The Slight Edge of Social Media

If you’ve not read The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness
by Jeff Olson, you must! It will put so much into perspective for growing your business and leading the life that you dream of.

While reading the book, I became aware of The Slight Edge philosophy and how it works in social media. The basis of The Slight Edge philosophy is that “simple disciplines repeated over time will create success, while simple mistakes repeated over time will create failure.”  The philosophy is broken down into seven principles.

And, social media works with these same seven principles.

1. Show Up: If you want social media to work for your business, you need to be on the right social networks. However, simply having a Facebook page or a LinkedIn profile is not going to give you results. You need to login and engage with your audience.
2. Be Consistent: Social media can be time consuming, but to reach success with it, you must be consistent. As you engage with your audience, you will start to build the “know, like, and trust” parts of a good relationship. If you stop engaging suddenly or post sporadically, you will not be able to build momentum.
3. Have a Good Attitude: Part of the reason people turn to social media is that they are seeking something. For some, it may be as simple as seeking a distraction from everyday life. Bring a good attitude with you when you are posting online. No one wants to read about your troubles or complaints.
4. Be Committed for a Long Period of Time: Social media success does not happen over night. It may take months to start seeing results. Know this from the start and plan for it. Commit to your plan and factor in ways to keep yourself motivated prior to seeing results from your efforts.
5. Have Faith and a Burning Desire: You will run into obstacles as you venture into social media. Pressing issues will fight for your attention; you’ll find your schedule may not allow for you to post regularly; or you may receive some negative feedback through a social network. You must have a deep desire to build your brand online and faith that you will see your way past any obstacles.
6. Be Willing to Pay the Price: Building your online presence will take work. It may require you to invest in some training or even hire some expertise. Whatever it takes, be willing to push forward and do what’s necessary to accomplish your online goals.
7. Practice Slight Edge Integrity: The Slight Edge Integrity means “doing the thing you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you.” It’s so easy to get excited and caught up in new social media networks, apps, and opportunities. However, the interest will often wane when you realize that you don’t have time to commit to yet another thing. With social media, practice integrity by focusing on one network until you have it all figured out and are seeing results. Then, move on to another social media network if you so choose. Doing social media poorly is worse than not doing social media at all. Your reputation and brand can be hurt by a poorly implemented social media strategy.

Do you have The Slight Edge? Let us know what you’re doing in the realm of social networking to practice The Slight Edge.