Rick Astley & Social Media
You won’t admit it publicly, but it’s OK. I’ll take care of it.
You LOVE Rick Astley.
No shame in it. Great pop artist from the 1980s who, despite being the punchline for countless jokes has always seemed like an easy-going, play-along-with-it kinda guy.
His most famous song, of course, is “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Here is one of my favorite versions (yes, I fancy myself an aficionado of the song):
Do you know what he’s singing about? My guess is that you are thinking “love” or “lust” or maybe even some form of 1980s narcotic. 
Nope. He’s giving everyone a lesson on social media.
Let’s examine a few lyrics to prove the point:
“You know the rules and so do I” – Social Media, while still a vast, unexplored frontier, has some rules. Common courtesy, polite discourse and give-and-take debate rules all. Play nicely, kiddies!
“A full commitment’s what I’m looking for” – To be successful in social media, you need to jump in head-first and stay neck-deep. If you don’t participate in the discussion as much as possible, you’ll be left behind. That’s not to mean that you have to be connected 100% of the time. Just do it and do it right as it fits within your schedule.
“I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling” – Be honest online. Be yourself. The more honesty you give, the more honesty you’ll get and you’ll build real professional and personal connections with people.
“Never gonna give you up” - Don’t stop! Even if it’s hard and frustrating, keep on keeping on. You made a full commitment, right?
“Never gonna let you down” – With content, you’ll never make EVERYONE happy. However, give it your best effort, be it a Tweet, a video or a blog post. Give your all and be authentic to yourself and that will resonate with your growing community.
“Never gonna make you cry” – Yes, the truth does hurt sometimes, but don’t offend people just to offend people. While shock-jocks may get good radio ratings for a while, ticking people off just to be shocking is a one-way ticket to obscurity and irrelevance in the social media realm.
“Never gonna say goodbye” – Full commitment, remember?
The rest of the song basically hammers home these points, in a glorious lyrical method.
So what are the main lessons Rick Astley has taught us about social media?
1. Be there.
2. Be yourself.
3. Be part of the community.
4. Be committed to being awesome.
And if you can’t commit to being awesome, just what are you doing reading my blog?
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