Staying On Top of Your Game
Often I get the question: “How did you learn all about this?” The answer is by reading and doing. In order to be able to understand positive and negative trends in any industry, it’s imperative that you read often about related topics and events. This is because being successful in any industry is a process, not a singular event that suddenly clicks with you after one game changing event.
Simply put, staying on top of your game enables you to be in position to rise above your competition faster and quicker. Knowledge is power… How do I stay on top of the digital marketing industry? By reading at least the following-
- Twitter status updates at the end of each day, and clicking through to interesting links.
- The Web List – aka every top social media story of the day from the front page of Digg, Delicious, Reddit, etc. (By # of clicks)
- Affbuzz.com for affiliate marketing news.
- Google Reader to group related RSS feeds.
That’s it really. In order to stay on top of the digital marketing industry I take around thirty minutes each day to read, be informed, and think critically about the material presented.
The controversial thought here though is that many online marketers say “Stop reading!”. The reason for that is because many new people to an industry will only read, and not actually do anything… resulting in negative productivity.
Lastly, staying on top of your game can most literally be seen in sports, where a day off is a day that you lost. So, I want to share an advertisement that I clipped out of a magazine a while back:
“Me and running don’t always see eye to eye. Some days it hurts more than others. But it doesn’t mean I don’t do it. Ideal with it and I keep running because not everything that is good for you always feels good for you. Every day is the day.” – Lance Armstrong
