Social Media: A Marathoner’s Mentality
Every year around October, I get the urge to run another marathon. A bunch of premier races are held in the Fall including New York City, Chicago and Marine Corps (Washington, DC) marathons. Having already run five, the notion of my running another isn’t exactly unreasonable.
But then reality smacks me upside the head as I soberly realize that I needed to start training at least 6-8 months ago to properly prepare for a marathon.
Same goes for social media. If your gut says you’ll need to compete online later down the road, you’d better start working on it today. You can’t just lace up on race day and expect any success. You’ll probably end up vomiting. Trust me on this one. Nor can you buy your way to readiness. It takes months-and-months of daily time and energy investments to become prepared.
And while you toil in obscurity making modest progress, rest assured that social media, like distance running, is all about personal investment. The more you put into it the more you’ll get out. The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running…
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Comments
Andrea: Not to be coy, but I think the proverbial “race day” is the point you reach when you’re adequately comfortable with your preparation and readiness. It’s the day you wake up and say, “You know what? I’m feeling pretty good about this running/social media stuff. Let me at it!” Soon after, you get a read on what’s working/not working and how to be even better moving forward. My hope is that it’s a positive, addictive cycle.
I like this analogy too – I’m no marathoner but I can definitely appreciate the training needed to get there, as I have done the whole “couch to 5K” routine a number of times.
That’s another similarity too – there are great training programs available online for beginner runners and wannabe marathoners, just as there are a myriad of resources available for social media newbies. In both cases it’s about finding the info you need, doing the training/ learning, and sticking with it until it starts to feel good.
Great analogy. I think there are a lot more sprinters in social media trying to sign up for marathons. If you really want to be successful, you have to set yourself up to stay that way.
Andrea Hill on February 24, 2009 @ 1:46 pm
Another insightful post, Gary! I like the idea that it’s incremental improvements that prepare you for race day — but I suppose my one question in the analogy is: what IS race day? It’s not that you are working towards an ultimate goal, right?