Today’s guest post is written by Jay Dolan.
I was trying to think of the most influential social media campaigns of 2011 the other day, and I couldn’t think of one.
I honestly can’t think of one social media promotion that was so innovative, I had to tell people about it.
Much of what I read these days is all about failures. Blogger outreach failures. Twitter failures. Facebook failures. Even Pinterest failures (Ok, not yet, but give it a month).
Haven’t we heard enough about failure? We’re not even four weeks into the new year, and I can already think of four examples of a social media disaster.
Ouch.
We should be getting better at this. Not worse.
I’m not above pushing others down to make myself look good. I love to revel in the defeat of others as much as anyone else.
But ugh.
Where’s the proactive thinking in constantly sharing failure? Where’s the idea that’s supposed to inspire someone? Are we just working to continually terrify people and employers that every piece of information, action, and stupidity will come around and take a bite out of their ass?
We are better than this.
I’m sick of other people’s stupid mistakes being the examples we should be sharing every day. I’m a big fan of acting like an adult, and trusting other people to do the same. I have better things to do than read one more reason I should stick my head in the sand rather than have a conversation.
As the content creators and idea-shapers, the examples we share should inspire awe. They should drive people to think harder, laugh harder, and be more creative with the work they do. They should make people stop thinking of social media as a chore to be mitigated, but rather an opportunity for better communication.
They should drive us to overcome our fear.
We all make mistakes. Some of them little. Some of them huge. But you’re not going ever get past those mistakes if you’re too afraid to do anything.
Be an adult. Stop being afraid. Carry yourself with the confidence that you can create the stories, photos, podcasts, and videos that are so awesome, they have to be shared with people.
Otherwise you will live your social media life from tweet to tweet, waiting for the moment when it all blows up.
And if you’re afraid, bloggers like me will tear you apart.
The cartoon was created by Jay Dolan for Spin Sucks. Thanks, Jay!
Jay Dolan writes The Anti-Social Media, which is the best social media blog ever. He currently works as a social media project coordinator at Capstrat. His cat, Chibi, is probably better at Google+ than you are. You can find Jay on Twitter.