Is your brand becoming irrelevant?

“You may not like change, but you’ll like irrelevance even less.”

That’s the quote in the emerging media room of our Boston office, a place where you can get a taste of how rapidly the marketing landscape is changing and the tremendous opportunities for brands to connect with consumers in new ways.

For some, the lightning speed with which the digital world is transforming our world is exhilarating. For others, it’s overwhelming – maybe even nauseating. While it’s perfectly human to resist change and stay the course, here’s one reason why it should be embraced.

This is nothing new.

Yes, there are new channels and tools and, with them, new strategies and ways of interacting. But the working world has been marked with major changes many times before thanks to new technologies: Printing presses, newspapers, radio, television, the Web’s first iteration, e-mail, mobile and more. These things all took the world by storm in their infancy and added their fingerprints to the communications mix, requiring marketers to learn the intricacies of the then new channels and tools.

Each time there was a learning curve and it was a little messy in the beginning. We recognized their value, though, and worked hard to harness their potential to support the brands we served.

Social media is no different. It’s just the new seismic shift that’s requiring us to work hard to harness its potential. Embrace it. It offers great opportunities for most brands. Besides, it’s better than the alternative. No marketers strive to build irrelevant brands.

Have you embraced social media? If so, what helped you get over the initial reluctance? If not, what’s holding you back?