Then do something bad to earn it. Wait, what? Not really. After all, poor customer service and bad products is the fastest way to negative Word of Mouth. But, one of the keys is to be interesting and to leave people a reason to talk about you. Like, being the worst movie of all time - playerIndex?id=8188221

In important water-conservation news, Water - Use It Wisely spokesperson and noted useless handyman, Ryan La Rosa installed a WaterPik EcoFlow shower head without help or major panic attack. Such was the first endeavor of it’s kind that La Rosa completed, leaving his wife thoroughly impressed and proving just how easy it can be to install a simple water-saving device.

Understanding that few would believe he could achieve this task, La Rosa documented his progress in the photographs below…

Step 1

And so it begins...

Step 2

Here, our hero nearly gives up after spending 15 minutes attempting to open package. Thankfully, he perseveres.

Step 3

La Rosa uses the helpful monocle included in packaging to study directions (come to find out later, the monocle is actually the nut used to attach shower head).

Step 4

Unscrewing original shower head should be easy (unless you're short and surrounded by distracting 1960's bathroom tile).

Step 5

Old shower head proved no match for tool (common term used to describe both wrench and man pictured above).

Step 6

They say it's as easy as screwing new shower head into place. Clearly they've never dealt with a man of such few skills or common sense.

Step 7

Wow! It's true! A brand new shower head in minutes! Next step is to update tile by a decade to 1970's print.

Step 8 - The Ultimate Test

Perfection! Newly installed and instant results. In fact, our hero felt so good about his new water-saving habit he took it a step further and reduced his usual shower performance of Les Miserables from the entire production to only the first act.

Truth be told, installing this new water-saving shower head took all of 10 minutes and seriously I’ve never installed nor fixed anything in my life. And it works great too. Any noticeable difference in the stream (which trust me is nearly none) is made up for in the fact that you’re doing something good and saving water.

So, I insist that you too get your own Water Pik Eco Flow shower head. Interested? Just click here and you’re on your way.

Remember a couple of years back when a bunch of us took up this new social media thing and subsequently threw our noses up in the air at the PR world? Basically, we said why send out a press release or focus on media relations when there is this great new way to reach people? Remember how we spewed out statistics about how readership was dwindling and the press release was dead? Remember how we all thought those ignoring “social media” were behind the times or lazy? Remember?

Most likely you do. After all, it was just a couple of years ago. But isn’t it funny that despite the short amount of time that has passed, we’ve failed to realize that social media is breeding laziness. And worse, it’s turning us all into that species of fat, immobile blobs as seen in Wall-E. But hey, at least we’re fat, immobile experts right?

Here’s the problem. We started hounding PR hacks because they implemented tactics simply because “that’s how it’s always been done.” There was no strategy. We couldn’t believe someone would simply publish a press release without regard for whether or not there was a better way to reach people. The real reason (and I feel like I can say this because I was as guilty as anyone else) we continued to blindly do things like this was because we were lazy. Our clients paid us, we could follow a formula and be done without much thought. Now we find ourselves in exactly the same trap with social media.

The root of the problem is that we lost site of what social media is – a tactic. Plain and simple, that’s it. It’s not a strategy. Once we figured out we could make a little money we began to duplicate the same press release formula from a couple years back – jump on the bandwagon, figure out the minimum I have to do, call myself an expert and attach a rate to it. Once complete, we were ready to spout our knowledge on “Re-Tweets” and Facebook Groups.

But even the laziest of people can’t possibly ignore facts forever right? Like the FACT that 72.7% of people recommend a product face-to-face. Like the FACT that when asked how they communicate after a purchase, 63% said face-to-face with a family member, friend or peer versus three in ten who communicated via website and less than one in ten who communicated via online social network. Like the FACT that nearly 90% of word of mouth buzz is generated offline.

Social media is a great way to extend a message to an audience that lives online. It’s a tactic that works amazingly well when used strategically as part of a larger Word of Mouth Marketing strategy. So the next time a social media expert comes to you with a grandiose strategy, say, “Thanks a lot. This looks great. But what pray tell do you have planned for the other 90%.” And if they stare at you blankly, respond with, “That’s ok. After all, you’re just a social media expert.”