When was the last time you initiated something?
It’s easy to join in, but far more challenging to initiate. The temptation is to wait for someone else to get something started, then, for us to echo their views or copy what they did. This is why the Internet is full of me too content; people writing the same safe viewpoints.
It’s also why Twitter is overflowing with retweeted links and famous quotes.
- It’s easy. It takes a split second to hit the retweet button.
- It’s safe. As someone sharing content rather than creating it, you can’t be directly blamed if your followers think what you shared is a piece of crap.
- It’s simple to justify. “Hey, I’m just passionate about sharing!”
Your voice and visibility
Many extremely bright people struggle to get their voice heard, because they initiate too little. They have great ideas, yet fail to share them because they haven’t seen anyone else expressing that idea or viewpoint yet. Conversely, we have all seen some pretty average people gain impressive visibility, because they have the courage to initiate, then share, an idea or viewpoint.
Today, we have all the marketing tools we need in order to reach a massive, targeted audience. However, before we can hope to capture a worthwhile share of our marketplace’s attention, we need to be prepared to earn it! We need to push through the fear of being challenged for what we say or (heaven forbid) being wrong.
Why? Because on the other side of that fear, is something of great value. Maybe the missing piece to your marketing puzzle?