This is a Football…The Social Media Basics

Anyone who is familiar with football, knows the famous story of Vince Lombardi when he was hired to coach the failing Green Bay Packers.  After ten years of being in the doldrums the team was almost beyond redemption.  Lombardi tried the obvious things first: training, motivation, inspiration and practice, practice, practice.  Still, nothing seemed to work.  But then he had a revolutionary idea that has been repeated in countless books, speeches, movies and television shows ever since.  Perhaps they didn’t know, or had long forgotten, the basics.  He called the team together, got down on his knees, and said:  “This is a football…”

It has been two decades since I was the Senior V. P. of AIG’s marketing company (AIGM), and though I have been teaching companies, organizations, charities, schools and municipalities how to chart their online trajectory during those intervening years, I still gloss over the basic tenets I should be teaching, especially to new clients.   An innovative friend, and dedicated Internet entrepreneur, Ronnie Rodes (watch his new company Neighbuzz as it launches soon), reminded me by asking the question, “What is necessary … to accomplish Social Media objectives?”  So today, as I was thinking about this blog post, I decided to answer Mr. Rodes’ important question and in the process revisit the basics for others.

THE NEW INTERNET

It may seem ludicrous to refer to the Internet as an aging concept, but who would have believed two decades ago that these words could be read by over 1.3 billion individuals.  The growth of the Internet, once called “unprecedented,” now borders on “miraculous.”  And with such growth comes inevitable change.  The “Old Internet” is in the process of rebirth, forced by a startling array of new business challenges and the new approaches we have invented to meet them.  Under the general nomenclature of Social Media, these new approaches are not just redirecting the Internet, they are reinventing the ways we communicate in general.  This post, and a few more to follow in subsequent days, will attempt to address a few of these new approaches, what they portend, how they can be implemented, what results to expect and how our Internet future may change.

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