful requires a strategy, a plan, and then the discipline to work that plan, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. And like the amazing structures or old, a strong social media plan takes time to build up. Unless you stumble on the "It subject" of the moment, you will need to grow slowly, and work at it. This doesn't mean you cannot capitalize on the momentum of whatever is popular at the moment, just remember that it will be fleeting, while what you are slowly building, will last longer. And when you look back at the distance you have covered, the clients you have won, you may chuckle as others ask you what your secret is...
