Social Media Lessons from Water Skiing(and vice-versa)

Stacy Lukasavitz@damnredhead

I wrote this as a blog post a couple years ago, and this summer I’ve been thinking about water skiing a lot. It’s what I grew up doing, though I haven’t been on the lake in a very long time. However, I was inspired enough to transform it into an ebook recently.

I know that not everybody knows how to water ski, nor does everybody have a good handle (no pun intended) on what to do on the social web.

However, hopefully you or someone you know can learn a little bit about both from this. If you have friends that are water skiers (or even if you don’t), please feel free to pass this on, I’ve licensed it under Creative Commons.

Thanks,

Stacy Lukasavitz@damnredheadhttp:///www.thatdamnredhead.netstacy@thatdamnredhead.net

Social Media Lessons from Water Skiing (and Vice-Versa) by Stacy E. Lukasavitz is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

me when I was about 17

Lesson #1:Sometimes the hardest part is just learning how to start.

Many folks new to social media are intimidated as all getout because they simply aren’t comfortable online. It’s OK and it’s not uncommon. But there’s nothing to be afraid of, and once you learn a few basics, the rest comes a lot easier. You just have to jump in the water and give it a shot.

Lesson #2:Keep your knees bent.Your knees act like shock absorbers for oncoming waves. Likewise, you must accept that there will be waves at some point and remain flexible in social media efforts.

Lesson #3:

Keep your back straight, and your rope at the center of gravity.At the same time that your knees are bent to absorb oncoming waves, you need to keep your back straight and your rope at your center of gravity to prevent bad posture and face-planting. Likewise, in social media, you must remain flexible and at the same time keep your composure.

In the now-famous Skittles experiment, the brand decided to use Twitter as their “home page,” tracking every mention of the word “Skittles” on Twitter search, using the “let the users shape the brand” philosophy. However, by mid-afternoon Twitterers got bored and started badmouthing the brand, so Skittles redirected their homepage from Twitter search to their Facebook page (and rightfully so).

The lesson: Don’t be afraid to let your audience shape your brand, but remember it’s yours, and use your backbone.

Lesson #4:Only drop a ski when you’re ready.

Transitioning from skiing on two to one is generally only after you’re very comfortable on two. You’ll know when you’re ready for the next step, which is lifting one foot out of a ski and “dropping” it while you put that foot behind the one that’s still in a ski. Nobody deep-water starts on one the very first time.

Similarly, only when you’re comfortable on Facebook as an individual should you start a “fan page” for your organization or business, and only when you understand Twitter and use it for yourself should you start tweeting for your business or whatever your ultimate motive may be. It’s the classic “walk before you run” concept, but recently two real-life friends of mine who are teachers joined Twitter because they heard it could be used in the classroom.

Both of them said within their first few tweets, “I need help on how to use this as a teaching tool” and “I’m told I should use this to teach but I think it’s stupid.” I pointed them to a few “Twitter for beginners” sources and smacked my forehead that they were planning on using a tool very soon that they weren’t comfortable with to teach others. If I didn’t know water skiing like the back of my hand, I most certainly wouldn’t teach others. It’s the same thing.

Lesson #5:Don’t look at the buoy, look past the buoy.One of the most famous quotes from The Great Wayne Gretzky is:

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

The same concept applies to water skiing, and social media.

Let’s pretend you’re comfortable enough on one now that you want to try the slalom course. The object of a water ski slalom course is to ski around all six buoys at the shortest rope length possible. That is the ultimate goal. However, if you’re just starting out, your ultimate goal is to get around the first few buoys at the longest rope length, 75 feet. And the biggest mistake people make, even when they’re more advanced, is looking directly at the buoy they’re heading for.

If you look at the buoy, you’ll miss it. You want to keep your head pointed toward the buoy, but keep your eyes on an imaginary marker about 20 feet beyond it. You’ll approach it on time, and provided you’re comfortable on the turn, you’ll make it.

How does this translate to social media? Simple – when you know and understand your long-term goals, it will make your short term goals much easier.

Lesson #6:

Keep your edge change smooth.The edge change is the most important point in slalom skiing. How you change from one edge of your ski to the other and start your turn around the buoy dictates whether or not you’ll make it. If you change it too fast, you’ll fall on your face; if you do it too slowly, you’ll miss the buoy . . . and probably fall on your face. It’s all in the timing and the technique.

Similarly, a big part of the “marketing” in social media is in the timing and technique. There are wrong ways to do things (“Hey, thanks for following, click my junk!”) and there are right ways to do things (have a conversation with somebody and get to know them before you even think about “going there”). I promise you, this guy TOTALLY wiped out!

Good pre-edge change

There is no “push” in water skiing. It’s all pull. But you can’t win in tug-of-war with a 250+ horsepower boat. No matter what, the boat pulls you.

Think of the boat as your customers. We’re learning now that content marketing, a.k.a. “pull marketing” is working a lot better than “push marketing” (BUY MY STUFF!). But in water skiing, there’s a certain time to pull against the boat (when going across the wakes), and there’s a time to let up (after crossing the second wake, into the pre-turn).

You can’t push your customers into buying your crap anymore. Know when and how to pull them in, and understand that your market is bigger and stronger than you, and will win in the end if you pull too hard.

This dude is pulling WAY too hard against the boat.

Lesson #7:

Know when to pull and when to let up.

Lesson #8:

This one’s kind of self-explanatory. Every time I crash, I’m analyzing in my head before it even pops out of the water what I did wrong (Did I pull too hard? Did I break at the waist? Were my knees too straight?) and what I need to do next time to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Falling is natural. It’s the only way you learn. After you fall, catch your breath and analyze what went wrong.

Lesson #9:

Let go of the rope when you fall.To me it’s instinct to let go when I know I’m going to fall, but I’ve seen people be dragged by boats because they didn’t know enough to let go. Is something really not working for you in your social media efforts? Know when to let go and reassess.

Lesson #10:If you’re cold, it’s OK to pee in your wetsuit (when you’re in the water, and don’t tell anybody). It’s not OK to pee in your drysuit. . . ever.Lesson learned relating to social media? Always know your tools/equipment and both their capabilities and limitations. (Actually, it’s NEVER OK to

pee in your wetsuit. That’s just WRONG.)

Lesson #11:

If you don’t know what you’re doing and try to fake it, you’ll end up all wet.

(This one doesn’t require an explanation, does it?)

Most importantly: It’s all about TEAMWORK.

Even if you’re the only one behind the boat, you still need a driver and an observer. And even if you’re the only person in your business with a grip on the social web, it really should be a team activity.

my home team!

Credits:Slide 2: me when I was around 17Slide 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paladin27/32452099/ Slide 4: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23327394@N05/2246647907/Slide 5: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vladdythephotogeek/1323664749/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveallen/56474767/ Slide 6: stockSlide 7: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannywilson/150520891/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/airstreamlife/242543163/Slide 8: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ennuiislife/4842443302/Slide 9: http://www.flickr.com/photos/om1/36262899/Slide 10: stockSlide 11: http://www.flickr.com/photos/evocateur/3819084130/Slide 12: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midwestden/6020763282/in/set-72157627242072605/ -- Silver Lake Ski Team photo by Dennis Moore

Social Media Lessons from Water Skiing (and Vice-Versa) by Stacy E. Lukasavitz is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Stacy Lukasavitz@damnredheadhttp://www.thatdamnredhead.nethttp://about.me/stacy.lukasavitzstacy@thatdamnredhead.net