I’ve been thinking about ways to help people overcome their resistance to participating in social media in order to make connections for their brand, book, cause or business. I even wrote the post “Are You Using 20th Century Communication Techniques in the 21st Century” after a friend told me about the reluctance of a social services agency to engage its target market online.
Then a thought struck me as I cleaned my refrigerator in preparation for the Jewish holiday of Pesach (Passover) that begins this year on the evening of Monday, March 29th. (For more information on this holiday, see www.SeasonsforCelebration.com )
Here I was easily cleaning a self-defrosting refrigerator and remembering the first time I truly cleaned for Pesach. I was a Mrs. Lieutenant stationed with my husband in Munich, Germany. We had to defrost the army housing refrigerator before cleaning it. Now that was work, as was cleaning the non-self-cleaning oven.
Obviously no sane person would want to resist going from a non-self-defrosting refrigerator and a non-self-cleaning oven to a self-defrosting refrigerator and a self-cleaning oven.
So why would business people want to stay with 20th century communication/marketing techniques when they could employ 21st century techniques?
Yes, there wasn’t much of a learning curve to go from defrosting a refrigerator to not defrosting it. But if you are willing to invest a little time and concentration, you can reap the benefits of 21st century communication techniques. And you will probably find they are as revolutionary as a self-cleaning oven was to those of us who had grown up without such a household marvel.
If you are a business professional, perhaps the easiest social media site on which to start might be LinkedIn. This is because the concept of starting with resume-like information is familiar. Of course, there is a great deal more to effectively using LinkedIn. (And you can learn a great deal about LinkedIn from reading Mike O’Neil’s book “RockTheWorld.”)
But the important thing to do is to start on any one social media site. Then gradually branch out to other sites while you learn more and more strategies of how to effectively communicate in the 21 century.
The next time you clean your refrigerator without first having to defrost it, remember that this task wasn’t always so easy. And then commit to learning a new online communication technique one tool at a time.
(And read my blog post “Are You Using 20th Century Communication Techniques in the 21st Century” )
(c) 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant. Her new FREE report is “Twitter, Facebook and Your Website: A Beginning Blueprint for Harnessing the Power of 3 for Your Business” – download the report now from www.millermosaicpowerof3.com
