My social media consumption is at an all time low. At best, Twitter & Facebook are boring. At worst, they’re perpetuating the model of business that got us in this economic mess to begin with.
All I see is formula headline after formula headline, 6 ways for this and 3 tricks for that. They all promise big returns. They are almost (and I’m only saying that to be nice) all fluff.
The bits of brilliance are few & far between. But they’re enough to keep me around.
Radiant self-promotion doesn’t bother me. Scrambling for a just-slightly-bigger piece of the pie does.
Let me explain.
It’s not that organizing information in an easy-to-read way is bad. I could do a better job of that myself. It’s not that writing clever headlines is bad. It’s not.
What is unfortunate is that this trend means solopreneurs are simply resorting to what corporations have been doing for years, going after their competitors instead of bringing more customers & value into the market.
“Now hold up!” you might say. “How is a formula blog post going after a competitor?”
Excellent question. You don’t have to slam a competitor or blatantly try to steal traffic, sales, or customer loyalty to be playing the competitive advantage game.
Competitive advantage is the name of the Them Economy game.
They try to eek out a percentage point here, pennies on the dollar there. Sure, it works. But for how long? They see the market as finite. There are only so many eyeballs — better optimize my business to attract the highest percentage.
They are going for a slice of the lifestyle design pie, the handmade marketplace pie, the travel hacking pie, the minimalist pie, the app pie, the self-publishing pie. They’re not bringing new customers into the fold. They’re not offering new ideas or fresh perspective.
They parrot others ideas in the hope that speaking the same words will yield the same results.
They show up in your Twitter stream to claim what’s theirs.
They see innovation at an end. Sure, the chips get smaller & the resolution gets brighter — but new? Nope, not right now. They don’t see new ideas around every corner, new opportunities for advancement just over every horizon.
They are more concerned with their social media strategy than they are with making your life better, easier, healthier, more connected, or more meaningful.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to buy it.
And we don’t have to rely on carving out a bigger piece of the pie for ourselves at the expense of others.
You Economy businesses know that the market is infinite. Click to spread the word! It is only limited by their ability to invite customers to the table.
You Economy businesses know that it’s not a matter of capturing a piece of what already exists but about creating something new, uniquely you, and in service of others. Baking a bigger pie leads to the greatest success.
You Economy businesses create welcoming spaces that use meaning, relationship, and experience to provide multidimensional value to a wider audience. They propose new ideas and invite others to participate in making them whole. They connect people to ambitions greater than any individual company or person could hold for themselves.
And yes, you can do this 140 characters at a time. Try it.
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