Many marketing and business professionals alike follow Seth Godin’s blog from time to time. We have been inundated with his brilliant marketing mind and tend to put his strategies to practice. I am an avid reader of his daily blog but there are many times I wish that he spent more time on building a social brand… a social presence. I try to apply his thoughts on marketing and business communication to every facet of my life.
I had the pleasure of catching up on some “oldies but goodies” in the Seth Godin archive. He has a post entitled; Sing it (please S I N G I T), which is absolutely brilliant in the context of personal branding and online communication. In the post he talks about attending a concert where a band was playing a classic rock cover song to perfection (note-for-note, chord-for-chord). He talks about how the musicians just stood there with no energy.”
Excerpt:
A concert isn’t about the music, is it? And a restaurant isn’t about the food.The funny thing is that learning to Sing It is a lot easier than learning how to play the guitar. For some reason, we work on the technique before we worry about adding the joy.
He goes on to say that many times we care more about the technique than we do the actual delivery. It made me debate the personal branding strategy deeply embedded in the message: Don’t just do it. Sing it.
Getting lost in the how
The key is not deciding which networks to join, how many profiles to create, or blog posts to write. It is about the time involvement in a niche number of networks. When you join a social media network follow Seth Godin’s rant, “Don’t just do it, sing it.”
A blogger can be an amazing writer but if personality is not involved in the writing it will fail. A musician can perfect the intricacies of a song… but without passion the performance will go unnoticed. A business owner can have an MBA and know every facet of the business world… but without passion… the door will close.
Add some passion, personality, and drive to your social media experience. Devote time and energy to the process and you will experience return.
