Just over a year ago I wrote “Amazon Ain’t Just a River in Egypt”. The only thing that’s changed in its content is that Jeff Bezos is no longer the second richest person in the world. Today, he’s the richest person in the world. In this sequel, I want to focus on another form of denial: social media. It really is time to get with the times. I am still astonished by how many people in the workplace who still just can’t be bothered with social media. This is not about following the Kardashians on Instagram. We all continue to crave and/or seek relevancy at work and at home. But please believe me, you can’t deny it’s power and it’s not going away…ever. So, just as I identified the disease of ADS (Amazon Denial Syndrome), you must not fall victim to SDS (Social Media Denial Syndrome).
Thanks to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, our brains have been trained to be much more productive and absorb a lot more information – and faster than ever. In today’s virally social world, there’s really no excuse whatsoever for anyone to not be informed about everything that matters. If you are of any generation, (not just my tribe of 50+) and realize your colleagues, husband, wife, partner, kids or grandkids are so much more socially connected than you are because they have Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat or WhatsApp, etc. then you need to get real – real fast with social media. At a recent Fashion Group International/The Robin Report “Radical Retail” conference in New York – I commented that if anyone in the room wasn’t on any of the above apps then they had no business being at the meeting. The comment wasn’t meant to be glib – it’s just true. Half the room was nodding their heads “yes” and the other half looked away. How can one can go to endless numbers of weekly conferences, take notes or listen to all the business stories and advice without also being socially informed? This is no longer an era where you can get away with saying, “I don’t even know how to set the VCR.”
However, if in fact you are on top of your mobile digital social skills, then be one of the first to follow me and you needn’t read any further.
Signing up to any social media doesn’t automatically make you an Influencer. But it does get you to a place where you can at least follow others who are influential and truly learn from them. Joining any of these social apps or platforms (don’t ever call them websites – that’s so passé) is completely idiot proof. Really. And anyway, if you do need guidance then just ask Siri or Alexa. They’ll talk you through the steps. And if you’re concerned about privacy, don’t be. Ask them to protect your privacy and they will help with that as well. Just one tip: don’t automatically click on “connect to your contacts” unless you want to. My friend Ron Frasch mistakenly did that and everybody and their mother was after him about a job. It’s not required, no matter what they say. Also – here’s another privacy link that may help >>:
Go ahead! Please try one or more of these apps now, then come back to this story and I’ll share the example of someone who is breaking every single rule out there and killing it!
Welcome back. How did it go? “I’m good!” or…“WTF”…#good #terrible #awesome #allthumbs #welcometothe21stcentury.
So now that you’re app’d, meet and follow the man who has more LinkedIn followers than Emmanuel Macron, the president of France and Angela Ahrendts of Apple – combined. Gary Vaynerchuk aka Gary Vee is chairman of VaynerX, a media and communications holding company, and CEO of VaynerMedia, a full-service advertising agency servicing Fortune 100 clients. He’s a rock star, and just this week he left CAA and joined WME.
Now spend a few days or weeks following/tracking him and see how brilliant he is at “social” and how he applies it to every facet of his business and personal life. Here are his stats:
- LinkedIn – Over 2M followers https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyvaynerchuk/
- Instagram – 3.4M followers https://instgram.com/garyvee
- Twitter – 1.7M followers https://twitter.com/garyvee
- Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/explore/gary-vaynerchuk/
Sure, he doesn’t have Selena Gomez’s 138M Instagram followers but for someone like a Gary Vaynerchuk, it’s very formidable. After a few weeks, you may decide you want to delete him completely from your life. Why? Because you will find him everywhere you are online (well maybe not everywhere – wink!) He’s not everywhere because of any machine learning algorithm – it’s just because he is smartly everywhere, thus the potential to grow weary of him is high. I had to stop following him for a few months when my son said, “Dad – what the hell are you doing? Who is that guy?” He’s ten-years-old.
Why am I obsessing on Gary Vaynerchuck aka GaryVee? He is insane. And he’s definitely a “radical”. He can be slightly grating, especially in person. But’s he’s “genius.” And I will take ten times of grating genius any minute of the day over staying the status quo. He’s a role model for social media management at its best.
Warning: the overuse or abuse of any of the above apps, like alcohol and drugs, is not recommended. Yes, people, especially young people, are spending way too much time on apps. Always be socially responsible with your social media and get out a little for some fresh air.
P.S. Just to lighten things up a bit, download the Bitmoji App.
It’s a blast and it reeks of relevancy.
