WesHanson.com

Social Media

Through a Tunnel, Darkly

Finally, through the gloom of our economic circumstances we can see a beacon. Thing is, it’s attached to an oncoming locomotive called the China Express.

The People’s Republic has left behind Japan, Germany, the UK, France and Italy. Already the world’s biggest exporter and energy consumer, it has its sights on soon overcoming longtime number one America.

But outside of bragging rights, why should we care? Why get our delicates in a twist? Nationality matters far less today than skill sets. Whatever your citizenry you can prosper — if you stay ahead of the train. (Indeed, some argue that countries are passé anyway. It’s the key global cities that matter: http://bit.ly/buP8Y2)

Determination to avoid irrelevance propels us to adopt new gadgets and adapt to new lifestyles. That’s why we’re all learning to communicate through social media, right? We were all going about our business just fine before its advent. And now you hardly engage the world without it.

Social media is increasingly where the jobs are — for instance in tourism, the world’s largest industry by some measures: http://bit.ly/c5zqGY.

No profession has changed more than journalism. Some newbies despair of entering a field in such economic upheaval (http://bit.ly/b029Er) while institutions like Columbia University scramble to keep up by offering a new degree in journalism combined with computer science.

Some things will stay the same, though – change for change’s sake be damned. You can’t afford to lose your authenticity as you continually refresh and refashion your skills. Your character is still and ever will be your greatest asset. That’s what customers, like friends, truly value. Don’t lose sight of that, for instance by focusing more on what you aspire to do than what you can realistically provide today. And then deliver.

Keeping Up With the Joneses

Sometimes when Monday rolls around and the blog is screaming for attention, you can’t help but feel a little “dial up” in a broadband world. Gotta keep going, gotta keep up … but, oh Lord, how?

You haul yourself to the computer to feed the little monster. You’re motivated by the fact that seemingly everyone else is doing it, breeders who have put a little bit of themselves out there to carry on. Technorati says there are more than 100 million blogs out there and proliferating quickly — along with Facebook pages, Tweets, and whatnot. One must keep up with the Joneses — and the Ramirezes, Chans, and Nahasapeemapetilons.

What’s the reward for this ceaseless communication? Recognition, influence, and customers (if that’s your bag). I seek an engaged readership and the off-site SEO (links from other sites) that catches the eye of search engines. But that all comes only after you nurture your little bundle past its vulnerable (to say nothing of messy) infancy. At this point, most people avert their eyes. That’s OK, I don’t take it personally. I don’t think my baby’s ugly.

At some point, however, it really may take a village to raise this child, so I hope others can assist the little fellow’s long-term prospects. Which isn’t a hint for birthday presents, but an invitation to contribute some content with your comments.

Talking Big and Thinking Big

Big words, small words, little gray words and florid ones too: I love them all. Not necessarily equally, but each has its place and time.

The common thinking goes, however, that only pretentious or insecure individuals would use what used to be called five dollar words (back when that was a lot, not a latte). I disagree. Golly, what’s wrong with an evocative term like “palimpsest” or “gimlet-eyed” when they are just the right ingredient? (For that matter, what’s wrong with “evocative”?) Instead of rolling his eyes, shouldn’t the reader turn his gaze to a dictionary?

The point of communication is to connect with others, absolutely. The point is not to talk down from your lofty pile of words. Here’s a point of view from an author I greatly respect:

“The person who says “adamantine” when in plain talk he means “immovable” or says “coquette” when we would understand him better if he said “flirt” may have a big vocabulary,” writes David Schwartz in his great book The Magic of Thinking Big. “But does he have a big thinker’s vocabulary? Probably not. People who use difficult, high-sounding words and phrases that most folks have to strain themselves to understand are inclined to be overbearing and stuffed shirts. And stuffed shirts are usually small thinkers.”

Ouch. It’s true that what matters in communication is the effect words have on others, not the size of the vocabulary … but still can’t we luxuriate in the richness of the language? Once in a while, just a little? Broccoli benefits from a little béchamel now and again, right? (Béchamel? Happy to oblige: http://bit.ly/bechamelsauce.)

Know Thy Customers (Rule #1: Don’t Use “Thy” When Talking to Them)

Successful companies build relationships with their customers, and to do that effectively they have to speak like their customers. Social media is no different. Given the jocular and pithy nature of the space, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube messaging that tracks informal and humorous tends to work best. That’s who the customers are, or want to be.

So Old Spice is hailed for its multi-platform integration of the Big Three (Twitter, Facebook and YouTube) in its naked guy advertising campaign. Gillette too got kudos (and lots more “followers” and “friends”) with the humorous “manscaping” theme to sell razors.

The jocular tone could benefit other firms. “Many companies need to learn how to be, well, friendlier in a social space,” Sam Ford, director of Digital Strategy at Peppercom Communications, told Portfolio.com. http://bit.ly/smtalktips

An obvious key to effective communication is listening – and in marketing, listening to the customer. This is a lesson still to be learned by most in the social media space. The Old Spice guy showed the way as he tweeted followers in real time, directly addressing their comments. A collective gasp escaped the blogosphere: “Genius!” (That’s what 13 million YouTube page views and 43,000 Twitter followers in 48 hours sounds like.) The commercials also scored points with marketing experts by not hawking the brand too hard, but simply tucking the cologne into the towel of the topless dude, letting it speak for itself.

Of course you can’t just mimic someone else’s campaign and get the same effect. The novelty is gone. So the lesson is determining who your customer is, how they like to see themselves and how they talk amongst themselves. The lesson is not trying to sell your Chevy with a buff model dressed only in a towel.

Don’t Say Anything!

Foot-in-mouth syndrome is a curious ailment. It goes viral very quickly, but its effect on others is usually mirth with the occasional side effect of moderately painful wincing. It seems so widespread sometimes you’d reasonably conclude it’s contagious — but it infects others with an entirely different sickness, schadenfreude.

The dreaded FiMS serves as a cautionary lesson. You’re safe from its ravages if you take precautions like pausing before you speak, or at least asking if you’re being recorded. Think of it as using a condom for your tongue.

Whether or not you actually mean the regrettable things you say, it’s never been easy to regain your balance once you’ve done so. And heaven forbid too, for the billings of the crisis management industry. But it used to be people worried more about what they put in writing and less about spoken indiscretions. “The old way of thinking was that speech evaporates, while the written word was lasting,” Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute was quoted by Jeffrey Zaslow in the Wall Street Journal. “What has emerged is a culture in which the written word can be revised [online], while on YouTube speech lives on.” [http://bit.ly/a2u54t]

Clumsy phrasing may lie behind some gaffes, such as Carl-Henric Svanberg’s “we care about the small people” remark. The BP chairman is from Sweden after all. Deeply held (and usually politely sublimated) beliefs may drive others, for instance Mel Gibson’s rants about minorities, Jews, and women that spew out when he’s sauced. [To see how entertaining people find mellifluous Mel’s recent phone meltdown with his erstwhile girlfriend, see this round-up of re-mixes and mash-ups: http://bit.ly/melmashups.]

In the humiliation-as-entertainment culture of TMZ and rapidly partisan politics, compassion for our fellow fools is understandably on the decline. A recent University of Michigan study (cited by the Journal) found that college students’ empathy has plunged 40% in the last 20 years. The villain of the piece may ironically be the same technology that seeks to bind us together, for “social” media reduces the need empathy-building face-to-face transactions.

You may be fortunate enough not to have your private affairs shared in public, but make no mistake: no one is immune in the Internet age. All politics may be local as the saying goes, but stupidity is increasingly global.

Ever innovative, the Internet is also busy offering solutions. For instance, the website Wouldhavesaid.com gives users a forum to apologize for things they’ve said to people no longer around to hear it directly.

But perhaps the best advice remains that of 1950s humorist Sam Levenson: “It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it.”