Marketers want to maximize revenue from Social Media. Companies are struggling to learn new conversation skills in the Social Media realm. Perhaps we can garner some perspective from childrens’ toys. Not the ones parents buy in a store. We’re talking the ones that get made of cardboard boxes, string, tape, markers and craft paper. The toys kids really play with.

If you’re a parent, how many times have you shaken your head at Christmas and birthday’s when your child shuns the Shiny New Toy in favour of the box it came in? The box that suddenly has tape on it, gets coloured in and has holes cut in it? The box that transformed into a car garage or fortress? Your child bought into the ads on TV for the Shiny New Toy, begged you for it in fact. You bought into the packaging and the online recommendations and the manufacturers marketing spin.

But the reality became something else. The toy moved aside and the child took the by-product of the Corporate Message and turned it into something they wanted - Consumer Generated Content. Just like a blog or a vlog. The consumer takes the corporate message, ingests it, thinks on it and then may turn aside the Corporate Message so carefully and expensively crafted, and turn it on it’s head in a completely new way from what was intended. Adults may not play with physical toys the way children do. A key element of children playing is that they learn; social skills, hand-eye coordination, patience etc.

It is very similar with Social Media. For Social Media is the sandbox of youth and adults. Like the analogical toy box, Social Media becomes the derivative “toy” of the original Shiny New Toy. Watch children playing, and you will see them laughing more, working together more, when they are building something from non-uniform parts.

Perhaps what this signifies is that corporations not only are searching for new conversation skills, but how to play as well. To accept like parents do, that the child is sometimes going to make it’s own creation. When a parent joins the child on the floor or at the table and helps build whatever the toy is, then bonding occurs and engagement. This leads to new innovations, and happiness. In this business world, this can lead to increased margin, reduced costs and higher profits; perhaps even Economic Profit.