One of the most common excuses you'll hear from your marketing team's lack of a personal social presence is, "I do this for work all day, that's why I don't want to do it for myself." To that excuse, I've always countered with the question, "Is it that you don't want to, or that you can't?"
Forgive me, but I believe it's the latter.
The word Disruptur is a cliché because nowadays, most people in any role either want to disrupt it or believe they already are. Obviously, I fall into that camp; otherwise, I wouldn't have named my business after it. I love the word, always have, but lately I find myself in between the idea of falling for the cliché and believing I still am as I consider redefining its meaning for who I am, and what I want my business to be.
It was simple at first, I looked at social media from a defiant lens, wanting to cut against the grain, or in other words, do everything the opposition of the norm would do. For me, this meant never falling for a trend, never allowing a platform to steer my creativity, and, from a marketing perspective, never falling into the trap of the gimmicks used to maximize engagement. In layman's terms, it's a choice of abandoning hooks and CTAs, paid campaigns, or social advertising, being consistent, and literally anything your "marketing agency" might come up with to put your brand in front of the "right people."
I say forget that. Forget all of it.
Truthfully, the first thing that comes to mind now when I think of being disruptive is running a marketing agency completely void of social media altogether. Still, as of right now, I'm too soft and definitely too afraid of what that means for me; however, in the same breath, I can feel a new thought slowly creep into my brain, and yes, it's still defiant, but no, it's not void of social media...yet.
On the surface, all it appears to be is storytelling. It's really nothing else, but it's storytelling from the perspective of complete transparency and truth. Empowering our creativity to be driven only by what inspires us, and creating something not for others, but for ourselves. If that approach yields customers, views, impressions, connections, or social media stardom, that's only a byproduct of it, but never the intent.
Creating something for yourself, telling a story that you're proud of first, forgoing whatever it is that you may believe your ideal customer wants, void of any sales and marketing chatter, with zero expectation of reciprocation. Well, that's disruptive, or whatever word you would prefer to use, because of the perceived cliché attached to that word.
Marketers are great; they understand the technicality of the platforms, they study the algorithms, they take pretty photos, and film clever videos, all part of an intricate strategy to help your business scale and fill your pockets with loads of money.
In the end, all the time spent on discovery, all the resources spent on the strategy, and all of your money spent on promoting a campaign that gets glanced over, used as a temporary coaster for a cup of coffee, and ultimately ends up in the trash. It's in that moment that the customer realizes they could have achieved everything they ever wanted if they had just listened to their gut.
Being a disruptor is only a cliché if we allow ourselves to think of disrupting something in the same manner as others do. If you really want to give yourself the title, well, then you really need to abandon traditional thinking altogether.
That ideology resides at the center of my attention. It's not about what I'm doing that is too similar to what someone else is doing; it's about pouring my heart and soul into telling my story. Not for anyone else, just for me. Not because I do this for work all day, but because I can. When someone asks why I should choose Disruptur over another marketing agency, it's a simple and concise answer: "Because you get me, and I know what the hell I'm doing."
