Danny Brown’s blog post April 27 “Are you a shadow or beacon?” was my first ponder of the day yesterday. His reflective content and imagery was about choosing a social media path of leader rather than follower.
Through the day, I RT’ed a Danny tweet, and then clicked on a link he thought important enough to RT. I was directed to Social Media Today; lo, a Danny Brown comment just ahead of mine.
It sure felt like I was Danny’s shadow yesterday, and I don’t always mind. There are leaders in social media I appreciate rubbing shoulders with as I’ve a long way to go to reach that echelon; or do I?
Mack Collier posted at Social Media Today “Want to be a social media expert? Break stuff.” With his 2500+ views and 76 tweets (at the time of this writing), he encourages social media is still new, the “rules” are meant to be broken to see what works and what doesn’t. Mastery, says Mack, is inconceivable (paraphrasing here); “when you think you’ve got it mastered, mix things up.”
According to Mack, I might be an expert already. In the name of social media:
- I’ve broken the Headway WordPress theme (my blogging nightmare).
- I lost a domain name once and had to pay exorbitantly to buy it back.
- I uploaded some php files onto my shared server only to forget which are active and which ought to be deleted.
My actions yesterday bumping in to Danny Brown position me as somewhat of a follower, but not by design; Mack Collier’s post suggests I’m a jack of all trades and master of none. (That’s why I’m in public relations — blending social media with traditional public relations and marketing to positively influence business strategy — so I get to know a little about a lot.)
My attempt here is to bridge two musings, both apropos, that offer thoughts on social media engagement, leadership and mastery. Is it necessary to affix a label and define oneself? I believe human nature drives us there; case in point — the objective statement on your very own resume.
Maybe you can provide a deeper dive from your own experiences and help me spring this conversation loose? There’s a germ of something here, I tell you.
Hey Jayme, thanks for the mention!
Since you mentioned Headway, and I see you are using Thesis now, which do you like better? I have Thesis as well, but upgrading is a freakin’ nightmare. Is it any easier with Headway?
I need a few hours, Mack!
I bought Headway, and then struggled to get it to work simply. Had all sorts of problems with links not pointing and the visual editor not functioning well. (I swear I broke it.) A tweep helped me migrate immediately, simply, refreshingly to Thesis. I’m ready to break things there as all things are smooth. I do not recommend a change; mind you, I was a newbie then and still am comparatively. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it (well, not according to your post yesterday!).
Thanks for the acknowledgment, Mack, and hope to bump in to you again soon.