Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business

Chapter 10

Avoiding the Race to the Bottom

JUST SHOW UP

Social marketing is not going to do anything for you that you were not already capable of doing. If your business is broken now, this isn’t going to fix it. However, if you have the right intentions it can help you develop what you need to get and keep your business moving forward.

As you now know, my small business succeeded because of my initial ignorance of generally accepted industry practices. I may have never taken the plunge had I known at the outset what I later learned.

The same holds true with social media. Fortunately, we can all look back on our experiences with gratitude. The memories and stories about our victories and failures are all part of our learning curve, and they make our day-to-day work that much more interesting.

You have a great deal of enthusiasm for your business and how you serve your customers—that much I know because I cannot recall meeting a small business owner that didn’t. When you bring that energy to this social marketing platform it becomes the magic that makes everything possible.

YOUR WORK IS NEVER DONE

You have to look at your social marketing as a work in progress. As my client Bob often remarked—your work is never done. Done is an ending that means your business has stopped growing. That is a surefire way to achieve mediocrity—what Seth Godin calls the race to the bottom.

If you are a risk taker, as I suspect you are if you are reading this, then you know there is always more to do. ...