Overwhelmed by the Social Media? Get Stubborn!

While I do a lot of private social media consulting and coaching, I also have the opportunity to do public presentations and custom hands-on workshops on social media platform use.

I’m really encouraged by the increasing mainstream interest in learning more about these platforms, particularly on the local business level. Are you seeing this in your area?

Here in San Francisco’s East Bay, this includes strong attendance at the Social Media Strategies for Local Business Workshop Series I’ve been presenting at the Lafayette Library & Learning Center in Lafayette, CA since Sept 2010. (Workshops co-sponsored by the library (using Friends funds) and the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce.)

“Overwhelming” is the word I hear most from people who are first learning about social media platforms, particularly when it comes to leveraging social media for business use. Keep in mind many of these businesses don’t have a big marketing budget. The work tends to be DIY.

My suggestion is always… start with baby steps and build from there. Baby Steps, though, are a matter of perspective. What’s overwhelming to you today, won’t be later. It will be replaced by something that newly overwhelms.

While preparing for a recent presentation, I found myself stymied by something on Handbrake, an open source program that allows me to convert some videos into more Youtube friendly files. Hours ticked by but I tamed the beast! Sometimes it pays to be Stubborn!

So know: The learning curve is steep — and continues for all of us regardless of how long we’ve been working with social media — as we better understand not just platform tactics (which often change!) but something much more important: How best to use each of them to achieve our respective goals.

That starts with something decidedly old-fashioned marketing:

• Who do you want to reach?
• What do you want them to do?

Social Media starts to feel a lot less overwhelming when you realize that collectively these are just communication tools who work best at the intersection of our other  marketing efforts.