SECTION TWO
I T ’ S S OC I A L H O U R .
DO N ’ T S I T I N T H E CO R N E R
by Josh Dahlke
PHOTO COURTESY OF JOSH DAHLKE
“...unless you want to join the dinosaurs at the spa for a meteor shower...
you’d better learn how to reach your audience via social media. ”
Old Man Print is still trudging up the media moun-
tain, but his Social cousin continues to reach new
heights at an effortless stride. In this race to the top,
modern content producers—young and old—need to
realize we’re all on the same team. And everyone has
the fortitude to go home with a trophy.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” That
adage will never lose its relevance. In personal life and
in business, fruitful relationships are almost always the
key to growth and success. It’s rare that any person or
endeavor makes a memorable mark without the support
of som eone else. For those of us in the business of writ-
ing headlines (or subject lines, or video titles, or posts),
it’s a relationship with our audience that matters most.
Without eyeballs and engagement we go
extinct. So unless you want to join the di-
nosaurs at the spa for a meteor shower and
a long nap, you’d better learn how to reach
your audience via social media.
SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T CHILD’S PLAY
Like. Share. Emoji this. Meme that. It’s easy to glance
at the surface of social media and giggle or grimace
with disdain. Many of us did the same thing when we
listened to the squealing tones of a dial-up Internet
connection during the early 1990s. Laughter among
traditional media outlets and media professionals
quickly turned into panic as many struggled to accept
the fact that the World Wide Web—and its exponential-
ly exploding audience—was on a fast track to become
the dominant platform upon which information and
entertainment would be served and consumed.
The sophistication of dot coms escalated rapidly, soon
giving our audience venues to provide immediate
feedback and exchange meaningful dialogue—message
boards and forums being a couple of the first “social
media” platforms. Following the inauguration of social
Volume 01 No. 03 | 2017