Let’s be
weirdos
We need to take back social media. It was punk rock to begin with.
It’s time we make it punk rock again.
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
—Malvina Reynolds
No one is listening.
And you know it. It's like we're all at a music festival where the musicans play at the same time and it's too small and too loud and too much of the same stuff over and over and over again. If we want to connect with others, if we want to stand out, we can't do what everyone else is doing. We've got to be different.
01. Grow your weird.
02. Share like a human.
03. Find other freakazoids.
04. Ride the funnel.
05. Measure up.
What kind of bird are you?
This is important and challenging. You're an artist? That's great, but you're more than an artist, right? You're an artist that loves pancakes and long-distant runninng and lives in Phoenix, AZ. In fact, you're primarily a visual artist who prefers large canvasas and oil pastels who likes flapjacks and trail running and lives in an old Craftsman in dowtown Phoenix, AZ. And you like post-rock music. And ballet. And Xanadu.
#running
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#running
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Consume with purpose.
Don't be a draft dodger.
Perfect is for losers.
I love the way Seth Godin talks about this in his book The Icarus Deception. To make art you have to create something and you have to ship it. You have to share it. If all you do is make something, that's dandy. You're a creator. But you're not an artist. You have to share it with the world. Could be low art or high art. Could be good or bad art. But it's art. Marketing? Your website? Your business? Your next big idea? Even your selfie? That's art.
Consumer trust in brand messages is waning. Only 18 percent of consumers trust posts by brands or companies on social sites like Facebook and Twitter.
SOURCE: 2014 Forrester Research
Links. Commentary. Advice. Questions. Food. Goals. Regrets. Fears. Wants. Friends. Lists. Selfies. Awards. Dinners. Problems. Ideas. Stories. Drawings. Words. Haikus. Code. Solutions. Videos. |
Life.I managed to work my way into a graduate level, creative non-fiction class when I was in school. I was an okay writer, but not as good as I pretended to be. I wrote about this time that I met a miner in Poland. I sat with him in his living room and he did a bad Elvis impersonation and then told me he was going to die in the mines while his wife made amazing donuts in the kitchen. I thought it was brilliant. The class thought otherwise. The thing that was missing? Me. I was nowhere in the story. That's the point of the personal narrative. That's the point of social media. |
No one does it alone.
No one. Doesn't matter who you are. You could be the bootstrapping entreprenuer, or a novelist, or the solo explorer trecking out into the Arctic to find herself. Sure, that takes some courage, that takes some resolve to make it happen, but it also takes a parka and a sled and a package of freeze-dried mac and cheese. How many people were involved in you being where you are right now? Hundreds of thousands. That's the way it is. That's why social media works.
The strongest predictor of a species’ brain size is the size of its social group. We have big brains in order to socialize.
—Matthew Lieberman
Shout.
Awesomesauce. You figured out how you want to show up, you shared with the world, you made some friends. How do you take it to the next level? How do you spread the word? How do you help your friends grow their ideas or network? How do you find clients or better ideas? How does this side of social media even work? Don't you just have to spend a bunch of money?
01. Awareness.
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Twister.The marketing funnel—causing panic in creatives everywhere. Call the stages whatever you want: discover, engagement, explore, decide, purchase. Thing is, it works. This is how you use really cool content to keep you doing what you love to do. |
Be so good they can’t ignore you.
—Steve Martin
What makes it different?
You make it different. I get that I'm repeating myself here, but it's important. Ugly, beautiful, brilliant, broken you. You're more interesting than any faceless brand out there. Be you. Not a forced, corporate, well-rehersed version of you. Not an I-am-gonna-act-just-like-Gary-Vee version of you. Be the best you that you can. But be you.
Weirdo.
This is where it all begins. You have to get noticed to win the chance to build a relationship and gain a customer/connection/compatriot. Then you can buy them dinner. Then you can ask 'em to dance.
Weird takes effort.
01. Impressions.
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Results.Match the funnel. Maybe you're getting a lot of impressions and no engagement. Maybe they engage but don't click. Maybe they do all three, but you're not getting any onw to buy or sign up or download your really cool app. If you measure, you can figure out why. |
Money isn’t everything.
We've already covered this, but it's an important reminder. We talk about conversion and sales because we want to keep doing weird and rewarding stuff. Weird takes money. Or, at least, it takes results. If you want to keep doing what you're doing, you're going to eventually need to ask your tribe to do something for you. If you do it right, they'll be more than happy to oblige.
01. Grow your weird.
02. Share like a human.
03. Find other freakazoids.
04. Ride the funnel.
05. Measure up.
That's a wrap. Thanks for playing along and laughing at some of my bad jokes. If you liked what we talked about and you want to stay in touch, let's connect on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram. Whatever works for you. 
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If you thought this was stupid, it’s okay to tell me. For real. I can take it.But, if you loved it, I'd love to hear that too. Send me a note. Catch me on the street. Tell a friend of a friend to tell me that I should keep talking about this stuff. And if you liked this, you'll probably like work by Seth Godin, Ann Handley, Brian Kramer, Brene Brown, and Matthew Lieberman. They love to talk about how showing up imperfect and human helps us win. |