10 things Seth Godin taught me about social media marketing

Neal Schaffer has a great post here on Seth Godin's insights on social media marketing. You should go to the original post and read the whole thing, but if you don't have time, here's quick summary:

1. Social Media and Experimentation

Sure, go ahead and test what’s testable. But the real victories come when you have the guts to launch the untestable. – A Culture of Testing

2. Building Your Tribe (Through Social Media)

Building a tribe is reliable, it’s hard work and it’s worth doing. – No Knight, No Shining Armor

3. Content is the New Search Engine Optimization

I resist the temptation to optimize this blog for traffic and yield. I’d rather force myself to improve it by having the guts to write better posts instead. – The Non-Optimized Life

4. Embrace Social Media and Become a Leader, Not a Follower

Are you chasing or being chased? Are you leading or following? Are you fleeing or climbing? – Running Away vs. Running Toward

5. Engage with Your Customers, and You Shall Increase Your Engagement

The customers you fire and those you pay attention to all send signals to the rest of the group. – Train Your Customers

6. Don’t Forget about the “Social” in Social Media

The experience I have with you as a customer or a friend is far more important than a few random bits flying by on the screen. The incredible surplus of digital data means that human actions, generosity and sacrifice are more important than they ever were before. – The Blizzard of Noise (and the Good News)

7. Let Others Broadcast Your Message for You

Anil Dash has discovered that having ten times as many Twitter followers generates approximately zero times as much value.

The goal shouldn’t be to have a lot of people to yell at, the goal probably should be to have a lot of people who choose to listen. Don’t need a bullhorn for that. – Bullhorns are Overrated

8. You Have to Be Bigger Than Your Brand in Social Media

Great brands represent something bigger than themselves. You can create this accidentally if you’re lucky, but you can create it on purpose if you try. – Represent

If you only talk about yourself in social media no one is listening. Social media was made for people, not brands.

9. Use the Social Media Tools at Your Disposal and Stop Looking for New Ones

The hard work that we have to do is to not use Twitter and Facebook to entertain ourselves and hide from the art. And the hard work that we have to do is not go to yet another meeting with yet another boring boss who’s going to have yet another boring project for us to do.

But the hard work – and we’re seeing it over and over again in every field I can imagine, not including bringing vaccines to the developing world – the hard work is to look at the status quo and say, “Well, they built all these tools for me. They built all this leverage for me, and it’s not here to entertain me, it’s here to permit me to put myself at risk, to maybe have someone look me in the eye and say, ‘You’re not good enough to do that.’” That’s really hard.

And then what we have to do as trainers or as managers or as people who can spread ideas is somehow put in front of people that what we need them to do is to solve interesting problems. And what we need them to do is lead. And then if all they’re prepared to do is make widgets, we have a long slog ahead of us. But if we’re wiling to race to the top and do work that matters, my bet is that a few of us will do it often enough to actually make change. – Transcript of the First Linchpin Session

10. Use Social Media to Build Your Own Unique Tribe, 10 People at a Time

Instead of speed dating your way to interruption, instead of yelling at strangers all day trying to make a living, coordinating a tribe of 1,000 requires patience, consistency and a focus on long-term relationships and life time value. You don’t find customers for your products. You find products for your customers. – First Organize 1,000