Overnight Success Is Not What You Think It is

We are always talking about how using all of this social media stuff takes time. It is about building up community. Engaging with people and not broadcasting. Most of you have a good idea about what has to be done at this stage and some are starting to execute it yourselves but the one thing we still see and hear constantly is people asking why it won’t happen quicker. People saying “I have been writing my blog for 3 months and still don’t have one comment” or “I haven’t go one single sale from Twitter, what is the point”. This is not a quick win, we are all here for the long run.

The video above by Chris Brogan really struck a cord with us here as it is just the best example of somebody who is massively successful in their industry but shows what it takes to get there. He is a best selling author, gets paid to speak at conferences all over the world and has a massive blog but he is still up talking on Twitter, answering emails and building his community both online and offline nearly 20 hours a day. This is what it takes.

Not all of you are going to want to set aside that amount of time but you can follow some simple principles that will help you achieve your goals around building your community. Here are our tips hat will help you become an “overnight success”

Patience

The definition of overnight success is of course tongue in cheek. Twitter is an overnight success right? It just turned 3 years old and you can bet there were tons of long hours put in over those 3 years. Don’t try and kill everything you do within a month. Try and get some perspective and look at the bigger picture. If you are just starting out don’t expect to see any monetary or material gain in the first 3 months.

Realistic Goals

Don’t look at the amount of people that follow you or how many friends you have but set goals like keeping a regular posting schedule for your blog that you can manage. Set aside a certain amount of time to spend on Linkedin. Set yourself the goal of answering all your emails within 2 days or attending 6 events per month. Don’t shoot for the stars in the first month only to fall short the next month. Sometimes slow and steady growth is better than unrealistic growth.

Stats

Start looking at your stats over a longer period of time rather than looking at them every single day. 10% growth might not seem like a huge amount at the end of the month but if you do that consistently for 6 months you will be flying. Get every sort of measurable stat that is available to you and improve the areas that you can.

It really isn’t rocket science. When you hear people saying that they achieved their success through lots of hard work they really are telling the truth. It just takes time s set that alarm a little earlier tomorrow morning