Back in the Saddle.

Back in the Saddle.

March 15, 2016 Uncategorized 0

“I will be letting this [social media marketing] information ferment and I hope that within a few months I can get my idea of my “brand” together enough to redo my website and start making a consistent presentation.”-M.

Nope. That’s not gonna happen. Things don’t change in our lives because we hope, but because we act.

If you are one of the huddled masses attempting to re-brand yourself online, the only way that’s gonna come together is if you today, right now, roll up your sleeves, before you’re ready—because hey, you’ll never be ready—and start branding. Start following, on whatever social media platform you wish to make an impact, your colleagues, friends and rivals even, in order to start understanding, in real time, how they are, and are not, using social media, for better or for worse,in order to start understanding how you, in turn, will create a viable, dynamic, intelligent, professional social media presence.

The person whom I quoted at the opening of this piece, was emailing me after attending one of my hands-on social media workshops for artists. She was exhausted and overwhelmed: 8 hours of being online will do that to you. I personally think she was exhausted because had finally grasped the potential of social media, as beyond teenagers sharing photos of their cats. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…) But having seen the enormity of the task ahead of her, her (understandable) instinct was to hide.

It reminded me of when I was about 7, learning to horseback ride at the Claremont Stables on NYC’s Upper West Side. I was a pretty natural rider, so my instructor decided that today was the day we’d learn to canter. And by “we,” she meant me, since she was busy chain-smoking and yelling at people and horses.

Did I mention I was 7 and thus, fairly small? As my mother watched, in horror, the cantering horse threw me, and kept going. My instructor, who would have made Martin Bormann say, “Hey, Sunshine, ya wanna lighten up a bit?,” started screaming mouth-watering obscenities at me, till I picked myself up from a pile of dirt, chased after my horse, and got back into the saddle, and kept cantering. I was far more terrified of my riding instructor than any galloping behemoth of a horse. All the horse could have done was run me down.  Meanwhile, when I woke up the next morning, all I remembered was that hey, I did get back on the horse, and I did, eventually, canter successfully.  On the other hand, if I had run from the stables, the shame and fear would have kept me from ever becoming a great horseback rider.

This may seem a roundabout analogy, but I’m hoping that my client, startled as she was by the enormity and power of social media marketing, will get back on the horse immediately.

Listen, your social media presence is only your responsibility. You can use it to sell, or make connections, or get angry about the political “process,” or share unending wedding photographs, or bore us with your marathon-training schedule, or pick up hookers, or post photos of your kids or cats…or all of the above. But if you want to create an online presence that gives potential clients and colleagues immediate understanding of your potential and talent, an understanding of why you’re worth their time, you have to keep getting back into that saddle.

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