Is Social Media Just a Trend? I Think Not!

What’s your take on Social Media? Are you writing it off as a trend, or a destined-to-implode unto it’s unscripted nature virtual animal? How do you feel about rules in general? Beth Harte, of The Harte of Marketing recently asked, Who made the social media rules? Below are my thoughts, but I’d love to know yours! Maybe it’s because I’m so social

Restrictive Rules Reap Social Fools

The beauty of the new frontier, so to speak, is that the players and rules that came before you are few and anything but cemented. To be actively engaged at the beginning of something permits an unprecedented opportunity help forge its path – to be part of the unofficial committee that dictates what flys and what dies. It even gives the opportunity to say, “There are no Rules”, and allow the medium to move forward rather freely, developing into as untainted a thing as possible. This is what I hope for.

It’s like being the free-spirited parent who lets their kids choose their own outfits for school. Sure, they may end up wearing turquoise pants with a hot pink t-shirt, but it’s a no harm, no foul situation. They chose what worked for them, and allowing them to take an aspect of control over their young life can bear myriad positive effects. In the prophetic, poetic words of Bob Dylan, “…don’t criticize what you can’t understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, your old road is rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand, for the times they are a-changin’…”

Let go of the rule that there has to be rules. Make a rule to let it go, in fact. And if Social Media is going to grow up to be the most well-rounded child she can, that’s the only rule you can afford to enforce.