WWE: 5 Reasons Why Zack Ryder Is An Underwhelming Superstar

4. It's Not Enough To Be First, But You Absolutely Have To Be Best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoZUqeSQpoM Zack Ryder was WWE's first social media kingpin. Stalled in a career where he was deemed too good for ECW/NXT but not better than being first or second match material on Smackdown, Zack Ryder took to social media in order to engender support for his career. Between being successful at adding a significant number of Twitter followers to his massively successful Z! True Long Island Story Youtube show (and being a leader in getting WWE to embrace both Tout and Instagram), Ryder's "revolution" ultimately became bigger than him. Ultimately, one can look at Ryder's success and point to everything from WWE's re-tooling of WWE.com, to the full incorporation of Twitter into all broadcasts, the the development of the WWE App, to even the successful (and game changing) roll-out of the WWE Network. At the point when the company is embracing social at an incredible clip (and Ryder is noticing his in-ring stock plummeting), why did he not decide to invest time and money into his own social media presentation, and maybe go to Digital Royalty's Amy Jo Martin? Martin' the mastermind who has been hired by The Rock, WWE, Dana White and UFC to increase the impact of their social media footprints. Consulting with the absolute best in the field (and likely being able to afford said consulting with merchandise residual checks alone) could have give him a leg up in learning how to better apply techniques to excel at social media. As well, if not wanting to go that route, there's always being willing to assist WWE in understanding rolling out development plans in new social spaces. Ryder as a crash-test dummy for WWE attempts at working with, Spotify, for instance, could have been amazing. WWE is in the midst of evolving far past wrestlers just having to be in the ring to be of value. Ryder as a talking head who can showcase pro wrestling as being a progressive space in which to judge how a community engages with new media could make him incredibly valuable to WWE and not so underwhelming at all.