Continuing my series on social media virtues; my fun way to impart sage advice for learning good social media practices. I started with Temperance, and today for part to I will discuss Patience.
This one is easy and I have talked about it before: Don’t expect overnight success! This takes time!
A slow and steady succession of actions will bring you far more success than any get “1,000 Twitter Fans in 2-days or 10,000 website visitors by doing x” type of schemes. If you have been involved in traditional marketing you will know that patience is usually allowed, with “click here” “buy now!” numbers, numbers, numbers, but this methodology just does not work when it comes to social media, so if that is how you plan to measure success, you might want to rethink things.
There is no substitution for hard work and time. You need time to build credibility. You need time to build influence. You need time to engage and become a part of a community.
So there are no get-rich-quick schemes for success, it is a long-term activity using long-term strategies and lots of patience.
Now that I have completed my series on the 7 Sins of Social Media I thought it might be beneficial to review the 7 Virtues! After all, there are two parts to every story! We have reviewed what to do to prevent bad habits, now let’s look into the positive practices that should be encouraged.
I will start with Temperence. Wikipedia defines it as: constant mindfulness of others and one’s surroundings; practicing self-control, abstention, and moderation. In social media this relates to listening. If you read anything about social media best practices and strategies you will no doubt have seen over and the over that the first action you should take when considering social media activity is actually inaction, or in reality, active listening!
Use Google Alerts and Twitter Search, as well as a dozen of other listening tools to find where your community is and start watching and listening to what they have to say.
Listen to those conversations before getting involved. Understand who the community is, what their interests are, what problems or issues they face and how they engage with each other. And when you think you have listened enough, listen some more!
Once you are really ready to start engaging, keep your first interactions simple, helpful. Do not pitch. This is the practicing self-control part. You need to be accepted as part of the community first. You can read more about this concept of community acceptance in Chapter 3 of Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s book Trust Agents – called One of Us.
In summary, seek our your community, listen closely, be mindful of your participation within that community and begin interacting with moderation and forethought.
