My heart is racing right about now as I have just blown a huge opportunity. I feel like a 15 year old again who has just got slammed into detention, and I don’t want my parents to find out.
Why am I feeling like this?? Because I took a short cut. It seemed an easy decision to make at the time yet looking back it was one of the silliest choices I have ever made.
The purpose of this post is to share with you something I messed up on, so you will not, AND to embed the fact that in social media you cannot take shortcuts. They can be bad for the brand and your personal brand. Sticking to your values is crucial. In a world where things are changing so quickly it can be tempting for us to move away from our values in order to get the result quicker. I can assure you that this is not good interanlly or externally.
The great thing about social media platforms though is that there are always portals to clean up the spilt milk – live, right now! If you address the action immediately, from the heart and explain why you/your employees decided to take that action you immediately have an outlet to either appologise or justify your decision, and get feedback also from your viewers.
Hence this blog post, there is no need to go into the story behind it yet the message I want to share is:
Be authentic, stick to your values and don’t take short cuts within this space! AMEN!
If you spill the milk then there is always a way to clean it up.
A very hard lesson for me, which is now learnt!
Am I alone here, or has anyone else made a mistake and turned it around on this space?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Sam!
very impressed with your “speed to market” regarding this blog post. Was only a few hours ago you tweeted about your mistake and here we are learning from your lesson this morning.
I always look at mistakes as learning opportunities but I prefer to call them “decisions”. Sometimes you make good decisions and sometimes you make bad ones. The trick is to accept both types and as soon as you accept the bad ones you’ll find that options seem to flow to you in the weirdest ways!
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
A mistake made is a lesson learnt. But…….. you talk about values – which can also be called ethics.
DO what you know is right by your heart and you will always come out on top – even if you are wrong – because by being honest both with yourself and others – you can afford to make tthe odd mistake and be forgiven for it
Wow, thanks for the comments guys. I completely agree with you there. I love what you say also I_enigma ” DO what you know is right by your heart and you will always come out on top”. This is a sentence we can all take on board, think about and act when in times of need. Rock on!
Details, please DETAILS!!!
Great to read you have used it as a learner. Immediate action and many humble apologies showing you are human AND prepared to fix up your mistakes can have excellent benefits in long term relationships with clients. No one is perfect.
Good luck
Long-term, sticking to values in ANY space always wins out.
Sometimes it’s all too easy to take those shortcuts, but they cost in the end.
But you learned from the lesson and that’s called experience.
Not sure of your faux pas, but congratulations on your remedy. Social Media is not always for the feint hearted, we are all opening ourselves up to comment and self-discovery. The more we ‘put it out there’, the more we open ourselves up to error, attack and other unpleasant outcomes. The result is worth it, because the flip side is making a contribution, learning and constantly checking ourselves against the view of the whole online world. You Sam are leading the charge as much as anyone! Congratulations and thanks for the post.
Having an active online presence only reinforces the importance of remaining true to oneself, sticking to personal values and ensuring consistency and transparency in the message you’re sending.
People tend to forget that what is said online, stays online and is accessible by anyone at anytime…
Good post.
I totally agree with what you have mentioned above Sam, but the thing is we always shouldn’t take shortcuts not only in social media related issues, but with everything!
I believe that if mistakes didn’t happen to us, we will never learn so my advice to you mate is be thankful for the mistake and learn from it and continue your successful journey!
Very interesting words and beneficial ones as well.
Thanks for sharing your experiences mate!
Best,
Steit
Part of anything social is making mistakes.
I do it all the time.
Social media speeds up the process and provides us with the temptation to take shortcuts.
I, too, would be interested in the details but its always admirable to see someone turn a mistake into a lesson learnt.
jade
We’re all human and we make mistakes – offline or online. We need to ensure we recover from these in a way that’s logical and inoffensive to maintain our integrity. Thanks for reminding us of this, Ms. Sam!
Cheers, Iggy