10 Ways to Succeed in Social Media, Part Two

2. Set realistic expectations.

Using social media to communicate with others isn’t that difficult. But if you expect your posts, tweets, status updates and videos to result in any new leads or business opportunities, you had better be more than a little patient and perseverant.

As I wrote in a previous blog post, The Importance of Getting Past the Social Media “Dip”…

…social media shouldn’t ever be looked at as a fast track or short cut to success.  Mastering social media requires a long-term, strategic investment that needs to be looked at as part and parcel of almost everything else you do as an organization, not as a quick fix or panacea for an inability to find common ground with your constituency in the first place.

Don’t disappoint yourself. Be realistic with your expectations. To put together an effective social media program, you need to be as prolific as you are informed, as personable as you are inspirational, capable of producing a stream of original content on a steady, uninterrupted basis that your constituents will find not just interesting, but worth their valuable time.   

The fact is that the most successful practitioners in this space are specialists, authorities and knowledge leaders, people who are renowned for their expertise wherever they go.

Are you one of those people? Does your organization have folks like that at its disposal? If so, then you have every reason to believe that your social media efforts will bear fruit.

This is the second in a 10-post series on how to succeed in social media. Over the course of the next few months, I’ll publish the balance of the series, one post at a time (not necessarily consecutively), here on my blog, A New Marketing Commentator. Please stay tuned. And if you have any feedback on this series for me, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. Thanks.

Previous Posts in This Series…
10 Ways to Succeed in Social Media, Part One

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