Patience Is A Virtue – With Social Media It’s A Requirement

First you will begin walking with social media - then you will run with it. I’ve been running with social media now for some time and I’m writing to warn you that while patience might be a virtue – with social media patience it’s a requirement.

492. That number represents the number of Facebook ”Likers” that my school has at the time of this post. While the purpose of our social media campaign has switched from increasing the number of followers or fans – to a greater level of engagement with our fans, I have to admit that I’m still frustrated with our low number of followers. I know that’s not our goal anymore but I’m equally frustrated with the fact that we still haven’t achieved the level of engagement that I would like with our fans. We’ve experimented and continue to test and retest content and techniques to help drive engagement. We’re also on the verge of launching another set of tests which I’m very excited about and will share once I’ve drawn some conclusions with their success or failure. I really hope I can report back some successes though.

As my frustration mounts though I’m drawn to some of my own advice from a post I wrote for edSocialMedia.com entitled, “If You Build It, They Will Come…(Well, Not Exactly).” In that post I wrote, “Understand that you’re in this for the long haul and realize that this is a marathon and not a sprint.  Take comfort in knowing that people will find you but it will take time.” Let me tell, it was easier to write those words in August then swallow them now, but that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to be patient and keep a growth mindset (Thank you Carol S. Dweck!) The more time I spend using social media the more I realize how much I still have to learn and that’s one of the hidden reasons why I love social media so much.

photo credit: Kristine Paulus