Social media lessons from water skiing (or vice versa)

Not many of my online friends know this, but most people I know in person are aware that water skiing was central part of my life growing up. No, I’m not talking the recreational, pull-a-pair-of-skis-out-of-the-garage-that-the-whole-family-shares water skiing, I’m talking serious, hardcore slalom, trick, & jump, in addition to competitive show skiing (the stuff you’d see at Cypress Gardens). I’ve taught a gazillion people how to water ski, and I was thinking about this the other night and came to the conclusion that there are many similarities between the lessons learned in water skiing and in social media strategy.

Summer’s just around the corner, so whether you’re new to water skiing or new to social media (or both), take a look at the parallels between the two, you just might learn something:

Sometimes the hardest part is just learning how to get up.

Many folks new to social media are intimidated as all hell 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.

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.

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, as MarketingProfs points out, is don’t be afraid to let your audience shape your brand, but remember it’s yours, and use your backbone.

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 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.

Don’t look at the buoy, look past the buoy.

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.

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 bouy . . . 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 mention your services/product at all).

Know when to pull and when to let up.

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 audience. 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 audience into buying your crap anymore. Know when and how to pull them in, and understand that your audience is bigger and stronger than you, and will win in the end if you pull too hard.

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

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.

Let go of the rope when you fall.

To me it’s like 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.

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.

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?

Pic 1 is me a few years ago, Pic 2 by uwdigitalcollections, Pic 3 I had on my hard drive, Pic 4 by OM1.