Digital Reputation and Leadership with Erik Qualman

Yesterday morning, The Motherhood attended an event on Digital Reputation, held by the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence, featuring Erik Qualman, who is often called the “Digital Dale Carnegie,” and is the author of Socialnomics, Digital Leader, and the recent Pulitzer Prize nominated What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube. The event was well attended by a variety of Pittsburgh business leaders and professionals eager to absorb new social media knowledge to help grow and maintain their company’s digital footprint! 

Qualman stressed how social media can positively transform the way you do business – its not just a fad. If someone Googled your name, product or business what would you want to come up? Whether you do social or not, people will post about your company and industry, and you should be listening and interacting.

Here are a few of our key takeaways from the event:

• Over invest in trends, people and relationships – not tools.
• Word of mouth is extremely scalable thanks to social media, but be patient.
• Fail fast, fail forward, fail better. Be FLAWsome – show you make mistakes but care enough to fix them.We all will make digital mistakes but it is how we handle them that defines us.
• Always ask: What and why are customers buying from you? A trend will appear which can be capitalized on and can take your business to the next level.

Tips for better digital leadership:

1. Keep it simple. Stop multitasking and hyper focus. Life in the digital age is complex, but those who can simplify it come out ahead.
2. Stay true to what you stand for, what differentiates you, and why it would be a loss if you disappeared from society. Its important to have one digital identity.
3. Focus on output not throughput. You can spend hours in the back and forth of emails, texts, etc. and accomplish nothing.
4. Write a digital compass. Be flexible in your path, but firm in your destination.
5. Surround yourself with the right people both online and off.

Are you creating a digital footprint to be proud of?

This post first appeared on the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence blog.