Make Mistakes In Social Media – It’s Key To Success

Mastering social media and developing a social media presence is a journey. I’ve been in marketing for my entire professional career, from a global brand evangelist to a marketing VP. Switching gears to focus on coaching executives in social media was a natural fit, but I needed to further establish my own social media presence.

Just as in marketing, I wanted to be familiar with the wide range of tools involved in my craft. I also needed to decide where to invest my time, attention, and resources when it came to different platforms and social media tools.

Even though they’re not mutually exclusive, there are a lot of different social media platforms to choose from. By trying out multiple platforms, I learned a number of lessons that continue to inform how I help C-suite leaders become digital executives.

Lesson 1 - Take Time to Experiment

There are so many platforms and apps out there, the process of taking a deep dive with any one of them, let alone all of them, can seem daunting. But it’s worth it. Not only does it help develop your voice and audience, but it also gives you an idea of which platform is best for your purposes.

I first began experimenting with Facebook, attempting to build an audience around a message of mastering twenty-first-century communication. It didn’t provide the exposure I hoped for, and as more of a typical social media platform, as compared to a “professional” one, it didn’t benefit the services I was offering.

Next up was Twitter, which helped further bolster my message and increase my visibility. In time, I built a Twitter following of more than 20,000 people with two different Twitter accounts, but I still wasn’t seeing much upside. I engaged in worthwhile conversations and was exposed to insightful thought leaders, ideas, and events, but at the end of the day, my audience wasn’t taking that next step of connecting with me in a meaningful, productive way.

I had a suspicion LinkedIn would be the best platform for what I was trying to accomplish, but if I hadn’t first seriously tried out Facebook and Twitter, I would have never known for sure.

As it turns out, LinkedIn was a game-changer.

Lesson 2 - Use LinkedIn as a Tool, Not an Online Resume

People often overlook the many possibilities LinkedIn provides, seeing it instead as a digital resume, one which they only update when on the hunt for a new job. This impression couldn’t be further from the truth.

LinkedIn is an active social media platform on which you can connect with colleagues, engage clients, and share content through a variety of means (including articles like this one!). The main difference between the “typical” tools and LinkedIn comes down to one crucial element: the audience.

We’re not posting memes or updating friends on our new interest in baking sourdough bread—we’re here to do business. This means we need to change the way we normally approach social media and engage others.

I’ve invested a lot in shaping my selling strategy around LinkedIn, and in doing so, I’ve realized many people are unaware of the power of LinkedIn.

Since this platform is a whole different beast, new users sometimes get frustrated—even if they’ve grown a following on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, that doesn’t necessarily translate to success with LinkedIn.

There are three suggestions I always tell my clients when they first start using this professional platform:

·     Don’t Go Overboard. LinkedIn will hide your posts if you share more than one post every three to four hours. An active presence is good, but don’t overcharge.

·     Keep it in the Family. Links to outside content are discouraged because they take users off the LinkedIn platform.

·     Text is King. LinkedIn rewards comments and conversations by boosting them to a larger audience, meaning text-only posts generally outperform videos or pretty pictures. Leverage text and leave the cat photos for your Instagram account.

These suggestions are the tip of the iceberg, so just as I recommend experimenting with different platforms, I also recommend experimenting with LinkedIn. Remember, however, that this platform is for your professional growth, so the stakes are a bit higher. That said, if you’re too hesitant, or flat-out scared to try, you’ll never reap the rewards.

Lesson 3 - Get Out of Your Own Way

I’ve lost count of the number of times my clients have expressed their fears about using social media: the fear of embarrassment, inferiority, the potential to negatively affect their business or career—the list goes on. They all boil down to the fear of making mistakes.

But where they see a problem, I see an opportunity. Experimenting with different platforms, developing a presence on LinkedIn, building a following, none of these are possible without making some mistakes along the way.

I’m a strong believer that there’s no better way to learn and figure than through small failures. So what if your first few posts don’t gain much traction? Or if your voice isn’t fully developed? If you don’t practice social media—and let me guarantee you, it certainly is a practice—you’ll never improve.

Over time, you’ll find what works for you, what garners a larger audience, and creates connections that help you in your career and professional life. In fact, you’ll discover how social media can make you a better leader, increasing your presence and even sales, as you graduate from the c-suite to becoming a digital executive.

If you let fear hold you back, you’ll never get there.

Summary

Everyone approaches social media in a different way and to various ends, but without a strong understanding of these platforms and tools, they’re unlikely to create the results you’re looking for, especially when it comes to your business or career.

Developing a social media presence is a process, not a means to an end. You need to experiment with different tools, learn how to use them properly, and allow yourself to get over your fears.

Mistakes are part of that process, and if you’re not willing to make them, you’re setting yourself up for long-term failure, the kind that can’t be overcome.