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My #1 social media rule: be human first. Then be a brand.

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I’ve noticed a huge increase in friend requests on Facebook and invitations to connect on LinkedIn that come from logos, not faces. I don’t accept any of them, and here’s why: the word “social” precedes the word “media” for a reason. Social media is social. My Oxford American dictionary defines social thus:

1. of or relating to society or its organization; 2. concerned with the mutual concerns of human beings or of classes of human beings; 3. living in organized communities.

Nowhere in that definition do the words corporation, brand, or enterprise appear. It’s all about human beings: their activities, their concerns.

So why should I be “friends” with a logo? I’ve ignored friend requests from restaurants, insurance companies, car dealers, and a host of other branded personal profiles. I’m looking for a human connection, and only then will I consider adding a connection to a brand represented by that human connection.

On LinkedIn, this seems even more egregious. I understand that many small business owners are solopreneurs, and their company brand and their personal identity can seem to be inextricably intertwined. However, I want to see and connect with the person. And then, based on my assessment of their talents/value/contributions, I might choose to follow their company.

But they have to convince me that they’re human first.

Major brands make the same mistake on a larger scale, and have since the enterprise emerged after the Industrial Revolution. That’s been the subject of both humor – “what’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA!” from Al Capp’s L’il Abner was inspired by Eisenhower SecDef and former GM CEO Charles Wilson’s Congressional testimony that included “what’s good for GM is good for the country” – and rage. The rage includes everything from the Motrin Moms mess, to the #epicfail that was the BP Deepwater Horizon spill aftermath, to the continued cluelessness of Wall Street and Washington about the ultimate betrayal that is “too big to fail”.

Corporations are made out of … people. Building are full of … people. People do business with … people. Brand loyalty is really driven by the actions of humans on behalf of their human customers. It doesn’t matter if you’re B2C, slinging sandwiches from a food cart, or B2B, slinging enterprise-level cloud services to Fortune 5s. You’re a human being, doing business with other human beings.

Lose sight of your humanity, and that of your customers, and you no matter how big you are, you’re destined to fail.

And please stop wasting my time with “friend” requests from logos. Be human, then be a brand.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …

 

Being in business means you’ll ALWAYS have to say you’re sorry.

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sorry in the sandI don’t care what being in love means regarding saying you’re sorry. Personally, I think Erich Segal’s book sucks, but I digress.

If you’re in business – running one, managing one, working for one – you’re in the apology business. In fact, being human puts you in the apology business 24/7/365. And business always needs a good dose of human, particularly in the age of the 24-hour news cycle and the Facebook Fan Page wall post.

Not being human, and being willing to admit you made a mistake? #fail.

In a great post on INC.com, Tim Donnelly gives very solid tips on how to approach the brand apology when your business screws the pooch. His #1 tip: just say it. “I’m sorry.” Simple … so why is it so hard for a brand to do that?

I think the root cause of brand cluelessness is that businesses forget that they are, after all, human. They may own skyscrapers in cities around the world, but guess what? Those buildings are full of … people. Doing business with … people.

When your spouse, or your buddy, or your kid do something to hurt you or your feelings, they apologize. You do the same thing when you screw up. (If you don’t, let me know. I know some terrific divorce attorneys.) Same rules apply if you’re J.C. Penney, the example that Donnelly uses in his piece.

Be human, don’t be a brand-droid.

You don’t have to literally fall on your sword, or drape yourself in sackcloth and ashes (I still have random PTSD episodes from 12 years of Catholic education) to apologize. You don’t have to take responsibility for every goof since the beginning of your brand’s recorded history, either. Just say you’re sorry, and then you can move on.

If your factory releases a cloud of toxic gas that kills a few thousand people, you’ll have to do a little more than say “sorry” – just ask Union Carbide. Oh, right, you can’t ask them, because they never actually said they were sorry about poisoning Bhopal. Which explains why they WENT OUT OF BUSINESS.

See how powerful an apology could be? And how not issuing one might literally kill your business?

Use words that convey regret without taking responsibility for every hurt the offended party has ever suffered. Just saying “I’m sorry” can completely defuse a brand revolt. Couple that apology with a clear outline of how you plan to remedy the hurt: priceless. Really. Try it.

We all make mistakes. We’re human, that’s part of the journey. A business that recognizes its own humanity, and that of its customers, by making a sincere apology when they screw up will ultimately drive more loyalty for their brand than a business that’s 24/7 shiny-happy-people. ‘Cause shiny-happy will eventually fog up, or blow up. Trust me on that one.

Be human.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …

“Screw it, let’s do it.”

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The headline on this post is the title of Richard Branson‘s business memoir. The full title: Screw It, Let’s Do It: Lessons in Life and Business. The link will take you to the book on Amazon, so you can just do it and buy the book.

I had the opportunity to literally see Branson in action on Friday, 9/9/11 at Richmond Unite’s #DSRPT11 conference right here in River City (Richmond VA), which also featured some other visionary thinkers who exhorted the crowd in attendance to get out of their business comfort zones and create some disruption.

Richard Branson has disrupted many industries: music, aviation, travel, mobile, broadband, just to name a few. He talked about his failures (Anybody here remember Virgin Cola? Yeah, me neither.), and was anxious to convey the message that his “screw it, let’s do it” rallying cry became even more important to him because of those failures. There is only do, or not do. There is no try. Thanks, Yoda.

The other big thinkers on the stage all shared the same ethos – look beyond what you perceive as your borders, whether those borders are physical, mental, geographical, or just imaginary. If you have an idea, chase it down and make it real. If you fail, get up and chase the next idea. Immobility is your only enemy.

One of the speakers, Harry Singer, said two things during his presentation that really stuck with me, and with other folks I talked to at #DSRPT11:

  • Don’t ask why, figure out how 
  • Don’t tell them what it is, tell them what it does

The first is something we should teach children from birth, and keep on teaching them and each other throughout our lives. The second is a titanium nugget if you’re in sales or marketing: what your product or service does for your customers is much more important than what it is. Communicate the doing rather than the being.

Kelly O’Keefe, a branding guru who’s also on the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Brandcenter – which is one of the top design schools in the world – spoke about the opportunities present in our current economic downturn to focus on social entrepreneurship. He talked a lot about Detroit – his home town – and the true crisis that city has been in since the Japanese started eating the lunch of Detroit’s Big 3 car makers. That crisis has deepened into a catastrophe as the global economy has imploded. Kelly said it was the outliers – the nerds, the artists, the revolutionaries – who were making a true difference in Detroit, and helping that city rise from its own ashes.

I too had the opportunity to take the stage.  I was to have eight minutes, and was invited to create a slide deck for it, which I did. My slice-o-time was to be during lunch. As will happen, the morning speakers ran long, and since Richard Branson was to take the stage at about 3:30pm, the time was to be made up during lunch come hell or high dudgeon. Each of us would have only TWO minutes, no slides. Two of the eight presenters dropped out because their presentations were so visual. The remaining four that weren’t me did what they did, some ran over.

I was always slated to be the last speaker. My topic was that patients need to seize control of healthcare, which is the only sane path to real and meaningful healthcare reform, no matter what your politics are. I knew I had to do two things: Keep it tight – I took the stage at 1:26pm, the afternoon session was starting ON TIME at 1:30pm – and, since there was a post-lunch food nap induction driven further snooze-ward by the fact that the attendees had been in their seats since 9:00am, WAKE ‘EM UP.

My attitude? Screw it, let’s do it.

Here’s the clip of my 1:48 on the platform, right at the end of the lunch break.Let me know what you think – I really DO want to know.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …

#1 thing NOT to do on LinkedIn

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linkedin-logoThe #1-with-a-bullet rule of social media, no matter what platform, is: be authentic. This does not mean that you should be an authentic idiot, however.

I had a troubling conversation on LinkedIn a few days ago, with someone who sent me a connection request. I’m a pretty open networker – my only rules are

  • Have a profile picture of your face, not a logo
  • Be a human, with a name, not a brand or a handle
  • Be able to answer the “how did I wind up on your LinkedIn radar?” question effectively

    • All three of those guarantee acceptance. Any one of them missing, “ignore”.

    So when a woman in my geographic zone sent me an invitation to connect, and had cleared the first 2 of the above rules, I pinged her with a “how” – and that’s where things got interesting. She told me that she was looking for a job, and a recruiter told her that she wouldn’t even get a look if she didn’t have at least 150 LinkedIn connections.

    In other words, the recruiter was basically telling her that she needed to gather up connections quickly. Which is, in my estimation, really rotten advice. I’m not against the idea of a dedicated campaign to make meaningful professional connection on LinkedIn, or any other social media network. I do, however, question a recruiter instructing a potential client to essentially spam her address book. That’s likely to get you the LinkedIn bitch-slap, which can be as painful as being kicked off LinkedIn, and at a minimum highly circumscribed on the invitation-to-connect front.

    Authentic connection takes time. I’ve been on LinkedIn since 2004, and my connection count of 1,000+ is a testament to my approach of authenticity. I don’t meet all my connections face-to-face – wish I could, since some of them are in Asia and Africa, meaning that meetings would satisfy my travel jones as well as my deepen-the-connection mantra. But I manage to keep tabs on the people I’m linked to, and have picked up both great business intel and actual booked business using my “authenticity” rules.

    If you’re a recruiter, or work in HR in any way, be aware of the rules you require those you work with to live by. Focus less on number of connections, and more on how meaningful a candidate’s connections are.

    Ragan.com, a must-read site for anyone interested in business storytelling, had a terrific post last week by Jure Klepic, 12 LinkedIn gaffes to avoid at all costs. It’s both funny and informative. Give it a read.

    That’s my story, and I’m stickin’  to it …

    How far would you go for medical treatment?

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    medical tourism imageNo, not how far you’d go in the Denzel Washington/John Q/hold-a-hospital-hostage sense. In the get-on-a-plane-toward-care sense.

    Medical tourism has seen an exponential rise with patients in the US as health care costs and the number of uninsured patients have risen over the last 15 years. In a TIME magazine piece in 2006, Curtis Schroeder, CEO of Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok – somehow, I don’t think he’s Thai – said that in 2005 their census of US patients rose 30% (to 55,000).

    That trend has continued, even with the advent of “health care reform” – health insurance reform, really – since health care costs have continued their hockey-stick rise, with no end in sight, for two decades.

    50 years ago, patients from across the globe saw health care in the US as the holy grail. Now, US patients are traveling to Costa Rica, Thailand, Mexico, New Zealand, even Cuba to get access to high-quality, low-cost care.

    US companies have started to explore medical tourism, and some are offering  incentives to their employees – incentives including getting to pocket some of the savings gained from traveling abroad for treatment. Not enough, however, to make medical tourism a healthy industry here in the US of A.

    An August 2011 article in Workforce Management includes a story about a nurse in Louisiana (irony is our favorite thing here at Mighty Casey Media) who traveled to Costa Rica a few years ago for dental work, including oral surgery. She paid $2,700 out of pocket for what would have cost her $10,000 at home, with her employer covering $1,500 of her care expenses. Her net cost for the procedures was $1,200, plus her travel expenses – which travel was negotiated and arranged by a broker, Companion Global Health Care Inc.

    I’m sure that, even after travel expenses, her savings were still solidly in the thousands of dollars.

    So why aren’t more US companies encouraging their employees to take advantage of medical tourism? According to the CEO of Companion Global, David Boucher – who certainly has a dog in this fight, and who is quoted in the Workforce Management article linked above – the rising costs of health care make the health-tourism choice a no-brainer. He says that their customers are seeing a 2- or 3-to-1 return on investment for medical tourism, and patients – their customers employees – are very satisfied with the quality of their care.

    However, according to Joe Marlowe, senior VP of health and productivity at the risk-management and HR consulting firm Aon Hewitt who’s also quoted in the WM story, employers are risk-averse, particularly at the idea of making themselves liable for medical care far from home that turns out badly for the patient.

    What do you think? Would you travel 8,000 miles for a knee replacement, or 3,000 for chemotherapy, to save a significant amount of money and still receive high-quality care? Or would you want to be closer to your support system – family, friends – while receiving care?

    I would most certainly travel to Bangkok or San Jose for a knee replacement. Not sure about oncology, since that follow-up can be so long-term.

    You? I really would like to know.

    That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …

    Event PR: Plan or #fail

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    One of the best arrows in an organization’s business-building quiver is a well-executed event. Doesn’t matter if it’s a seminar featuring your company’s expertise, or a massive trade show effort in Vegas – planning is critical to achieving that “well-executed” tag.

    And, other than the actual value-delivered-in-the-room, nothing matters more than your PR strategy and execution in support of that event.

    In other words, failure to meaningfully plan your event’s PR will likely mean event #fail.

    The rules:

    • Give yourself enough lead time: an effective event PR strategy requires enough time to make the connections that will ensure success. Media, industry influencers, key company executives – you have to have time to build awareness and buzz.
    • Build an engaging and informative media kit: this is particularly important for big events like major trade shows. Why is your organization creating or participating in this event? Tell that story from the ground up: the keynote speaker(s), the industry folks you’re targeting, the team putting together the event, the city where the event is happening. Make it accessible, with downloadable PDFs. Add video if at all possible.
    • Reach out early and often (within reason!): develop a robust list of contacts who can make a difference to the event – press, top industry bloggers, communications directors at top companies in the industries you want to have attend the event. Share your information in engaging ways – see Bullet #2 for tips.
    • Craft a comprehensive message calendar: media outlets use editorial calendars – PR pros do, too. For every event, build an editorial calendar for your messaging outreach. Assign tasks, track progress: lather, rinse, repeat.
    Not rocket science. Not even complicated. Follow these guidelines, and I predict your event will be both standing-room-only AND a popular media topic.
    That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …