NOTE: Last week I attended a social media conference in #BloNo with Landon Liga, a senior business administration major. Landon is taking an independent study in social media marketing this semester and I suggested we might learn some good lessons at the conference. Here are Landon’s thoughts on his experience.
Thursday and Friday this past week, Professor Gowin and I ventured to Bloomington-
Normal for the @MidWest social media conference. I recommend this to anyone who has an interest in marketing or business. This conference was great and it offered me many valuable insights and tips on how to successfully market through social media. More important than those tips, I have come away with three insights to life that I found helpful and I hope are helpful for all who read.
1. Become a Mogul (Be Known)
If you want to be known for something, work really hard then declare to all that this is what you are known for. If you are worried whether people will deem you as credible, don’t be. If you truly work hard at what you are trying to be known for or accomplish, the credibility will be shown in your past work and will continually be built through your actions in the future. No one will know what you do until you start telling them.
2. You Will Never Master Anything (Never Stop Learning)
When you believe you have mastered some aspect of social media, you get left in the dust. It is evolving every day and can never be completely learned. Life is the same way. When we believe we have mastered it, when we are sure we know all the ins and outs, we become ignorant to the new ideas and inventions that are being introduced every day. The world is continually growing–which means if we want to succeed, our minds must be growing as well.
3. Just Because You Have Not “Mastered” Something Does Not Mean You Should Fear Getting Started Anyway (Start Creating)
Waiting to accomplish a task until you have “mastered it” will do one thing for you: keep you from ever getting started. You will never be a master, only a continuous learner. Just because you are still learning does not mean you do not have knowledge or a skill set. You can get to work using the knowledge you’ve already gained and continue to expand and add to that work the more you learn. If you are truly inspired, don’t let fear of not being an expert on the subject keep you from making it happen. Strive to be an expert on the things that spark your interest. Make that a goal for the future. In the meantime, stop waiting and start creating.
Fear of failing has been what’s kept me from conquering these three ideas. Recently, there is something that I have learned here at Lincoln Christian University that has helped me get over that: embrace failure. We can never learn if we do not fail. When you fail, stop and ask yourself, “What went wrong?” Take failure and learn and continue to grow.
When trying to develop the best design for the light bulb, Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The ideas and thoughts I gathered at the social media conference have inspired me not to be afraid of the 10,000 ways that don’t work and instead keep trying to find the one that does.