The Law of Patience
Without Patience, everything else is an uphill battle.
One of the major laws of Social Media is the Law of Patience. We live in a society of instant gratification. We want to see results now and we lose patience quickly when we don’t see results. So many times I am talking to prospective client when the conversation turns to questions about how long it will be before we start to see results. I try to tell people that Social Media and Online marketing isn’t a quick fix. If you implement your plan today, it is unlikely you are going to start to see results in a day a week or even a month. It is vital to have patience and to play a long game.
As people who are trying to sells a service will tell you, you can see the real level of interest in the person’s eyes. You can tell if someone is truly excited about your service or if they are highly skeptical. When it comes to any sort of marketing, whether it be Social Media or traditional marketing or advertising, you have to give the message time to get across to your target. When I see skepticism followed by the person saying that they will give it a shot for a couple of months, I will generally tell people that if they are only going to “give it a couple of months” then it is obvious they are not going to be committed to the plan, so they might as well not start. Even if we do the best work possible a person who is looking for that immediate boost will always be disappointed and I would rather inform that person that Social Media is not the right venue for them.
Since I have been out there telling people about what we do at Stone Media, I have heard from more than a few people that are not believers in social media or in people and companies that specialize in the area. I try to tell these people straight up no one can guarantee success and that Social Media may not be right for everyone, but for a lot of companies, social media is a great venue for reaching their customers and potential new customers but there has to be a commitment to the process. They have to know that it is not a quick fix and that they have to give it time to work.
As a marketer, you have to know that you have to be patient and that marketing is mostly a long game. As a Social Media manager, you have not only have an almost unlimited amount of patience, you have to guide your clients to have the same level of patience. If you start a project or a contract with a client who is already showing a lack of patience, then no matter what you do will not be good enough and the client will end up leaving and walking away telling others that it didn’t work when the truth is they never gave it the opportunity to work.
Of all of the laws of social media, the Law of Patience is probably the single most important. Without it, everything else will be a serious uphill battle.