Look around the walls that confine you. How many layers of paint make up what you see? The very first layer of paint on the dry wall was primer followed by several coatings of tint. Color is intended to complement the core structure; instead, it does a good job of hiding it.

In Chicago, Lou Malnati’s, along with my other faves Nancy’s Pizza, Rosati’s, and Leona’s make pie — deep dish, can’t-get-anywhere-else Chicago ‘za. (Yes, I’m salivating.) Malnati’s offers a butter crust, among other delights. When the home-made Italian sauce zingy with oregano, basil, etc. is added along with the four-blend cheese not to mention the veg toppings (spinach, onion, tomato anyone?) and, and, and…who can taste the crust?

Social media is akin to paint and pizza. In North America, Internet usage penetration is 74.2 percent, and there are 1.73 billion Internet users around the world, according to Internet World Stats. To find the actual number of blogs, good luck. In a post two years ago on Blog Herald, estimates by Technorati suggested 112.8 million blogs. Add micro-blogging via Twitter, and Facebook, MySpace, with social networking on LinkedIn and a variety of other social media layers/levels applied daily (whew), and where the heck is the crust and dry wall?

In your business, rather than stacking bricks willy-nilly in the hopes of decorative art, focus on the foundation. Concentrate on several initial layers of basic messaging WITH A STRATEGY and build from there.  Social media can be dangerous, especially when a public relations practitioner or marketer is caught up in the bells-and-whistles frenzy to add more, more, more. “Less is more!” said my former boss, Jodee Stevens, founder and creative director of Cardthartic.

So, as you paint and dine on “salivacious” (I do a lot of word coining) Chicago ‘za, stay focused on the first layers. Over time, spurred by on-tap strategy, add the anchovies — or not.