Don't be Afraid to get into Social Media, be Afraid of Missing the Boat

Social media can be a scary place for a lot of old school marketers to jump into. With the ability for consumers to have direct access and commutation directly with companies, a lot of marketers are on edge. They are tiptoeing their way into the social media space and testing the water before they dive in. Better safe than sorry is their mantra. And their mantra is wrong.

With Social media being so new to the discipline of marketing and the communications industry, there is massive potential to capture market share by being first.

Here is the big secret: There are no best practices for social media. What works for some companies will not work for others, even if the exact same tactics are used.



One of the main issues that marketers are facing right now is trying to find case studies (usually within their vertical) to show the powers that be, “Hey look social media works.” There are some inherent problems here.

One, if you are waiting for another company in your industry to be successful in social media you are losing out on a huge opportunity to be first in the space to grab up that market.

Two, if you are late to the game and mimic what your competition is doing, people are going to notice and call you on your lack of creativity and downright copy-cattiness.

Do yourself a favor, Start a blog today. Test out new sites and social networks. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and fail. Refine and adjust your approach based off of actionable analytics that you get back as you move along in the process.

Social media is going to be a trial and error process, if you do it right. If at first you don’t succeed, learn from past mistakes, refine, tweak, and try again. Remember to provide value in an authentic way in social spaces and you can't lose.

The time to get into the game is now, and it may already be too late for your company to be first...