Social Media is Not Your Personal Chia Pet

 “Show me your garden, and I shall tell you what you are.” (Alfred Austin)

 We’ve all seen the commercials urging us to buy a Chia Pet, the low cost alternative to actually going outdoors to watch something…anything grow. And who amongst us has not  lovingly admired our own bear Chia pet and how quickly it sprouted?

My, my, no time at all and you have the whole pet covered in bright green tiny leaves. Oh the happiness and instant green-gratification of my little bear Chia pet. Which just as quickly dies in the next two weeks no matter what the watering, praying, or even a lighting of the Patron Saints of Plants candle.

What’s a Chia Pet have to do with social media? A lot more than you might think. The bigger the corporation, the more the Chia Pet mentality comes into play.

With bottom lines shrinking and pressure to be the next YouTube 50 million views breakthrough, the more the pressure for producing quick growth, beautiful sprouts and bounties of Chia Pet revelers to comment on how wonderful and unique your Chia Pet is over all the others out there.

Here’s the real truth. Social media initiatives are not Chia Pets. They don’t grow that easily, they don’t sprout all over that quickly at the onset, and they aren’t in a perfect shape of a bear, ram or even an Obama. The good news is they also don’t wilt after two weeks never to sprout again. If you plant the seeds correctly your social media initiatives will live on as perennials, one might even say as wildflower perennials.

The challenge lies in getting your team of marketing gardeners to understand that social media has to have time to really take root.

Here are some tips to good rooting:

1. Find the sunniest spot (or the best product attributes), and foster the growth of your wildflower perennials (products, services, software.)

2. Don’t over-fertilize the garden. (No bullshit allowed in this ‘long-tail’ garden.)

3. Don’t overwater it, or protect it too much from the outside community.

4. Don’t put a gate on it that has a combination so only a few can view the highest blooms. 

5. Keep your soil fine-tuned (rake out all the marketing speak and keep the soil deep and real.)

6. Open your perennial garden up to anyone and let them offer insight, tips and their seeds along with yours. Let them help water your perennials.

Make your social media initiatives such that people feel as if they’ve absorbed them through the Cosmos (defined as “the biggest tree in existence.”)

Chia Pets, according to the commercial, grow in just two weeks. Social media initiatives take months to plan and months to bloom.

Wildflowers just like strong social media plans take seeding in all types of climates, locations and weather. Social media initiatives take seeding in Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, online communities, forums, and blogs.

Wildflowers bloom despite the wind, rain, sun, and temperature. The California Poppy, The Purple Coneflower or even the Bluebonnet find their way along the highways and byways across the world. Good social media initiatives seed and bloom as well along the World Wide Web-way.

Social media lets us slowly and transparently grow our garden, in this highly over-Webbed world, and proudly see our perennial seeds root by correctly utilizing all the Web 2.0 opportunities that exist. 

(Thanks to Sharon Goldinger for her inspiring convos.)