In celebration of Martin Luther King Day, and the impact he had on our country and the world, I thought I’d reflect back and see what he knew about social media.

OK, I’m done. He knew nothing about social media. How could he? He was a great man but he wasn’t a wizard.

In the 1960’s, the computer required to do pretty much what your iPhone can do might have taken up a whole building. Nobody had them on their laps or in their pockets, so things like Facebook and Twitter wouldn’t have caught on very quickly. Most things were still shot on film too, so uploading to YouTube would have been a challenge. Trying to go from your Polaroid to Instagram to make it look like a polaroid would have been redundant.

Martin Luther King did need that stuff anyway. He showed up in person. He marched. He motivated. He led. He didn’t have the luxury of “leveraging” social media channels to “engage” his audience. He didn’t “amplify”  his message across the “twitterverse.” He had a bullhorn to do that.

The leveraging, engaging and interaction he did was face to face. Grassroots. Boots on the ground. Media  influencers helped share his message because his story was compelling and controversial.

MLK didn’t have an avatar. He had a dream. A plan. A vision. You saw the real man and decided if that was worth following.

Martin Luther King had something that people believed in and stood behind. He made his case in a compelling manner. He spoke from the heart, convincingly. He knew where he was going and why. He identified how he’d get there, what he would need, and did what he had to do to move his agenda forward.

So when you’re social media marketing this product or that service from the comfort of your office, just remember. Martin Luther King knew nothing about social media, and look what he accomplished.