Winning in the emerging social economy is about taking action. It is not about having 10 great blog post ideas, instead it is about publishing one great post. The social web is kind of like Darwinism for hustle. Those who hustle and take action; win. Those who sit around and talk about their “great” ideas lose. Chris Brogan, isn’t the smartest person on the web, but many think so because he is disciplined enough to publish frequent content that is also thought provoking.

Being First Is Better Than Being Better
Individuals and companies need to get of the idea of “waiting for perfection” out of their thick skulls. The web is about revisions. Online, it is quick and cheap to edit or change something almost anything. Failing to realize this will only result in failure.

Take a look at Twitter. By traditional business standards it would have been a complete failure. Here is a company that doesn’t have a model to make money, a service which was down and unusable through much of its start up phase, and an inferior technology platform.  All of those things are true. Services like Pownce, Rejaw, and Identi.ca were all better services that were more stable.

So how did Twitter succeed? They were first. Now Twitter is the only word you hear on the TV and Pownce doens’t even exist. If you don’t think this applies to traditional businesses doing business online, then you are fooling yourself and your employees.

With Action Comes A Plan
If you have read this far then you must agree with me or must be a complete sadist. If social media is about action then every person or organization should then have an action plan right? What would that look like?

Keep it simple. I use a plan that works like this (though I use different numbers and have some added layers):

Each Day Do The Following:

• Publish 1 Blog Post or Video
• Leave 5 comments on relevant industry blogs
• Learn 1 new application
• Share 20 links that you think will help others
• Offer to help 1 person with a project
• Read one piece of in depth research or information that is longer than a blog post.

Sure it is a lot, but it works. This is only a mockup of a plan, I suggest you create one that works well for you.

Now tell me, how do you hustle?

Some corporations get it and others don’t. While at SXSW Interactive this past week Chris Brogan organized a flash panel with social media leads from some of America’s most well-known corporations including Pepsi, JetBlue, Crocs, AMD, Best Buy, and General Motors. I was able to record the entire panel (note: it is shaky in the beginning but then I switch to a tripod) and I recommend watching the video as these companies had strong insights about using social media and integrating it into large corporations.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The theme they all talked about is humanizing the brand. To humanize a brand in today’s two-way communication world, you have to personalize your brand.  When personalizing a brand their are three important steps: listening, engaging and creating value. How does your company do these three things? How could they do it better?

What was you favorite nugget of information from the panel?

Big thanks to Chris and all of the panel speakers for putting on this event.