by Lilly Vogelesang
“Everyone’s doing it.”
How many times have you heard someone say that when talking about social media marketing?
In between attending trade shows, talking with customers, working with designers, web analysts, and reporting to management – how does the modern marketer have time to breathe, much less to pick up new skills?
I had that same thought myself. I honestly wondered, just because everyone is doing it, does that mean we should too? Not wanting to get left behind in the pack, I stocked up on coffee, set my alarm to go off an extra half hour early, and started to teach myself.
Twitter? Got it. Facebook? Yeah, okay, I use that for personal stuff – I can do that too. YouTube? Sure. LinkedIn? Ummm… yeah, okay, I can learn that one. Google+? Does anyone even use that? Why bother? Tumblr? Are you serious? Well, okay for my business, maybe we need it…
I realized soon that I felt like I was drowning.
In fact, I was probably drowning before I’d even gotten started. Then, I did a deep dive without any air.
Bad idea.
I decided I needed to take a class, for a couple of reasons.
- Accountability. If I’m required to do homework, that means I’m actively learning from one week to another.
- Group Discussions. The best thing about learning in a class is being able to see things from other people’s point of view.
In a classroom, when you’re sitting there with other marketing gurus, there’s a little bit of magic that happens. Someone might say something, and it sparks inspiration. It’s like all the wires in my brain light up at once, synapses firing, and ideas spawn new ideas until I have to try to contain my excitement.
For example, when Jessie Sternthal came in to our class to talk about writing, she said, “Write like nobody’s watching. Write like you’re dancing in the kitchen. Write like you’re singing in the car at a red light.” Not only did it make sense, but it resonated with me.
Jessie also spoke about giving your brand a voice, a personality. Harriet Cummings, a copy editor, wrote this amazing article to help develop voice.
I had been so blinded by sifting through amazing resources on writing for SEO that I forgot that at the end of the day, it’s about speaking to your audience, adding value, and having a meaningful conversation with them.
I got my life vest, thanks to McGill.
#CBUS111: Content Creation 
Great article. I mean how could it not be, there’s a picture of a kitty with a hoodie! (my article has a picture of a kiddie with a hoodie). The flow of your writing is amazing, the writing was engaging, easy to read, funny, informative. Loved it. Now I’m off to explore the Harriet Cummings article.
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I actually made that image myself. It’s a picture of my cat Tiny, then I drew the hoodie on her. She’s an amazing model!
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Lily, I liked the phrase “all the wires in my brain light up”. It is exactly I tried to say in my own blog. This class generates lots of new ideas based on what we learn and what we already have with ourselves as “hidden knowledge”.
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I really like your writing style. It is as dynamic and awesome as you 🙂 I agree with you on the fact that McGill’s program can serve as a life vest, giving us a great perspective on the social media landscape, a sense of focus based on the audience we want to reach and a source of inspiration and creativity.
(Karina)
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Your writing style is very engaging. The title of your blog posts resonates with a lot of people. Many companies today throw out the line ‘ we need to be on facebook and twitter’ everybody else is. One more thing for the digital marketer to add to the toolkit !
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Your story resonates with so many of us. For those who are not natives to all social media channels, getting up to speed on all of the them all at once can feel suffocating. And I like your examples of learning one by one with other professionals who can spur your thinking. Most impressive, in my opinion, is your link to Harriet Cummings’ piece. Great connection of then to now – all the while explaining the ‘why’.
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