What Rockband can Teach us about Social Media

Its Not Exactly, Easy

I can tell you from experience that becoming good at Rockband isn’t easy. If you have never strummed a note or hit a snare, you’re going to struggle the first time you play with these plastic instruments. It’s not the difficulty level that makes it so challenging, its the unfamiliarity with the game that really screws us up.

This past week I had a few friends over who wanted to play. Initially, no one wanted to focus on a single instrument. They all wanted to get a chance to try a bit of everything. We were boo’d off the stage faster than Kramer at a Jay-Z concert. After failing over and over again I decided to play the guitar and nothing else. Everyone else stuck with their instrument and within a few songs we were starting to sound pretty good.

A One Man Band wont Shine

We shouldn’t have been trying to become a star at every instruments. One man bands are never as successful as a a bunch talented specialists. Can you name five one man bands without Google? Look at this years Grammy awards and the people who brought home the hardware. They all took one specific thing – and owned it. Taylor Swift owned Country, Beyonce owned Pop and Jay-Z owned Rap. Focus is essential if you want to be a leader or recognized as someone with a specific expertise.

There are tons of celebrities who have made successful careers all by themselves but for the most part they all had a supporting cast. Before Beyonce Knowles became just Beyonce, she was a member of Destinys Child. Before Micheal Jagger became Mick Jagger, he was a Rolling Stone. Before Lil Wayne became a rap sensation he was a young man in the group “Hot Boyz.” All these rockstars became household names after working long hours building relationships with their band members and most importantly their fans. They realized that for them to get to the top they had to always show their fans appreciation. They realized that their fans had control over whether or not they were a one hit wonder or a number one hit.

The same can be said in Social Media. The community will determine whether or not you succeed or fail. It will not be determined by how many tweets you send out a day.

Take one Instrument and Own it

When Dale Zak, a Canadian software developer ran into an AMAZING one-man-band in Croatia, he knew that he was in the presence of someone with great talent. He uploaded the video to YouTube and then to his blog and we were able to witness the talent of a one man band. Altough he found youtube stardom, that one man band is never going to be a world renown artist. We will never see him on the red carpet and we definitely wont see him on TMZ.

A one man band is just “ok” at a bunch of different things. If you want to be a leader you have to take your passion and own it. There is not enough time in the day to be everything to everybody, so quit trying.