Addicted to old school marketing thinking? Afraid to break that addiction and dip your toes into the social media marketing pool? 12-step programs give us a lot of guidance on how to do just that.

Take for example the 7^th step prayer (our updated, short version at least):

Grant me the serenity to accept the social media conversations I cannot change, the courage to change the conversations I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The 12 steps themselves are just as wisdom-filled:

1. We admit we are powerless over old school marketing think—that our professional lives and marketing campaigns have become unmanageable.
2. We have come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves, the Wisdom of Crowds, could restore us to sanity.
3. We have made a decision to turn our marketing campaigns’ will and our marketing professional lives over to the care of The Crowds as we understand Them.
4. We have made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves and our marketing campaigns.
5. We have admitted to The Crowds, to ourselves, and to another marketer the exact nature of our marketing wrongs.
6. We are entirely ready to have The Crowds remove all these defects of our marketing character.
7. We have humbly asked Them to remove our old think campaign shortcomings.
8. We have made a list of all the brands and products we have harmed, and have become willing to make amends to them all.
9. We have made direct amends to such brands and products wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We have continued to take professional inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it.
11. We have sought through research, analysis and meditation to improve our conscious contact with The Crowds as we understand Them, searching only for knowledge of Their Social Media Marketing Rules for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a marketing awakening as the result of these steps, we have tried to carry this message to other marketers addicted to old think, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.