Looking over your own shoulder at yourself - modern social marketing

(photo credit: Pbase.com)

Sometimes, you have to look over your own shoulder at yourself - to see whether your coming or going.

And that's social marketing in an elevator pitch.

I often find myself digesting some new piece of data for days. I'm an editor and graphic designer, so I usually extract it from the format it came in - right down to straight text. Then I reformat it so it's readable and edit it as I go. Then I'll format it into a really readable version.

In doing this, I study the material at least three times. If it's in rough shape, I'll rearrange it to make better sense - or just extract the valuable stuff and use it.

That's one method of learning.

Often, since this takes away from the promotion or editing or other work I should be doing, I tend to question whether it's worth it.

But in social media, we are always questioning ourselves to make sure that what we are doing is valuable and not just following some huckster's pitch into that dark alley where his partners wait...

Because we care about the conversations we are part of and the people we associate with.

If you do this outline above, it's a bunch of hard work - niggling stuff. But you get to know what that author is talking about on a personal level. You make it your own. And then you go out to apply it and improve what you're doing before.

But if you never question yourself -- that's a pure, golden road to arrogance.

And so, it's better to take three steps forward and two back, but still make progress.