Social Media - Another High School Dance?

Imagine for a moment a high school gym.  It is a Friday night and the room is dimly lit.  Chairs are lined up against the walls and a lone table stands at one end of the gym holding a collection of music and a CD player.  The speakers blare out a Top 40 hit while a few brave souls dance to the rhythm.  Everyone else stands around and watches, too afraid to risk busting their own move yet unwilling to leave and go home.  So they wait, nervously hoping they find the courage to join the party.

Sound familiar?   Perhaps you went to a dance like this when you were in high school.  Dances are these strange social functions that many people want to be at but don't really know what to do once they get there.  As we get older dances get replaced by other social occasions, but the dynamic is still the same.  Some people take advantage of the situation while a large number of folks just stand along the wall.

In my conversations with people I get the sense that many of them view social media like it is a high school dance.  They feel a good bit of pressure to show up but are too uncertain of themselves to do much of anything when they get online.  So they watch, wonder why they came and pray it gets over soon.

I hope you are not one of these people.  But if you are I have some good news for you.  Slow dance.  That's right, slow dance.  Nothing brought the masses out on the dance floor like a good old fashioned power ballad.  You just grabbed your date and shuffled your feet to the beat.  Elaborate dance moves were not required, only a willingness to hold on to your partner and sway to the music.  Slow dances were safe and they made it possible for people to get into the action.

So, if you are standing along the proverbial social media wall consider this an invitation to slow dance.  Sure, one day soon you will be interacting with your online community like Fred Astaire on the dance floor.  You will be a master at building communities through all the latest and greatest social media platforms.  Right now, today, start slow.  Find one platform, be it Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or Pinterest and start shuffling your feet.  It a short period of time you will find the rhythm and a bit of confidence.  You will discover that you know more about community building than you thought you did. 

And your organization will be stronger because you got out on the dance floor.

Questions? Need some more ideas about how to get started with social media? Visit me at www.rubateconsutling.com or e-mail me at roger@rubateconsulting.com.  We would love to be your partner.


©2012 Roger Burns-Watson, All Rights Reserved