seotworank: Want social media success? Be a nut case.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Want social media success? Be a nut case.

"Your father's quite the character".

That's what someone said to my son last year while he was getting his acting debut (he's the boy you see swinging upside-down at the video's start). She was referring to my habit of yanking his shoes off while he was on the swing set, and then trying to put them back on while analyzing whether the Death Star could beat the USS Enterprise (hell no).

It's true. I can be a bit, er, eccentric. But everyone is, one way or another. Some people sing to themselves all the time. Others clean their houses compulsively. I torture my children with nerd trivia. I have a stamp on my desk that reads "Find them. AND KILL THEM." There you have it.

Social media requires characters

Sanity is boring. In social media, sanity is also fatal.

If you want to stand out in social media, you can't afford to be 'low-key' or 'mainstream'. You can't 'have wide appeal'. You need to be a character. Just a teensy bit nuts. Loopy, in a friendly kind of way. Some people might even call it 'passionate'.

I'm not talking about being fake, or pretending you're someone you're not. You don't need to fake craziness. You need to tap into your own personal form of craziness. You have one. There's no way you don't. You do something that makes people avoid eye contact and back away slowly.

When you do that, you're also tapping into whatever it is that makes you great at what you do.

I'm a sarcastic Jewish nerd with a yen for writing. Of course I went into marketing! Letting my inner Woody Allen out, just a little, makes writing this blog fun. It also attracts a certain kind of reader - the kind I like to talk to.

It's about getting crazy in a good way. Sort of like me right now. I'm typing like a caffeinated Tasmanian Devil. It's not the most focused thing I've ever written, but damn, it's fun.

Go crazy

Too many companies approach social media like it's going to explode. They're tentative, nervous, and afraid to show any personality when that's precisely what they need to do.

So, Ms./Mr. Fortune 500 CMO, give it a shot. Give us just a teensy taste of what makes your company a nut case. We'll thank you for it.