Call of Social

 

I sat around in my pants on Sunday pretty much all day playing call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, I only once peeled myself off the sofa to go to the toilet and cram something in my mouth, oh and I bathed at about 5pm...too much information. Probably.

Am I proud of it… 

HECK YES. I even managed to get one of my guns to a gold camo. Time well spent I’d say 🤓

I have a soft spot for this game, it’s how I met one of my best buddies. We became friends and are now friends IRL (in real life) just like you can do with prospects through social.

The thing I love MOST about call of duty is the team aspect. It’s fiercely competitive and having the right load-outs (guns and gear) to cope with whatever the game throws at you from the other team is SUPER important. Going in with half measures won’t cut it. 

Just like anything else in life, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. You wouldn't leave the game to chance, so why would you treat social any other way? You need a strategy.

The parallels between Call of Duty and Social Media are HUGE and I’m about to break em down for you soldier. 

So listen up maggots and fall in line, as we hit bootcamp.

Multiplayer

Just like social media, Call of Duty is a TEAM sport. Dropping in with a load of randoms isn’t the same as dropping in with a well trained squad of team mates that you play with regularly. 

You want to know they have your back and they compliment you with their particular skills sets and load-outs (more on those later). 

Having a varied mix of people in your social squad gives you a much stronger base to work off when going up against the competition. So bringing in people from sales, marketing, the C suite, HR and customer service all helps compliment the squad AND starts to overwhelm the old model that your competitors are still using brand voice VS personal brand voice.

Loadouts

Choosing the right guns, gear and ammo is as important as your skillset in this game. Social is no different. Your loadouts let you pick certain guns and level them up and perks are sets of skills that help in certain ways.

Think of your personal brand as your perks (all the things that make up brand YOU) and your loadouts as your content. Personal brand and content working seamlessly together into a lethally efficient content killing machine. These two need alignment, they compliment one another. Think of your personal brand as your book and each chapter is new content. If it's out of whack you’ll get dumped on faster than you can say NOOB!

Progression

The progression system is no different to social media, as you win games, you level up and increase in rank. Just like amassing followers on social. 

An increased rank means more access to different loadouts weapons and gear, just like more followers = more REACH. The bigger you get, the bigger you get. You get? 

Kill Streaks 

These are rewards for gaining a string of kills in the game, the ability to call in airstrikes and giant helicopters that mow the floor and have the competition screaming into their mics is frankly the best feeling ever. Your kill streaks are sales. All that amassed effort with your personal brand, content, and conversation results in building a relationship with your new prospect. The end goal of social to help you win the match. That consistent effort (much like pumping hours into a video game) pays off in the long run.

This is done through…

Context (who am I speaking to, and what do I want them to take away).

Content (text posts, image posts, articles, video, how am I delivering that message).

Consistency (maintaining authenticity and a single personal brand voice and message across time).

Conversation (within your content and hopefully progressing to your DM’s and then into the analogue world).

Conversion (the actual selling part of social selling).

So start to think of social just like a video game, this isn’t messing around for visibilities sake (my most hated word in the entire English lexicon of social media). This is warefare.

MODERN WAREFARE to be precise!

See you on the battlefield soldiers. Tune in next week for more electric dreams soldier!