I think we don’t give cavemen enough credit. Its interesting to me that as we put more and more years between the beginning of creation and today, we might see how some things may have come full circle.
Since the time that mankind was living in caves, there was a need for being social. There was a tribe. There was a community. There was a thought leader. There was training. There were road trips. There was social interaction. All of these things created a social fabric that made up society. Today, social media is deeply engrained into our culture.
From the dawn of computers, conventional thought theorized that this new technology would create societal gaps and lessen the need for human interaction. What we have seen through social media, that this couldn’t prove this more untrue. Families, once spread apart across a continent, now see postings and pictures of their family, friends and loved ones regularly. Lost relationships from decades ago, have been restored. More importantly, our social bandwidth for relationships has increased.
The capacity to build and grow our social network is greater now than ever before in the history of mankind. Such an opportunity presents itself, that its worth deep-diving into it to understand how to make the most effective use of this technology. Just as the caveman first learned to fashion weapons, we also must take full advantage of the tools before us.
Different social media channels have been created for our varying types of relationships. These different channels are important to understand for companies who are wanting to establish their social footprint. Its clear that traction might be more easily obtainable in one channel than another based on the service, product or target market.
Much like the caveman, we cannot get started simply by pitching the idea of fire or a wheel. We have to establish credibility and trust. We do this by creating relationships. Just as the Neanderthal thought leader, we create relationships with both groups and individuals. We speak from the authority of a subject matter expert. This is a title that cannot be claimed, it must be earned. We earn this badge by disseminating our thoughts and ideas across multiple channels, as well as promoting the thoughts and ideas of others that are consistent with our brand and our message.
I think we can see the parallels of how cavemen used their own variation of social media to market themselves and their ideas to establish thought leadership.