I have been keeping a journal and a blog to document my progress since the day I set up my Facebook profile (May 2009). Although I had been on LinkedIn for several years, I didn’t get serious about using social media until last year.
Now I’m asking other business owners about their experience with and interest in using social media to enhance their various operating strategies: communications, marketing, customer relations, etc. There seems to be general recognition of seven irrefutable characteristics that invoke across-the-board reaction to social media, and mark the stages of acceptance.
- Curiosity – and the need to do what everyone else is doing.
- Abundance – like an all-you-can-eat buffet that’s not only free, but you can come back as often as you want and stay for as long as you like.
- Novelty – With new features, functions and platforms being introduced daily, the novelty never wears out.
- Frustration – With the overwhelming amount of information and options, with the challenges of learning how to use the tools, and with the amount of time it’s sucking from your life.
- Fear – You can’t afford to devote this kind of time and energy to something that’s seemingly providing no real return. But, you can’t afford NOT to because traditional methods of mass communication are becoming even more expensive, and less effective (aka the groundswell approach-avoidance syndrome).
- Rationale – Social media offers powerful business tools that can save you time and money, and maybe even help you make money. But a haphazard approach to social media won’t work any better than a haphazard approach to any business strategy. You get serious about putting together a strategy and committing to it.
- Realization – With the strategy in place (and once it is, you wonder why you didn’t do this sooner), you feel the weight of the earlier stages of this learning curve begin to ease.
Your curiosity is satisfied. You’ve come to understand that there’s always going to be something new around the next bend. You’re comfortable within the social media space, and you have a system for staying current with whatever is relevant to your needs.
The abundance will also be there. But now, that’s a good thing. It doesn’t have to be distracting or confusing. It simply means you will have as many options as you could possibly want.
The novelty is refreshing. It means that social media tools are being advanced and (hopefully) improved. But you know now that ironically, novelty is nothing new. It’ll be there for you whenever you need a dose of it.
Frustration levels are diminished by the sheer fact that your level of competency is increased as a function of your experience with the learning curve. This doesn’t mean that you won’t still get frustrated along the way, but you’ll know where to go to get help you need, and you probably won’t need help as often as you used to.
The fear has turned to love.
The rationale that led you to developing a strategy will be the most important lesson learned. As your experience with social media as a business tool evolves, you will always come back to the realization that every new step should be strategically aligned with your business objectives.
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7 Questions to Help Businesses Get Ready for Social Media
