#SocialMediaFail

I’ve got a confession to make. One that embarrasses me.

I realized that I am “one of those people”. You know; the kind who “has people”. 

No, I don’t have an entourage, although I guess that could be interesting for about an hour before it got in the way.

What’s happened to me is the same thing that happens to most of us who have worked our way up the corporate ladder. The higher you go, the more you deal in over-arching strategy and planning, with less time on the tactics for execution.

That’s where my “people” come in.  It’s to the point where I lead and oversee the big-picture; my team takes care of the implementation.

Nothing wrong with that, right? Isn’t that what we all strive for in our careers?

Problem for me is that this goes against my management style.  I prefer to know how to perform the tactics so I can say to my team, “I’m not asking you to do anything that I won’t do myself”.  Plus it’s a good idea to know how to do things in case someone comes down with the flu and I have to step in.

Yet in today’s environment of working very lean, I’ve had to accept the fact that I must rely on my team to handle certain things.

And I’ve come to enjoy it.  We all have our areas of expertise, making for one kick-ass team.

Even when I work for myself, I have a team of hired individuals.  Now, though, I am at a cross-road where I am stepping out on my own even more and, for a short period, will not have my team to support me with social media.

My initial reaction was positive. 

1) This is a great time for me to “walk the walk” by learning the tactics; and 2) I know the theory and have been using social media personally for years; how hard could this be?

Apparently it’s more difficult than I anticipated.

I knew from experience that social media marketing is time consuming. Some corporate execs seem to think that it’s a quick little thing someone does during lunch and should not take much time. LOL!

There’s strategy and research and memes and scheduling.  There’s actually research that has been done as to the optimal number of Facebook posts and Tweets for a given day to drive awareness and traffic.

I consulted with my very smart colleague, Noah, who had been working on my social media scheduling for a quick lesson.  As with most things, it sounded so simple when we talked.

Do this, click that, copy this, paste that. It’s really quite simple, he assured me, with all of his two years of work experience behind him.

See, he’s still early enough in his career to not have the luxury of a team. He is the team.

I thanked him and hung up the phone feeling brave and started researching, convinced that I could handle this very easily.  After all, I am not new to social media.

My goal was to schedule one month of posts and Tweets. I got down to business.

How hard could this be?

Like Beethoven working on a great composition, I researched, posted, cut, pasted, Tweeted and scheduled. It was awesome. I was going to be a social media rock-star.

After about six hours of trying to schedule one months’ worth of Tweets and posts, what did I have to show for my efforts?

Three lousy days.  #socialmediafail

Somewhere between “Awesome” and “Rock Star” I realized I was that person; the one who knows strategy but can’t figure out the tactics. The person who has “people”.

That was not only embarrassing, but eye-opening.

When did this happen? I used to be the person who “knew everything”.  Of course that’s before I had “people”.

Sigh. I will figure this out. But I need my people more than I want to admit.