A quick little ebook I threw together based on a blog post, wherein I compare two things I know very well -- water skiing and social media -- and explain what we can learn from each.

1. Social Media Lessons from Water Skiing
(and vice-versa)
Stacy Lukasavitz
@damnredhead

2. 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
@damnredhead
http:///www.thatdamnredhead.net
stacy@thatdamnredhead.net
me when I was about 17
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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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 Good pre-edge change
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!

8. Lesson #7:
Know when to This dude is pulling WAY too hard
against the boat.
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 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.

9. Lesson #8:
Falling is natural. It’s 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.

10. 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.)

11. 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?)

12. 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!

13. Credits:
Slide 2: me when I was around 17
Slide 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: stock
Slide 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: stock
Slide 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
Stacy Lukasavitz
@damnredhead
http://www.thatdamnredhead.net
http://about.me/stacy.lukasavitz
stacy@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.