We have all heard a horror story or three where the mightiest of Social Media hero’s have fallen victim to the very monster that they have been slaying day after day for years on end. And if these specialists can fall prey to this ever-present monster under the bed, we might quickly assume that the best practice might be to make sure we never get out of bed, because, as most of us remember from childhood, that monster can not get us unless we dare expose our feet to the floor.

This is all fine and dandy, but inevitably, there come times when we have to get out of bed, where the costs of staying in bed become greater than the risk that this monster might snap at our feet, or even worse, consume us in our entirety. Like it or not, the time IS here, nature is calling.

So, just like we did long ago, it is time to start taking measures to ensure that the monster will not get us as we precipitously venture from the safety of our bed into the darkness to take care of our business, and, as business men and women, taking care of business is what we do.

So, lets start taking care of business, so we can take care of business.

The first step is to understand the monster, and in order to understand it better, we can compare and contrast it to a monster that we do know, and one we have repeatedly slain personally. At the end of the day, Social Media is simply a means of communication, and communication is not all that scary, despite the risks that we do assume by communicating with other humans on this rock we call home.

Social Media is a conversation where you actually get to think before you speak, not much different from an email with one important distinction, it is an email immediately available for the world to read. The same care and thought that you would put into your choice of words for an important email is essentially all of the protection that you need in order to triumphantly defeat this monster under your bed. Easy, right?

Yes, and no. The other important distinction is that Social Media needs to be delivered in bite size pieces where the end-user can rapidly consume the information and move on the next piece coming their way. So, while in an email you may have the ability to eloquently make, and remake, and remake your point to ensure that you are not misunderstood, in Social Media you will need to be a little, or a lot, more consise with your message, and this can be quite a challenge.

This is where thinking before you speak is going to pay a world of dividends down the road. And this thinking that you just started is the essential ingredient to creating a Social Media policy specific to your business, one that will allow you to safely navigate your way out of bed so that you can do your business. Make peace with that social media monster under your bed once and for all, so you can focus on accelerating your business efficiently.

Come August we are excited to address what we’ve spent a better part of the year discovering is a serious pain point for law firms and attorneys – the need for a social media policy, how to create,  implement and manage.  We’ll be announcing more details and content on this workshop in a few  days…