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“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T. S. Eliot

No matter the industry, to grow business and earn a profit, you are constantly seeking a competitive advantage. Competitive advantage comes from innovation. Innovation comes from taking risk. But if you’re waiting to find a risk that has a high probability of success and low probability of failure, you will not find it.

Change starts with movement and feeling fear doesn’t mean stop. Fear means you’re stretching. Successful people stretch. They think carefully, but then choose to do. To act. Don’t fool yourself. To do nothing is choosing something.

By now you probably have read too many articles and blog posts on the latest social media channel. It was Facebook, then Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. Tomorrow it will be something else. Articles on the latest social media channel or success story can leave you in a constant state of feeling behind with no hope for catching up, let alone getting ahead.

When it comes to social media it is easy to get stuck in a “paralysis of analysis” while searching for the perfect solution. The key is realizing that you will never have all the answers and to not get caught up in the latest social media star.

Start with what you know: your business objectives and target audience. Find social media channels your target is active in and devise ways to engage them on a personal level that will move them towards business objectives. I say business’s objectives because social media goes beyond marketing into customer service, PR, HR, etc. For example, if you discover (through listening) that most brand conversation on Twitter is product or service complaints those issues need to be fixed before making more marketing promises.

How did Shaun White become the first snowboarder ever to land back to back double corks? He tried it. People become innovators by trying and eventually they succeed and become the experts that everyone looks to enviously and wonders how they did it. Did Orville and Wilbur Wright have all the answers before they attempted flight? No. They had a series of small successes and important failures that taught them lessons that lead to ultimate success.

Shaun White, the Wright Brothers, and Frank Eliason didn’t fear, fear.

How did Frank Eliason go from customer service manager at Comcast Cable to S.V.P. of Social Media at Citi Bank? Two completely different industries? He had a simple idea (provide personal customer service on Twitter where people were complaining about his company) and he did it. Fearful? Yes. A stretch? Absolutely. He had no marketing or PR training, but now he tours the country telling us Marketing and PR professionals how to use social media. The Wright Brother’s owned a bicycle shop, but that didn’t stop them.

So when will you have your Shaun White, Wright Brother’s, Frank Eliason moment? If you’re not afraid, you’re not stretching enough.

An article I tweeted talks about the increasing emphasis on content creation for marketing: “@Kquesen: The tables turn – in social media marketers must think & act like publishers: 4 tips for building brand & audience … http://t.co/MQiGxDFe”

But that is just one small example. B to B reports that marketers such as Nick Panayi from the IT services company Computer Sciences Corp. have gone all-in with content creation with an in-house department of former journalists who create branded content for their website and social media channels.

Marketers are becoming bloggers and are Tweeting and creating videos and filling Facebook pages. They are creating a lot of content. Content with value that delivers knowledge, entertainment, something people will choose to engage with like they do newspapers, magazines, and TV. Forbes agrees saying brands such as Virgin Mobile, American Express, Marriott, L’Oreal, and Vanguard are becoming publishers and this is a vital part of their overall strategy.

You may call this content marketing, but it made me think about the overall importance of communications in business. We live in an age of customer-driven capitalism where the customer is now in charge. As Steve Denning, author of Radical Management points out in one example “… focus on customers first doesn’t hurt Whole Foods’s bottom line. The ten year share price of Whole Foods is up 330%, compared +30 percent for the S&P 500, and minus 40% for a traditionally managed supermarket chain like Safeway.” That’s consumer focused communications increasing revenue.

How many e-Books/White Papers do you get invited to download? They are generating valuable sales leads. As I highlighted in an earlier post, Forester Research reports in the book groundswell a case study where a corporate blog is credited with generating five contacts a week – contacts that represent early leads worth millions of dollars to this B to B company’s salespeople. That’s consumer focused communications increasing revenue.

A recent Bloomberg Businessweek article credits carefully worded and tested fundraising e-mails as the main source of $690 million raised online for the Obama campaign. Of hundreds of tested subject lines “Hey” was the most successful bringing in millions of dollars alone. That’s consumer focused communications increasing revenue.

Those are positive examples, but poor communications can cost corporations revenue. Poor communication contributed a great deal to Merck loosing $253 million in the Vioxx trial. The jury was confused by their scientific explanations. The Wall Street Journal reports juror John Ostrom as saying “Whenever Merck was up there, it was like wah, wah, wah. We didn’t know what the heck they were talking about.” That’s poor consumer communications losing revenue.

An Accenture study reports American and European consumers returned over $25 billion in electronics in 2007. Between 60%–85% had nothing wrong ($15.2 and $21.5 billion). Why? Confusing interfaces, features difficult to access, no customer education, and weak documentation. That’s poor consumer communications losing revenue.

In 2006, a disgruntled customer used YouTube and Twitter to spread a music video about United Airline’s mishandling of his $3,500 guitar. Within a week the video received 3 million views (12.5 million by 2012) and coverage in CNN, The Wall Street Journal, BBC and the CBS Morning Show. Fast Company reported that Carroll contacted United for nine months with calls and emails, but only after the video’s success and United’s stock price drop of 10% ($180 million) did the company try to make things right. That’s poor consumer communications losing revenue.

Then there is the tweet that sent the Dow average down 145 points in Spring of 2013. Hackers used @AP to spread a rumor that two explosions had gone off at the White House, injuring the president. This caused a two-minute selling spree in which the Dow stocks dropped $200 billion in value, which emphasized the power of social media content on the financial industry.

Of course no article about communications would be complete without a reference to Apple – the World’s Most Powerful Brand valued at $87.1 billion. In an Entrepreneur article “Steve Jobs and the Seven Rules of Success,” six of the seven rules are communications oriented: Have passion, deliver vision, make connections, create experiences, master messages, and sell dreams.

Jeffrey Rohrs takes this concept to the next level in his latest book Audience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans & Followers. Communications, through publishing content, is how you build audience and proprietary audience is a valuable business asset. Whether you are a CEO, CMO, marketer, or entrepreneur communications can be a competitive advantage. Do you believe that what we say and how we say it matters to the bottom line?