Author: Garth Beyer

Haste makes waste. Rushing to react to real-time events on social for a brand often leads to a loss of brand voice, a total screw up or simply another tweet that ends up in the abyss.

As far as the agency side of PR, it’s difficult to respond rather than react to real-time events for a brand. Maybe you’re too busy building out a content calendar to respond in real-time. Maybe there is too much red tape with a client. Maybe you’re convinced it’s too difficult to break through the noise of real-time.

I say that’s a shame.

If you want to respond in real-time, you’ve gotta understand real-time opportunities come from brands who hold a go big or go home brand culture and who have a trusting relationship with their PR agency. The exception to these two variables is if the brand is also small. In other words, nimble enough to execute a real-time response.

The neat thing about real-time responses is that practice makes perfect, but the only way to get there is to develop a positive relationship with your client and work the go big or go home mentality into their hearts.

If you want to succeed on social in real-time, start with succeeding in building that relationship.

 

Stay Positive & Get Building

• trying something new
• shipping (anything!)
• when people take responsibility
• working smarter, not harder
• seeing people unafraid to share their work
• showing up early and staying late
• momentum
• those who regularly reflect
• those who dance with fear
• not owning an umbrella
• knowing when something is good enough
• writing daily
• having short-term and long-term goals
• car dancing

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay Positive & Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo

Starting something new is hard. Those first 15 minutes of sucking, sucks. But then, all of a sudden, you begin to have more knowledge, more experience, more industry know-how. Then, finally, you discover how easy it is to do what you set out to do, but then you stop going for it because you realize it’s easy to do.

I’ve had this happen to me a few times. I get an idea. I follow the idea – learning a lot of information and connecting with a lot of people – and then I realize how easy it is to accomplish the idea and then that idea I had loses its sex appeal.

I’ve written a novel already. I know what it takes to write a book. Many of my friends are authors. All the sudden, I don’t have an urge to write another book even though I know how beneficial to my fans (you?) it would be. Sure, I’ll change my mind on this one day, but one day isn’t today and that’s sad to me.

It’s sad that the easier something becomes, the harder it becomes because we so often define the worth of something by the level of difficulty in completing/creating it.

Perhaps we’re better off challenging that mindset.

Easier is better.

Less work is stronger work.

Shipping is more important than having the ability to ship.

 

Stay Positive & Easy Or Hard, Completion Is What Matters

Photo credit

For those who remark they are waiting for inspiration to hit, I say,why not begin with hope?

Hope is something we can conjure on the spot. Hope is something we can give to ourselves as easily as we give it to others. Hope gets us through the tough spots.

When it comes to inspiration, I have to quote a friend of mine, “those who wait, always will.”

 

Stay Positive & Less Waiting, More Creating

Photo credit

It’s four degrees below zero out. There’s a lengthy line leading to a bus that’s going to take people to a craft beer and cheese festival. It’s clear where the line starts and that there were people waiting in line for awhile.

The bus pulls up past the start of the line to the middle of the line and opens its doors.

The fact is those who started the line, started it at a terrible spot. The fact is those in the middle of the line and who were looking straight into the open doors of the bus had an option. Do they enter or do they respect those who were in line first?

___

Jump back to September when I went to INBOUND15, a large marketing conference. People were waiting in line to see Amy Schumer provide the night’s entertainment. The line twisted this way and that, but when the doors opened, a stampede ensued.

___

Back to the bus.

The girl closest to the open doors motioned to those at the front of the line (a solid 15 feet away from the bus doors) to get on first.

She wasn’t just respecting the order of the line, she was respecting her tribe. I spoke outloud, “this is why I love craft beer drinkers.” If it was a line of people who love Amy Schumer waiting for the bus, I guarantee once those doors opened it would be a free-for-all.

___

We have the option to choose many tribes as we go through life. I think it’s worth paying attention and asking what makes this tribe great versus that tribe? Is it a tribe that has members who care for each other? Or is it a tribe with members who will step over you to get what they want?

 

Stay Positive & If You Can’t Find One, Lead One. Chances Are People Are Waiting For You

Photo credit

I’ve seen an increase of those who are fascinated with starting, but once they make their first sale, get their first client, deliver their first download, they slowly back out.

Starting is easier than you think. It’s the continuing that’s hard.

What’s odd about it is, by default when you start, when you put in that 15 minutes, the rest gets easier.

What are you doing if you’re not in it for the long run?

 

Stay Positive & By All Means, Start, But Continue Too

Photo credit