Please Don’t Use Social Media Marketing If You…

Please Don’t Use Social Media Marketing If You…

…have the slightest inkling you have torpor.

Torpor means “lack of vitality or interest”.

Creating a long-term relationship with consumers, clients and brand advocates via the distributive and social Web requires that you have, or are doing, something we’ll find interesting: a message, product or service possessing value and exuberance.

Too many businesses, sites and brands are defined by torpor.

They have no purpose, they clutter the world with more useless “stuff”, they are boring, cookie-cutter products, and are not worthy of our attention.

These same brands and companies jump into the distributive Web hoping to build fans and to connect with existing as well as new customers.

Where is the passion and purpose in your brand or product? Can we “feel” it when we click on your site, Twitter page or blog?

Figure it out before you fill us with apathy (another aspect of torpor).

Definition from Visual Thesaurus: (one of the best sites and best annual subscription for just about everyone).

WR-per\, noun:

1. Lacking in vitality or interest.
2. A state of mental or physical inactivity or insensibility.
3. Lethargy; apathy.

Just call them “Dream Killers™”

Seth Godin’s blog last week talked about how we allow not just situations, but business associates and significant others to stop us from doing something remarkable. I have a name for these situations and people: Dream Killers™.  Dream Killers can be well meaning friends, colleagues, family and, more importantly, oftentimes ourselves. Dream Killers, whether a real barrier or a fabricated one, have the power to kill off our dreams before we can make them a reality.  Even your significant others could have self-interests that run counter to you going for it and creating a remarkable new business, book or project this year.

But it is time.

Time to reinvent yourself.
Time to figure out what you are here to do.
Time to push past the fear and pain and just go for it.
Time to take your passion and purpose and build a platform in the social Web around them.
Time to stop listening to the Dream Killers, including yourself. 
It’s time for me. It’s time for you.

I got an e-mail message from Oprah.

Okay, I was one of hundreds of thousands, I realize. (I’ll tell you another time about my two experiences with Oprah’s producers about being a guest on Oprah. Suffice it to say that I went a bit off topic on both accounts!)

The subject line of Oprah’s e-mail message was “BREAKING NEWS: What’s Next for Oprah and You?”

The “breaking news” was that Oprah was starting her own television network. In the announcement, she writes: “Fifteen years ago, I wrote in my journal that one day I would create a television network, as I always felt my show was just the beginning of what the future would hold.”

Oprah’s posture as the talk-show queen gives her major advantages for launching her own network: a locked-in audience, widely successful media and production company, and millions of dollars to build and OWN The Oprah Winfrey Network. However, for the first time in history, you can build your OWN network and connect and share your unique skills, talents and perspective with millions of people, too.

If fact, you have some advantages that Oprah doesn’t:

1). You — your unique interests, life story, experiences. What are you passionate about? What were you really born to do — what is your purpose? Combine those two — passion and purpose — and share it with the world, then others will want to hear from you, follow you and share your journey.

2) Oprah started in television. Television isn’t a growing media platform. She knows how to build a platform in yesterday’s media. That isn’t necessarily an advantage today. If you’ve been to her current Web site, you know she hasn’t built a platform that leverages the social and distributive Web effectively. You have the power to launch a new media platform and harness all the dynamic and often free resources to take your voice to the world. You aren’t tethered with experience in building a traditional television show or television network that happens to also push out content via the Internet. You can create your own television show designed as a platform for sharing your passion, as Gary Vaynerchuk does with his WineLibraryTV.com. Gary has more than 100,000 viewers. How to take that passion and purpose and leverage the great business marketing tools available today has never been easier and required so little capital.

I watch videos every day via my iPhone from trusted authorities I follow and engage with in the social and distributive Web.

I can’t remember the last time I watched The Oprah Winfrey Show on television. It must have been a decade ago at least.

We know what’s next for Oprah. What’s next for you?

Get out your journal and write your passions, dreams and purpose.

Build your platform and network.

There never has been an opportunity like you have today to make it a reality.