I recently came across Mitch Joel’s blog and his book, Six Pixels of Separation, and wholeheartedly agree with his perspective, “In praise of slow.”

As more and more businesses start taking on social media initiatives, we’ve started to see a collective mind-set where they not only want to see results immediately, they expect it.  In this fast-paced digital society we’re living in, our patience and expectations at times are skewed.

As Joel so aptly states, “You can’t quickly start a Blog and get results. It takes time to build your content, find you voice, develop a community and earn trust and respect. You can’t just publish a Podcast and expect your cash register to start ringing. You can’t join an online social network and derive any value from it unless you take the time to meet the right people, connect, share, build and grow. Digital Marketing is a relationship (at its highest level). Slow simply means that long-term results take time. There are no shortcuts to success.”

Digital marketing isn’t a race to the finish line. In fact, to do it most effectively, walking will serve you better than sprinting.