Here’s a quick lesson in using social media to market your business from my 12 year old (almost 13!) son Mars. He likes fingerboards, tiny skateboards you can ride using your fingers. Turns out millions of kids like them. And apparently a lot of those kids have Flips or other affordable ways of making videos to show off their skills and creative ideas for “skate parks.”

Just Google “fingerboarding” to see how popular it is. Most of the search results will be for Youtube videos. Many of these fingerboarders now have very popular channels on Youtube. These kids don’t know a world without the web and social media. Sharing and interacting online is completely natural to them.

Fingerboarding as a hobby has now branched into kids making their own boards, from scratch. There are even videos about how to do this. So serial entrepreneur Mars, who is always making something, decides he is now in the manufacturing game, albeit at the hand made level. He has some friends on Youtube who have become fingerboarding new media celebrities. This is how Mars plans to pull it all together to sell his product:

1. “Sponsor” some “celebrities” by giving them his products to use
2. Ask the celebs to “endorse” his fingerboards by using them in their next video, get a mention
3. Funnel that traffic to his own Youtube channel or Etsy store

Some high level steps to using social media for business, that every 12 year old already knows:

1. Interact, engage, comment, compliment, make friends in the networks that make sense for you
2. Create your own related media (tweets, videos, blog posts, etc.) to show you’re legit
3. Partner, sponsor, joint venture, with players bigger than you to tap into their audience

That is all for now. Tell me in the comments if there is something you want me to talk about.