Renegades Write the Rules

One lesson that we’ve learned and the way that adversity has affected us is that when you engage in these social media tools, you open yourselves up to criticism and controversy. Everyone has a voice. How we’ve dealt with it has been a learning experience. It isn’t a bad thing; I actually think it’s good. From an advocacy perspective, if you’re not making some people upset, you’re not advocating strong enough.

Even if you are the primary face of the brand—even if you’ve managed to humanize your brand through your social media presence—if your teammates in your business aren’t able to deliver on what you promise, you are just another elaborate gimmick. Your brand has a veneer called @you that looks nice but is only hiding a cheaply constructed company.

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose.

The flip side is that when the leader of a brand puts himself or herself out there and becomes the human behind the brand, and then backs that relational offering up with additional human interactions that support and add to who he or she is, the brand’s roots multiply and grow deeper. From the strength of this foundation, a major movement can occur—one that is far bigger and more purposeful than merely boosting your core business numbers.

Word-of-mouth is nothing new, and it’s still the most powerful form of marketing.

It is no longer feasible to insist that social media is just a fad or that it’s not necessary. It’s also not enough to insist you’ll “eventually do it.” Social media is not only the future of business; it is this moment of business as well. And the more moments you miss, the more irrelevant you will become. To opt out of social media is an irresponsible business decision. It’s quickly becoming a fatal business decision

The needs of your audience exist whether or not you acknowledge and address them in a timely fashion. The strongest brands that build the highest degree of loyalty have their ears to the ground every minute through social media and can jump to serve or solve problems the minute their name is called.

This takes more than a product special on Facebook once a month. It takes more than inspirational quotes on Twitter every other day. It takes the humans behind your brand engaging the humans in front of your brand in ways that make your general business strategy about adding as much value to as many people as often as possible.

Today, deciding not to embrace social media is like deciding to ditch the phone. Imagine if US Airways decided the phone wasn’t relevant and stopped answering it for five days. They wouldn’t do that, of course. But they essentially did.

One way to expedite this process is to exchange lessons so others can leapfrog the mistakes. As a first-time entrepreneur, I became well aware of what I didn’t know from the beginning. That self-awareness has a way of continuing to grow as your team, business, and vision grow. Here are a few lessons I wish I had known from the beginning.