CEO Social Mindset: 25 Tips for a Healthy Social Business Mindset

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Attitude and mindset are often the key to success in life. With the right mindset you can learn new things, take on mountains, lead teams to success and accomplish more than you ever dreamed possible.
Becoming a social business is no easy task. It’s going to take smart thinking, dedication, teamwork, integration, getting real with the skeletons in the closet, and a “can do” attitude. The social ecosystem is still evolving. Acknowledging that change is the only real guarantee is a good first step. If you are seeking benefit from social media but are having a difficult time in finding such, you might want to spend a day deep in thought, looking in the mirror versus a day of analyzing Facebook insights and Google Analytics.
Could it possibly be your mindset that is holding you back from your own success?
Here are 25 tips to a healthy social business mindset for the social CEO or any business leader serious about social business.

25 Tips for a Healthy Social Business Mindset

1. Social business is a journey not a destination. There is no short cut to social business easy street or a magic pill that can get you there over night, with no effort. Embrace the journey.
2. Social business is still being defined. If you want a text book definition, roadmap and 3-day succinct course on how to be a social business, it may be awhile before you find it. The social ecosystem is still evolving and even those living, breathing and sleeping this stuff are still figuring out exactly what it means to us, what and how we integrate. Check out this post “Definition of Social Business?” where I take a stab at a definition for social business.
3. Thinking is a requirement, not an option.  Nope, you can’t throw the action of “get social” at the new intern and expect exponential results. Best thing you can do is roll up your sleeves and get ready to work.
4. Social media is not just about you.  Think teams and community, not silos, interruption marketing and spam coupons.
5. Perfection is enemy of good. If you wait until everything is perfect, chances are you’ll be waiting a long time.
6. Change is guaranteed. There is only one guarantee with social media and that is change. Just as you learn a new tool or technology, it is bound to change. Accept it and know you’ll be in a constant state of learning and growing. It’s alright as we’re all right there with ya’!
7. Relationships are the life raft for tech evolution and social change. Focus on your relationships both personal and business as they are what will carry you thru the tech evolution. It doesn’t matter if the world moves from Facebook to the next big platform in 3 years. As long as you have solid relationships, your community will be right there with you on the new platform.
8. It really is about the people. Focus on the value you can offer your clients, prospects, partners, colleagues, and key industry influencers. The more you can focus on helping them achieve their goals, the more likely you are going to achieve yours by default.
9. Know your audience and community.  The more you know about them, the better you can inspire, connect and help them see relevancy in what you have to offer.
10. Old ways don’t necessarily work. You may have to adjust your strategy. Skeletons are going to fall out of the closet. Deal with them and keep pressing forward.
11. Old dogs can learn new tricks. Even if you haven’t upgraded to a smart phone, still use the yellow pages phone book, there is still hope for you. Staying stuck in your ways is not going to move you forward. You might as well get out there and become part of the fun. Find others who you can relate to who are also learning. There are many in your same boat and you’ll be surprised how quickly you learn with just a little effort.
12. Accept that you can’t control the conversation. As much as you may wish you could delete every bad comment, stop conversations at midnight when your team is sleeping and can’t monitor real-time, the truth is you can’t. You can not possibly control every conversation happening on every social network 24/7. People are going to talk to you and about you regardless if you want them to or not. Might as well be part of the conversation, heh?
13. It’s not about the next big thing.  Focus on leading with results versus leading with the next big Facebook page design.
14. You don’t have to tweet what you ate for lunch. Quit worrying about this. Whoever told you this, lied. Tweet, eat and share what you want, period.
15. Do not expect instant results. Set realistic expectations, goals and objectives.
16. Doing social and being social are not the same. Focus on “being” social from the inside out of your business. Setting up Facebook pages, Twitter profiles and tweeting coupons is easy.  Set your goals higher.
17. Don’t believe everything you read. Your competitors, partners and even trusted colleagues may not know all they think they do when it comes to integrating social media into the DNA of your business.
18. There is only one way to do social media and that is the way that works for you and your business.
19. Think integration, not band-aids. Social media is not a band-aid you slap on to the side of your bad quarterly projections expecting an instant healing. Explore how you can integrate and align social media into the  heart of your business including customer service and support, market research, product development, communications, sales, human resources, and of course marketing.
20. Random Acts of Marketing and Social Media (RAMs) do not equal social business. Scratching a random list of tasks such as setup Facebook page, add Twitter avatar, optimize LinkedIn profile are not going to bring business results. It may feel good to cross the random tasks off your list in the beginning. However, when it comes time to measure results, you’ll find the randomness delivers random results.
21. This isn’t your grandma’s ROI. ROI on social may be different than what you are use to. ROI on social is not easily measured in early and often times even later stages of adoption and integration. Much of this depends on proper planning and alignment with business goals and objectives where social can have an impact.
22. Determine your business and marketing goals and objectives first. Do not plug your business into your Facebook page. Instead figure out how social media can plug into your business.
23. Social media is not going to save your business. You may have a hope and a prayer that setting up that Facebook page is going to save your butt with the board of directors this year, the truth is, it won’t. Social media is not a band-aid for a broken business.
24. You are what you tweet. It matters who gets behind the wheel of your tweet machine. Every tweet, Facebook post and status update is a reflection of your brand. It takes on average 6-7 brand touches for someone to remember your brand. Make each one count.
25. Enjoy the ride. Eyes on the road ahead, hold on tight to your vision, embrace the social bumps and find some good folks to ride along with you.  It’s time to hit turbo baby!