My friend Sarah wrote this post the other day, on figuring out what she wants to focus on next, and how she is somewhat embarrassed to say she is a social media consultant:

I’d kind of rather still talk about social media.

But social media marketing is for “douchebags” now.

::rolling eyes at own internal critic.::

I love community management and sincere social media marketing. … [but], [u]nlike with genderqueerness, the blogosphere is saturated with pundits on this stuff. And honestly? I don’t like most of them. There’s a lot of superficial manipulation going on in social media right now, and I don’t like carrying that reputation by association. I’ve started adding wincing disclaimers to my self-description when I tell people I’m a social media consultant. (”Well, sort of. I’m the good kind. I mean…”) I’m no longer quite so proud of something I’m still completely in love with.

The comments also refer to this…the “asshats” of social media marketing.

Which, I completely understand. But it also makes me sad. Because social media and social media marketing are still really awesome. And I don’t want to give up on them.

This is what we wanted, right? Everyone connected, everyone gets a seat at the table. But people will still replicate everything that exists in other media forms first. They won’t immediately “get” it. They won’t change their paradigm overnight.

We can’t be surprised at this. We could see this coming. The paradigm doesn’t shift overnight for everyone. People bring their old paradigm with them. Most people don’t realize there is even another paradigm involved. Or what the word paradigm means.

We can’t get distracted by this.

This mainstreamification doesn’t mean that this isn’t a hugely exciting revolution in media democracy. It doesn’t mean that any of the promise is not going to be fulfilled, eventually. It might not look like an overnight utopia of authentic marketing and real customer conversations and connections and community online. But it is happening. And people who “get it” are absolutely necessary, to be the voice, to speak on the real purpose and potential of all this.

To do this, you need to know where your inspiration comes from, what you believe in, and remind yourself of it. Often.

Sometimes it means shutting out the noise, and focusing on the vision. For example: I talk about and think about God a lot. And I don’t pay attention to hardly anything mainstream on the subject. Because it’s irrelevant to what I want to do and say on the subject.

Sometimes it means having faith that the medium will slowly infiltrate peoples’ brains and change their paradigm for them.

Sometimes it means surrendering how you want it all to go and finding things to be grateful and surprised about every day, that are only possible with social media and the internet. And focusing on those. And reminding each other of those.

Sometimes it means accepting that community and open participation doesn’t mean you necessarily like everyone in it or everything they do.

Sometimes it means connecting with people who share that vision, and who *believe in it*. Who will not give up because most people don’t get it immediately. Who will keep finding ways to explain it, ways to bridge that gap of understanding, ways to convey the sometimes ineffable quality of revolution that is under all of this.

Sometimes it means being humble, and remembering times when you didn’t “get it”, and how you learned and grew, and give others that chance.

Because they aren’t really douchebags. They are just people. And we are all in this together.