Social Media Takes a “Brick by Brick” Mentality

Social Media Takes Brick by Brick Mentality

It’s 2016. You should know this. But most don’t. Myself and my company, we’re on the cusp of digital trends. We keep two fingers on the pulse of mobility at all times. We have to! And if there’s one thing I’ve realized in the digital world, it’s that most people still don’t get it.

Social media is the state of all things digital right now. Particularly for Millennials, to paraphrase Tom Riddle, social media is our past, present, and future.

Millennials only know a digital age. iPhones came out before most of us were in college, and you probably already knew your way around a computer well before then. With Napster, then Myspace, then Facebook, then every other website on the internet, Millennials have only known a digital world that is social. But most still haven’t figured out how to really use it for growth, to get ahead.

Most people I come across in my line of work can regurgitate the latest article they read on LinkedIn, but they have no idea what it means to navigate the internet like an architect using the right tools to craft a masterpiece.

The “brick by brick” mentality, once commonplace, is rare to find. Before social media, everyone understood that to get ahead took a lot of work, with millions of tiny moving parts. You had to put these parts together brick by brick to achieve anything.

Everything’s easier now than ever, especially things related to social media. These digital giants make it so easy to engage and share and interact that everyone thinks they’re doing a great job, even though they’re falling behind.

Social media (i.e. the internet) is today’s 24-hour networking event. Because it’s so easy for everyone to meet and get in front of new people, you have to do so much more to stand out and gain recognition.

Social media is your tool set. You’re trying to build the nicest house on the block. Brick by brick you have to build. Tweet by response by recommendation by post by video you build. But because it’s so easy to build, everyone builds a fairly nice house. Which means you have to do more, add more, use higher quality materials, and do it all faster than everyone else so you can finally stand out above the rest and gain recognition as a great [whatever you do].

The current state of the internet, and all its intricacies, is the most powerful tool anyone of us has to grow. Most of us, though, don’t realize how much extra it takes because of how powerful and easy it is. Publishing a blog post every now and then is easy, but it doesn’t help you stand out. Sparking a Twitter conversation with a national brand is really cool, but it takes dozens to get you somewhere.

There’s always the off chance that you’ll hit a home run and create some viral sensation. Even that only lasts for your fifteen minutes of fame. Then you have to walk up to the plate again. And again. And again.

What I continually come across is that most people don’t understand the work that goes into social media to utilize it well. People think they can buy a cookie cutter house for success, but they don’t realize they have to build their own home brick by brick, and do it faster and better than their competitors. This goes for individuals and for businesses.

It takes time – a lot of it – just like if you were networking door to door. Whether you’re a business or an individual, to grow through social media, you have to treat it with a brick by brick mentality. You have to keep doing a ton of the little things, all the time, to build your house of success. Just because it’s easy to get started, it doesn’t mean you’re doing it well.

Thoughts?

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