By Matt Valentine
When you really think about what Social Media is, why it started, and why its become so popular, it boils down to one basic thing...a need for attention. It's that primal human instinct to be wanted, to be liked, and to be accepted. This instinct, originally engendered in us as a method for survival, has continually evolved around the social structures we create and so, where once we needed to belong to a tribe or clan as a way to ensure the continued existence of our species and our own personal survival, this instinct has taken on a new form. In todays day and age this instinct is shaped by a desire to be accepted and noticed on a mass scale, not because it is necessary to survive, but simply because it makes us feel feel all warm and fuzzy and special when people pay attention to us.
Now, some of you may be thinking that this isn't true. That you use Social Media as a means to project your expertise, to let people know about your business, to fill your friends in about whats going on in your life, etc. etc. but let me ask you one simple question: If a tweet doesn't get retweeted does it make a sound?
The simple fact is Social Media is a numbers game. We are all in it for more followers, more fans, more friends,more retweets, more likes, more whatever, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar!
But, enough with the serious talk and on to the reason why you came here in the first please becoming a Social Media Super Star!
Allow me to take you on a little journey, a quest if you will. Allow me to be your Sherpa on your mountainous traverse to becoming a Social Media Super Star!And on too...
THE LIST
1.
Be a Gorgeous Woman
Unless you are a really ridiculously good looking man, much like myself, one sure fire way to become a Social Media Super Star is to be, or become a good looking lady; because if there is one thing social media nerds of the male variety like more then social media itself, its hot women who like social media. Look it up, its a fact.
If you're not a beautiful woman and you don't want to invest the money to turn yourself into one (sex changes are not as simple as they look), a simple suggestion would be to find and use the picture of a hot woman as your profile picture. Tip: try to get permission first, or risk suffering the legal ramifications.
2.
Be Someone Who is Already a Celebrity or Athlete
Believe it or not already being famous seems to be a great launching pad toward Social Media stardom.You can even be a huge douche like Ashton Kutcher and still have a strong following. Yea, I don't get it either, but stats don't lie. The real question is how does one become a celebrity in the real world?
Becoming a celebrity in the "real world" is no easy task, well relatively speaking anyway. My advice, have a bunch of kids, the more the better, if you can top somewhere in the vicinity of 20 you're a ready made star, (this is more of a long term strategy), if instant stardom is what you're after have 8 or 9 kids in one shot and I can almost gaurantee a contract with TLC will be waiting for you in the nursery of the hospital. This strategy is the only one I could think of that nearly everyone can do, because let's face it if you were going to become a star athlete I am pretty sure it would have happened already.
3.
Be Unique, Very Funny, or Find Someone Who is and Exploit Them
For most of our lives many of us have been led to believe that we are special and unique, like beautfiful snowflakes. Let me just clear this little misconception up right now, you're not and you never will be and anyone who told you otherwise was probably obligated to by law or by paternal instincts.
If we were all really that unqiue and always had unique and important things to say then there would be no such thing as trending topics on Twitter ( I know, pretty sound logic, because how could anything be trendy if we were all saying wonderfully unique things?). So, tweeting that Corey Haim died just 20 short years after his career did, while completely awesome and hilarious and possibly offensive does not qualify as being unique.
In fact, here's a little test. Ask ten people what makes them unique and see if more then two of them have an answer that actually makes sense. Personally, I have an awesome answer because I have three nipples and that totally qualifies as unique, but most people will not even come close to that level.
What was I talking about? Oh right, will since you're not unique and being funny is a gift god bestows upon so few of us you're going to have to find and exploit someone who is funny or unique, or you could just pay me to do it...either way.
Finding this person will be difficult. As previously stated, funny and unique people are rare breeds and seeing as how most of these people are probably already using some form of Social Media, finding one that isn't will makes this task that much more difficult.
I recommend finding on old person. This old person should be generally grumpy, but capable of dropping charming tidbits of wisdom about life much like the Old Man on Pawn Stars (if you don't know who that is look it up, that guy is amazing) or this guys dad
http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays cus he's funny too.
4.
Be an Animal
Are you an animal? Can you type? If you answered yes to these questions then I have no idea why you're reading this because in all likely hood you already have a bigger following then most people do. If you are not already an animal the chances of you one day becoming an animal are sadly enough, pretty slim. I know, it's depressing. I'm just hoping I live long enough to see science catch up with my dream of becoming a Beagle. No, not the dog, but a hybrid bear/eagle. Much like this:
In case you were wondering this cat
http://twitter.com/sockington has over 1.5 million followers and counting.
5.
Be the Founder of a Social Media Site
Everyone knows Tom from MySpace mainly because we've all been forced to become friends with him, but thats the point. If you are the founder of a social media site you can literally force people to be friends with you. So what are you waiting for? Go make it happen.
Posts
