Six Pixels of Separation Summary by polar unlimited

A SUMM ARY OF

SIX PIXELS OF SEPARATION

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Lesson #1 Everyone is connected There’s a now old saying, made popular by the addition of Kevin Bacon, that everybody is connected through 6 degrees of separation. Cute, but tough to prove. But now we have the proof. Take my network on LinkedIn for instance. There are approximately 45 million people participating on the site. Through 2 connections or less, I am connected to over 6.5 million of them. That is truly amazing. And that’s not including the many other networks I have an active role in, like Twitter and Facebook. So that’s point #1 – in some way or another, you are connected to almost everybody on our greenhouse gas laden planet. As it turns out, we’re not only connected to a lot of people, we are also connected to their information. Why, you ask? Google. That’s why. As Mitch describes, Google is a lot like an elephant in that it never forgets. So any information ever posted to the Internet about your connections is saved in the Google machine. Forever. And because Google has become the location of choice for information seekers worldwide, this has enormous implications. One of the biggest implications is that your brand is no longer what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is. And to the chagrin of many people, the majority of the population are trusting the web as their major source of information. The concept of trust has fundamentally changed. However, where Mitch and this book really shines is in the advice he gives us to “connect everybody to our business”.

LESSON #1 EVERYONE IS CONNECTED

Lesson #2 Where do I start? This is a question that’s on the minds of almost everybody who I talk to about social media. Well, there are a few important things to keep in mind when you are just starting out. First, you don’t need to be technically savvy to do social media. The technical aspects of it are actually quite simple, and there are plenty of resources to help you out with that. Second, your personal brand is becoming much more important in a world where the average employee changes jobs almost as often as underwear. But lastly, and most importantly, you have to think ripples, not splashes. This is one of the fundamental diﬀerences between the “old way” and the “new way”. Most old marketing campaigns are designed to make a splash with a 30 second spot on TV or a 2 page spread in glossy magazines. But as Mitch says, “you drop a rock in the water, and the splash comes up high and fast, but fades just as quickly”. With ripples on the other hand, you don’t dramatic splash. But what you do get is something that sustains itself for a longer period, covering a much wider area. In other words, you need to be committed to the long haul with social media and not be expecting a huge initial impact.

LESSON #2 WHERE DO I START?

Lesson #3 The 2 Pillars There are two pillars on which social media is built. #1 is permission. In this new world, you don’t rent email lists or blindly blast a message out to thousands of people who never asked for it. What you do, is send relevant and timely information to people who ask for it. And how the hell am I supposed to do that, you ask? Well, that brings us to pillar # 2 – content. As Mitch says, your ability to create compelling text, audio, video and images is going to build your story and get people excited about staying connected to you. Just so we don’t leave you hanging, here are some of the keys to contemplate when thinking about the content you are going to create. So grab a piece of paper, and get ready to do some serious contemplating. First, you need to be passionate about what you are creating. You will be sweating this out, and for the first little while hardly anybody will pay attention to you. At all. This is similar to Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule - if you don’t have the passion, there’s no chance that you are going to stick it out until you are successful. Second, make sure you have a strategy before you start, especially if you are doing this for your business. You might be very passionate about stamp collecting, but starting a blog about that might not do you much good for your marketing automation software company. You should do that blog in your spare time. Third, you need to find your voice. Part of finding your voice is picking the right medium for the message. You essentially have the choice between text, images, audio and video. Some people might be amazing writers, but horrible in front of a camera. If that’s you, you should be writing a blog. Some people might be so charismatic that they literally jump through the computer screen, but write at a grade 4 level. If that’s you, you should be video blogging. Whatever you choose, ensure that it allows you to convey everything you want to convey about your passion. That’s when you’ll know you’ve found your voice. Lastly, make sure that you are able to launch this on a shoestring budget so you can get feedback and test the concept. You might nail it on the first attempt, or it might take you 10. If you sink a boatload of cash into the first run at this, that’ll be you first and only shot at success. The smarter way is to launch it inexpensively, get feedback and iterate the concept until you have one that’s an obvious winner.

LESSON #3 THE 2 PILLARS

Lesson #4 Participate So you’ve got your content and you’ve put up your first show/episode/post, whatever it is. And then...drumroll please…nobody shows up. Why? Because you have to participate if you want anybody to give a damn about your content. One of the things I’ll be doing throughout social media month is doing some mixing and matching of content. So, that means that sometime in the next four weeks you’ll be hearing a little more Mitch Joel mixed in with the other episodes. But today, here to talk about participation, is Gary Vaynerchuk taken from one of his episodes at www.garyvaynerchuck.com. As you are busy participating and leaving your passionate trail around the interwebs, Mitch warns us to remember something: Google is like an elephant – it never forgets. Don’t be a jerk, because there’s a record of it there forever. I highly suggest you pick up a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and have it at your side at all times. I’m serious.

LESSON #4 PARTICIPATE

Lesson #5 Bring it to the real world. Business has, and always will be, about interactions between real people. While we are able, as Clay Shirky tells us, congregate around shared interests rather than shared geography, there’s nothing as powerful as pressing the flesh. There’s two things you can do here – you can look for real world “meetups” to go and be passionate in real life, or if there’s nothing out there for you yet, you can start your own. I would suggest to you that it would be a bigger opportunity to make a diﬀerence if there’s nothing out there in your space yet. As Mitch says – it’s one thing to participate, it’s another to become a leader. If you are going to participate, why not lead from the front? So find ways to connect people in the real world through the work you are doing online, and you’ll quickly become somebody who always seems to be at the middle of everything. And as we in business know, being at the centre of things magically leads to more business.

LESSON #5 BRING IT TO THE REAL WORLD

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