Bridget Willard | SaaS Marketing Agency

Author: Bridget Willard

  • Automation Removes Intimacy

    In Cincinnati, in a hotel elevator, I recognized someone I’d been following on Twitter.

    Jason said, “Wow, Bridget. You know everyone.”

    Right. It’s my job.

    The Siren Song of Automation

    Hardly a week goes by where I’m not pitched the newest, shiniest version of a social media tool or automation service. And I’ve not been shy about my feelings for the subject. The poor dead horse is being abused at this point.

    That said, there are dangers of automation. Removing yourself from understanding your customers and even knowing who they are can remove that feeling of intimacy.

    Intimacy just means hands-on or being close. There’s a revival in the crafts movement — people want to create with their hands. They are making their own bread, beer, and beading their own jewelry.

    Even in the business world, there’s a movement to go back to working in your business instead of on it. Yes, in your business — in the craft. Being hands on.

    So, why would you want to automate the most important part of your business — customer relations?

    The Power of A Name

    When I applied to be a Happiness Hero at Buffer, one of the prerequisites was to read the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. No doubt you’ve heard of it or read excerpts if not the whole thing.

    What stands out most is the power of using someone’s name. I’ve been practicing this a lot lately. In fact, I think it was misunderstood last night with our waiter as flirtation, but there is a risk in everything.

    Twitter Lists

    So, one of the most important part of my social media strategies — especially on Twitter — is listing. So, you can write a script that will add people to a list depending on the keywords they use in their bio or hashtags that they tweet. You can sign up for the brand new service that promises you’ll never have to lift a finger to tweet. But you may miss out on a lot.

    One of my rituals is reading bios and adding people to lists. When I’m notified that I get a new follower, I check out their profile, follow or not, and put them on a list. This is the first level of intimacy.

    Oh. Okay. John Doe just followed me. He lives in Orange County and is a social media marketer. I’ll put him on my Social Media list and my Orange County list.

    Whispering In Your Ear

    Back in the day, I worked at a church. The pastor could never remember anyone’s name. So, I’d stand next to him and when someone approached, he’d ask me their name and I’d whisper it in his ear.

    So that worked for a congregation with about 150-200 people which fits right in the Dunbar number if you believe that’s our social limitation.

    But will the new fancy tool do that in person? Sure, they promise the world online, but what about when you meet said follower at a conference?

    WordPress and WordCamps

    For our industry, WordCamps are our trade shows. There is at least one almost every single weekend. As a marketing manager for a WordPress Plugin Development Shop, attending these conferences and knowing our customers is important.

    Knowing your customers by name is important for a few reasons. Let’s start with common decency and manners. That should be enough.

    Let’s not forget the power of someone’s name. Is it better to greet someone as “Hey there bro” or “Hey, friend?”

    Or is it better to say,

    “Hi, Paul. How was your trip on the train?”

    It shows that you care. It increases loyalty. It is the beginning of a relationship. If you truly care about people and building up a culture of community, this is tantamount — required as a baseline.

    Knowing your customers has never been a bad thing.

    Automation Removes Intimacy

    Back to the title, “Automation Removes Intimacy.” The intimacy you have with your customers on social media is important for in-person meetings. It’s important for keeping that relationship going online.

    Social media is about connecting, as humans, to other people. Whether it’s for friendship or to increase the lifetime value of a customer, being social can never be automated.

    Well, if Science Fiction catches up to us, perhaps you can get a protocol droid like C3PO.

    Until then, be cautious when automating. You should want to spend the time getting to know your customers.

  • Why even spend time online? Human ROI

    I’ve been criticized ever since my online journey began back in the days of dial-up and AOL. (True story: I attended my first Bible study online in an AOL chat room.) Why do you spend so much time online?

    It’s become such a common occurrence that I try to never use my phone in person, save a couple of selfies.

    Case in point: A Birthday Party Tonight

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BMIp-hXAjsS/

     

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BMIqDkJgLYg/

     

    And, you know me, I have to grab a sunset.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BMILFv1AQ9t/

    The point is this:

    All of the time I have spent building relationships online has always come back as a return — in humanity.

    Human ROI

    Relationships matter because people matter. The more you invest in people the more they will invest in you. This has never failed me.

    Tonight, I was invited to a surprise birthday party for SMMOC co-founder (with his wife) Bob Watson. This group has been instrumental in my career change and path.

    Last week, I told Bob as much and he recorded a small video on his Instagram account.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BL4R_xng_eC/

    Of course, I wanted to join in the fun, see old friends, and wish Bob a very happy birthday!

    Hugs Galore!

    Though I knew I would be surrounded by my social media friends,  I became nervous (would anyone greet me? etc). So, my very good friend Jen Miller said she would be my plus one and it would be fun.

    You know what? It was fun.

    I had great conversations with people I haven’t seen (in person) in months or even  years. Yet we’ve been able to stay connected, and dare I say not superficially, online.

    I engaged in personal conversations, was part of a running birthday joke, ate dinner, drank Diet Coke, cracked jokes. I felt like me.

    You know why?

    Because I was surrounded by friends. And they weren’t fake.

    I was hugged by everyone. Because they’re real people. Real relationships. Real friends.

    Why do I spend so much time online?

    I spend time online because my friends are there. It’s not a chore. It’s not something I need to be unplugged from. It’s something that helps me feel connected to this world. Maybe I’m weird. But I think people value that time.

    Spend time on social media creating, maintaining, and deepening relationships and you’ll always get back Human ROI.

    Promise.

    😉

  • Trust & Communication: Foundations of Any Relationship

    Relationships take on many forms. We have business relationships with coworkers, employees, bosses, supervisors, vendors, and clients. We have family and spouse relationships. We have friends and people that we meet through mutual friends.

    Each category of relationship has a different level of intimacy but the same basic element is required in them all: trust. Trust comes from communication — both big talk and small talk.

    Communication in the Workplace

    “In management settings, trust increases information sharing, openness, fluidity, and cooperation.”

    It’s easy in this age of technology to take communication for granted — to presume communication. In decades past we overly relied upon in-person meetings. They were deemed a waste of time. And then we moved to conference calls, which have become a total joke. And now, we’re expected to develop relationships and collaborate on projects  solely with text-based tools like Asana, BaseCamp, Trello, and Slack.

    I read an article this week called “Let’s end the ‘schedule a call’ culture.” In it the author says,

    “I’m not entirely sure how we’re going to replace the schedule a call culture. Collaboration tools is probably the easiest answer, but …  Maybe we all just put our heads down and wait for the AI robots to take our jobs. But first, let’s discuss this schedule a call culture — albeit briefly.” Ted Bauer

    Toxic Communication*

    “In a relationship, it typically takes five good interactions to make up for a single bad one.”

    If you see warning signs early on in the relationship of unwanted behavior (badmouthing, gossip, indiscretion, inconsistent statements (lying), rudeness (especially to wait staff), irritability, tardiness, addiction, etc.), those red flags should be noted, especially if you notice a pattern.

    People don’t improve their behavior as they get to know you; rather, they feel more comfortable and become more “themselves.”

    Red flags are warnings to us all. We would be wise to heed them.

    Nonverbal Communication

    But how much communication is really verbal? This is wildly debated, but I would argue that if you only rely upon the written word you miss a lot.

    “One way of increasing your accuracy is applying the 3 C’s of Nonverbal Communication: context, clusters, and congruence.” Psychology Today

    In this world of text messages, email, and Slack, it’s a good time to talk about how much of communication is actually verbal — regardless of where you land on the research — there’s more to communication than the actual words.

    So how do you project warmth and build relationships in a primarily digital age?

    Open Communication

    Trust comes from open communication. Open communication occurs when people feel safe. We like to think it’s more complicated than that. It’s not.

    “You see, if the conditions are wrong, we are forced to expend our own time and energy to protect ourselves from each other, and that inherently weakens the organization. When we feel safe inside the organization, we will naturally combine our talents and our strengths and work tirelessly to face the dangers outside and seize the opportunities.” Simon Sinek 

    How can you make people feel safe?

    In their article called “Connect, Then Lead” on Harvard Business Review, authors Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger say:

    “A growing body of research suggests that the way to influence—and to lead—is to begin with warmth. Warmth is the conduit of influence: It facilitates trust and the communication and absorption of ideas. Even a few small nonverbal signals—a nod, a smile, an open gesture—can show people that you’re pleased to be in their company and attentive to their concerns. Prioritizing warmth helps you connect immediately with those around you, demonstrating that you hear them, understand them, and can be trusted by them.”

    Communication & Culture

    Culture comes from how a group relates to each other. This can be good or bad. So, intentional community building is all the rage these days. Companies who are intentional with their culture protect their culture. They seem to do this in one of two ways: either they all work in-house or have regular meetings on video (Buffer, Automattic are two examples).

    “There needs to be no advantage to being in the office, and no disadvantage to being out of the office.”” Joel Gascoigne, Buffer (They have since gotten rid of their office in San Francisco.)

    Regardless of your preference, company culture is definitely top-down.

    When asked how a middle manager can affect company culture, Simon Sinek gave this advice:

    Treat those in your realm of influence as you believe important. Meaning, do what you can where you can.

    If you feel uncomfortable at your workplace, perhaps it’s time to look elsewhere.

    It’s up to you.

    Sometimes, believe it or not, it’s difficult to engage in conversations with people. If you want a better relationship, perhaps it’s up to you.

    Maybe you need to be the person who asks how they are doing, if they watched [insert sports game here] last night, or patted them on the back (verbally, with emojis, or giphys in Slack) for a job well done.

  • Automating Friendships

    Friendship isn’t something that can appear by magic, API calls, or automated audience reports. It takes time listening, investing, responding.

    Just like in real life.

    This tweet is the inspiration for this post.

    I know that I’ve talked about relationship marketing before. It takes time.

    If we could automate friendship, there would be a lot fewer lonely people in this world.

    The lure of automation

    Automation is like the siren song to marketers luring them with promises of slick reports, extra time, and better insights. What they forget to tell you is that the rest of us can tell when something is automated.

    There is no software that will replace authentic, real interaction between you and your customer.

    Sure, you can send auto tweets thanking people, auto responders in emails, and even direct messages to people who followed you in the last ten seconds.

    Here’s the thing: we know they’re not real. So, who are you really fooling?

    Auto Direct Messages on Twitter

    I’ve talked about this for years. People are convinced that they work. For me, it’s just one more thing to delete. It’s noise that drowns out legitimate messages.

    If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d unfollow anyone who sent me one of these.

    Read these two examples. If either one of them had bothered to really check me out, they would have known that I don’t like automation.

    Automation and Curation

    Look. Let’s be honest. I have tons of friends who use APIs, RSS feeds, and other kinds of automation. They choose the people they trust then load them into Buffer or whatever. That’s fine. If you’re sure that all of the content is something you feel comfortable tweeting, posting, etc., then do it — with my blessing.

    Curating content is hard. I admit it. It means I read. It means I interact with people. I trust instinct, gut, and messaging.

    I’ve talked about it before. I curate content by curating people. I make friends, put them on Twitter Lists, and read their tweets. If their blog post, video, etc. is something that I agree with, then I will share it on the appropriate social network.

    Hybrid Approach

    Like most things in life, hybrid solutions are usually best. Of course, I schedule some tweets. What I don’t do is auto schedule based on an RSS feed or a hashtag or a keyword.

    I don’t tweet things I don’t read. Why? Because I am responsible for ensuring that the things shared for a brand do not conflict with their messaging. No app can do that.

    So, how do I make friends online?

    You talk to people.

    You can start with asking questions. You can reply to tweets. Take two weeks and spend ten minutes a day on Twitter actually talking to people. Read tweets. Get to know what the person likes.

    We call this providing value.

    You can also share their posts.

    You can comment on their blogs.

    You can step outside of your own world and read other people’s content.

    Invest in people and they’ll invest in you.

    This has been my experience.

    I believe it can be yours, too.

     

     

  • WPblab – Looking back over a year of learning, video platforms, and community.

    Community, friendship, video, learning, guests, oh my! So much has happened since Jason Tucker invited me to co-host WPblab Oct 1, 2015!

    A Day that Will Live in Infamy

    Well, not really. But October 1, 2015, changed my life forever.

    Blab(dot im) came out and Jason Tucker sent me a message. Would I want to co-host a new show on the WPwatercooler network?

    “Did you ask the right person?”

    A developer and a marketer is the perfect combination. And so, Thursday, October 1, a show was born.

    You can watch that episode here:

    Video Platforms are Fickle

    With live video, you learn to roll with things. Seriously. Blab(dot)im was there for quite a while. But when they shut down, we were ready. Jason Tucker had already moved us to Firetalk. But when Firetalk stopped reliably providing video download, we went to YouTube Live in a Custom Post Type.

    Gee. When I started this journey, I had no idea what a CPT was.

    It’s been a great year. But I digress.

    The point is, if you’re hosting a live show — especially on video — you have to have grace and be ready for anything.

    Main takeaways besides that are:

    1. Wear headphones.
    2. Don’t allow anyone to stream in your house.
    3. Be hard wired.
    4. Have a good attitude.
    5. Laugh a lot.
    6. Make friends.
    7. Take selfies.

    Cross-over Opportunities

    Adam Silver of KitchenSinkWP has appeared on our show dozens of times, too. We’ve had tons of people from The WP Crowd, too! They even made me an honorary member.

    Also, Jason Tucker scheduled a cross-over with Jeffrey Bradbury of Teacher Cast that was epic. Be open to these opportunities. They’ve always been awesome.

    *My disclaimer is that we’ve had so many amazing people, I’m probably leaving someone out. Apologies in advance.

    A New Career

    On December 1, 2015, I was offered my dream job doing marketing at WordImpress. You can read all about that transition in my blog post here.

    A theme song is born.

    Jason Tucker challenged me to come up with a theme song. And, so, I did.

    [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/243111943″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

    It debuted on January 14, 2016. My favorite part is when Jason went “woo” at the end.

    Favorite Episode

    It’s hard to pin down my favorite episode because they all have great moments. That said, this episode with James Laws of Ninja Forms and Josh Pollock of Caldera blew my mind. I didn’t realize forms were that functional.

    Life Happens

    So, when the worst thing could happen — and did — the WordPress and WPblab community was there for me, quite literally.

    You can read about it in detail here.

    My Coral Reef: The WordPress Community

    Accidental Community

    I can’t even start listing all of the wonderful people I’ve met both there and in-person since we started this show.

    Russell Aaron has been a regular regular. Regular regular? Yes. He’s been on the show dozens of times. I finally got to meet him in person this year at WordCamp San Diego and we chatted again in person at WordCamp Orange County. He’s become a mentor of mine. Would that have happened without WPblab? I doubt it.

    https://twitter.com/jasontucker/status/677709022657716226

    I’ve also met Josh Pollock from Caldera and Jacob Arriola from Zeek Interactive.

    I expect to meet so many more people as I attend more WordCamps around the nation. This is partly why I made the GuruSelfies page.

    I can say without a doubt that I feel more connected to the WordPress community than ever before. And I feel invested. And I care.

    We’ve become a virtual meetup.

    People have shared their struggles and triumphs. We’ve chatted. We’ve become friends on Twitter and Facebook. We’ve met in person. We’re planning to meet in person. People have started blogs, meetups, quit jobs, leveled up their careers, and applied to be WordCamp organizers.

    I feel safe to say that Jason Tucker’s gift of hospitality really shines through in this show’s format and I’m proud to play a part in it.