Why Seinfeld’s ‘do the opposite’ theory works in social media

For George, his life had been a series of bad decisions. By simply flipping his thinking and doing the opposite, he had to be right, right?

Real life’s not that easy, obviously. And, in the communications world, life is certainly more complex. But, let’s think about this opposite theory for a minute.

Let’s look at a few approaches to social media tools and strategies, and what would happen if companies did the opposite, just like George:

Initial approach: Let’s write a blog post about the cool new project our engineering department is putting together.

Do the opposite: Write a blog post about the problems this new project solves for your customers from their perspective. In fact, why not give a customer (maybe one who interacts with you regularly on Twitter) an opportunity to interview one of your team members and ask that customer to write a blog post?

Initial approach: Let’s tweet the event one of our partner organizations is facilitating.