Being Human
There have been a LOT of great pieces written lately about Brands needing to find their human center - a purpose that allows people to connect with the Brand on more than a superficial level. This trend is likely to continue, given how tired people are of being taken for granted, made to wait on ’systems’, and often reduced to a number in the eyes of companies. Add to this mix a generous helping of stress and suppressed anger over the current economic crisis, and you can realize why a Brand that can really walk, talk, and listen like a real person is going to get a lot farther than ‘corporate-speak’, or pandering.
Last week, Zachary Burt caught my eye with his excellent post about what makes people click - based on the book Click: The Magic of Instant Connections. It’s about human connections and what drives them and makes us experience that feeling so strongly with some people. His discussion about transformative presence and the ideal self is really wonderful.
And it got me thinking: What makes people ‘click’ with Brands? Zack’s article talks about the factors like vulnerability, proximity, resonance, similarity, and environment - which all can easily be translated into terms that make sense for why people also click with brands. But these are just the accelerators for allowing the human connection, and it’s a little more complicated that just assembling a set of circumstances, however powerful each element of the recipe seems to be. The click depends on the emotional intelligence of the person (in our case, the Brand) as well - and this is where I got really excited. Where the book refers to “high self monitors”, I would call these HumanKind Brands. They are Brands that know who they are, they know who buys them, and they have a purpose to express that is culturally and personally relevant.
When we talk to our clients about their Brand’s presence in people’s lives, we talk in terms of what the Brand and the person can do together. Participation is at the heart of our Brands’ actions, and when a Brand joins together with the people who buy that Brand, a powerful connection can be formed. You can ‘Click’ together. And the kind of connection we’re talking about doesn’t get formed with a one-way broadcast message. It’s about showing that you care about something, and setting out to change the world together.
And it’s not just the need for a center, there are tactics that need to be considered as well. Troy Janisch and Mark Anderson authored another post here about how brands can and should be more human in social media - asking for Brands to take steps to express themselves through their voice, their mission, human milestones, and other tools and tactics. A key element here for me was the idea that even the choice of the avatar for Twitter or Facebook picture should literally show a human face. How interesting and wonderful to suggest that the value of branding in the space might be secondary to the value of making a human connection! A basic thing, and easy to overlook. Storytelling has its place as well, and Lou Hoffman wrote a great piece on his blog about how Brands that tell stories allow for people to connect with them much more deeply and meaningfully.
Lastly, I enjoyed Sean Johnson’s post talking about candor being good for business, as well as good for the soul. Ultimately, enabling your Brand to be more human is not about being perfect. There will always be bumps in the road, and some Brands have some pretty powerful and motivated critics. The key to dealing with any problems that arise for a Brand in today’s self-publishing world is to have built up a reserve of good will that can allow a Brand to withstand attacks. Building enough trust to support this kind of a long-term relationship means being honest, transparent, and real with people - to the point that people will speak up for you when things get rough.
So the question is - Do people want to ‘click’ with you? And if so, what have you done to be more human today?
