All this talk about Twitter and Facebook engagement, how you need to be authentic and transparent, let people behind the scenes, tell stories. This is all well and good, and enough (some might say too much) has been written about the what and the how.
We should talk more about the why. Not the why in the “so we can help you meet your business goals” sense (I would file that squarely in the ‘results of efforts’ column, on the other side of the equals sign). The why in the “what are the bigger forces we are aligning ourselves with by taking your advice on communications” sense.
Here’s why (I think). We are all working to dissolve adversarial relationships between people.
We realize that working together toward a common goal is more powerful than any positioning based on “what do I have to give you so that you do what I want”.
We notice this every day in our lives, when we reach out for help, or give a hug to a friend or a smile on the street or put a dollar in a homeless person’s hand, or tell our kids that we love them.
Many of us don’t think that this kind of interaction doesn’t scale to the world of business, where people inside the company are respon
sible for doing whatever is necessary to get people outside of the company to part with their money.
This is crap. Not only is it adversarial, but it’s bad business. People know when your intent isn’t pure, even subconsciously. The more strategic you come off, the more adversarial the relationship between you and not-you becomes.
There are so many examples lately of companies and industries that find themselves in a spiral of adversity-based business decisions. I was reading that airlines are beginning to charge for seats with leg room. Does this mean that this airline doesn’t want anyone to have a good experience flying with them unless we’re willing to pay extra for it? Anything cheap these days comes with a catch – it’s the bottom of the heap. If you want the upgrade, then you pay through your teeth for it.
So why do we say ‘be authentic and transparent’? Because when we dissolve the ‘us vs them’ mentality, we can get down to the business of creating and awesome experience for everyone who interacts with us. If you’re in a business situation, the perception around the exchange of funds shifts from ‘I guess I can part with my money because I need or want this” to “I’m excited to be a part of what this purchase makes possible”. If you’re in a personal situation,
you get that good feeling that connecting can bring. You make a new friend, or lover, or contact.
This is the position we’re in. Our job isn’t really to recommend a digital strategy for people. That’s just a trojan horse. Our jobs, our passion as communicators (whether we’re conscious of it or not) is dissolving adversity, one communication point at a time.
It’s the most important thing we can do as people, for the health of the world.