When putting together a social media strategy, be it your initial plan or a revamp, please (except in a few - very few - exceptional cases) stop offering me another movement to jump onto.

A while back, I worked for a woman for three months as a contracted employee - something of an odds and ends outreach person - and after finally putting some thought into her mission, she finally came up with an overarching objective: "I want you to use the Internet to start a movement around [the release of my book]."

The publication in question, which read like a textbook, was a heady and conceptual description of a particular element of global economics. Her goal was radically unachievable and immodest.

Reports about Barack Obama's Internet fundraising and organizing prowess have given more than a few people the impression that that, if organized correctly, if enough attention is paid to how videos are made to "go viral", etc. they, too, can draw massive attention/subscription to their product, idea, concept, whatever. Most who approach Internet outreach people, or community managers with these new Internet-driven goals, however, are not selling the contextual equivalent of a "change" candidate during a "change" political climate, or a Picken's Plan during an energy crisis. Not many organizations/individuals (or the outreach managers who move, sell, and humanize these ideas) are selling the idea of the moment.

In my last post, I mentioned 2008 being the year of authenticity, which was confirmed further when I picked up a copy of the October issue of Lola, a free Boston-based monthly paper. The issue was self-dubbed "The Authenticity Issue." Speaking as a millennial, I agree with reports about our obsession with authenticity. That to me is more important to us than grandiosity. Where proposed movements are exciting in their size, they're often repelling in their apparent inflated sense of self-worth (we even see this in backlash against Barack Obama in the reworking of posters that once read "Hope" and now read "Hype").

Further, we've already got our fingers on the pulses of enough movements - the last thing I want to see on my Facebook is another invitation to something that seems way bigger than me.

Sometimes, in order to get us to buy into an idea, we need something as simple as a series of local band endorsements or to simply be made aware that good things, generally, will be done with our money and time. Short testimonials by recipients of your services recorded and sent out by Facebook blast, or an evangelist reaching out to me person-to-person via my wall is more important than promising yet-another bigger-than-I-can-conceive movement. I've got enough of those going on, and I give enough money and time to those. While I'm not fighting the impending end of the world in all the ways I am challenged to do so, I like to be presented small, "authentic," and manageable ways that I can tangibly make a difference.