Avatar’s Pandora: The Perfect Twitter Metaphor

Last week I was in a conversation with colleague who’s working on a rather exciting project merging television, politics, and new media. As we were discussing his online community building strategy, he was explaining in detail his use of Facebook and MySpace. (I know that’s what I thought – another example of a corporate culture death warrant via acquisition– sad really.) Anyway, he went on, then I asked, “How are you integrating Twitter?” Silence.

He has no Twitter strategy.

I was baffled. It brought Andy Dufresne to mind, “How can you be so obtuse?” – And I said that to my friend. But like many – he remains a skeptic. I found this so striking with him though because of his detailed explanations of his Facebook and MySpace strategy.

So as we were talking, I used Pandora, from Avatar, as a metaphor to help him envision the benefits Twitter has to offer. Here’s what I told him.

1. It takes 90 days. Give it that. You owe it to yourself, after which you’ll be fully immersed, ready for initiation, and wonder how you ever lived without it.
2. Break a rule early on, and it will let you know about it. Try a hard sell and you might just get your head taken off. Tread lightly at first.
3. There are guides (community managers) that will help you find your way. An great example – this tweet from @AmberCadabra.
4. It has its own language – DMs, Mentions, Tweets, Hashtags, Tweeps, TweetUps etc. At first these terms and language are hard to use and understand, but quickly they become part of your vernacular.
5. When you leave it, you’ll long to get back to it.
6. It knows what you need, when you need it. (You won’t understand this until you live through point one.)
7. Don’t be fooled, there are sacred lands that you will need to earn your way into.
8. It will give you the answer to virtually any question, just ask and listen.
9. Some connections are more powerful than others.
10. While there doesn’t seem to be anyone that wants it destroyed, there are those that will always be skeptical. Unless the ROI (Pandora’s Unobtainium) is uncovered, they will see no value in its power.

I think he get’s now, but that remains to be seen in whether or not he begins marketing his project on Twitter.

Photo Courtesy:http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcoruiz/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Author: Jeremy Victor | Website | Twitter

Jeremy's the founder of Make Good Media and Editor In Chief of B2Bbloggers.com. B2Bbloggers.com is a B2B Marketing online magazine discussing the evolution of B2B marketing. Topics include content marketing, B2B social media, demand generation, marketing automation, and more. Sign up. Get all the articles via email.