Are you a one-trick pony? Are all of your conversations meta, meaning do you only discuss social media and social networks, the platforms and vehicles, rather than about content, narrative, story, experiences, expertise, and insight. Maybe you’re a polymath. Polymath (noun): a person of encyclopedic learning.
Well, it’s time to open your kimono and show off all that God had given you, both the features of which you are most proud as well as those features you’re maybe even ashamed of. By ashamed, I mean those parts of yourself that maybe haven’t seen the light of day, or the scroll of your blog, in many, many, years, if ever.
Before you were a social media guru, social media expert, online community manager, or blogger extraordinaire, what were you about? What are you about outside of social media marketing and digital PR?
Did you pore over philosophy in college, were you obsessed with the history of the civil war, were you freakishly informed about the migrational patterns of the minke whale? Are you still? What are your hobbies? What was your first job after college? Did you go to camp, were you a Scout? Do you volunteer, and where?
You can always roll some or all of your life’s passion and experience into the social media world you’re writing about, the tweets you share, your wall posts on Facebook, and on your blogs.
In a works of morons, idiots, shysters, and social media hooligans, being curious, multifaceted, and complex benefits you. Also, clients tend to choose their vendors more for who they are, whether they like or admire them, want to be associated or connected to them, than something as simple as service offered and price.
People are hiring not just someone like you, they want to hire you! Let them all know who you are. Not the buttoned-up you, not the Sunday best you, but the sleeves rolled up you, the collar unbuttoned you, the patent leather shoes and toes in the sand you. The you sipping a drink or a nice iced tea you.
Crossword puzzles. Baseball scores. Game of Thrones. Eddie Murphy movies. Don’t limit yourself to your traditional polymath topics. You don’t need to only juggle classic Greek, Italian cinema, 19th century women’s novels, and French cooking.
You don’t have to be so fussy and fancy. Unless you are. Otherwise, let your freak flag fly.
Think of it this way: if you’re able to combine your passion for social media with your passion for the sundry other things that makes you you, you’ll be much more successful as a writer, as a content creator, add a blogger, as a marketer, and also as an online personality.
How did I become a Forbes top-50 online influencer? By not limiting myself to only chatting madly and incessantly about digital, social media marketing, and online reputation management alone; and, even when that is my topic du jour, I work hard at bringing hard-earned analogy and metaphor on board.
People love analogy. They love simile. Folks love real-world examples, parables, mini-fairy tales that easily and simply illustrate your complex strategies, tactics, and advice.
Why am I so excited about helping you embrace you inner fanboy, nerd, geek, scholar, historian, collector? Well, I have been indulging my inner polymath to a grand buffet over the last few days down here in Charleston, South Carolina, at the 100th Renaissance Weekend. Renaissance Weekend is 33-years old and is the epitome of the veritable smorgasbord when it comes to feeding hungry polymaths, polymathematicians. People who are hungry to cross pollinate and explore and learn things way outside their comfort zone. I have been attending for over a decade and every weekend is such a powerful aphrodisiac for the brain.
Be sure to not only keep abreast of things outside of marketing and PR, outside of SEO, reputation, and tech, and then fold them into your work. The results will always be way more delicious and successful recipes. Embrace your inner polymath and then reveal him or her to all the world in all its glory!
May this be a New Year’s resolution. Happy New Year!
Feel free to email me at chris@gerr.is or call me at +1 202-351-1235
Learn more about Chris Abraham at Gerris digital.
