Below the Fold

Kill the Click: Digital is All About the Clock

IT'S TIME TO KILL the click.

This isn’t something the traditional digital advertising industry wants to hear (and yes, there is such a thing as “traditional” digital advertising.) Clicks equal cash goes the maxim, though those selling clicks are the ones who make the real cash – not necessarily the companies trying to get customers to click on their ads.

The evidence is everywhere. A recent study published in AdAge found virtually no relationship between a click and an actual conversion; time spent viewing or hovering over the ads actually scored better.

Insisting that clicks on ads equals campaign success is flawed logic at best. Said the CEO of the company that commissioned the aforementioned study: “My key takeaway is that optimizing to viewable impressions or hover time is a better proxy for a brand advertiser than a click-through rate.”

True, however there is a larger trend here than all direct marketers turning into brand advertisers (itself a scary thought.) The real impact, and the key trend to watch, is all about time.

Capturing Your “Share of Time”
In a way, marketing has always been about time. For decades there wasn’t much of a need to measure time, since there were so few media options. The focus was on audience numbers, whether than audience spent a few minutes or a few hours with your programming.

No longer. We now have infinite choices and channels; media is unbundled and fragmented. With so much choice the “impression” is now meaningless – it’s not a true indicator of brand recall or connection.

All that matters is time. And time is what we need to measure. Forget the click – today, it’s all about the clock.

The path to earning greater “share of time” online is through storytelling and engagement that taps into people’s emotions. This is a large reason why video – especially short-form and serialized stories – continues to expand. As a recent Fast Company article noted, people are spending at least 22 hours a month watching online video, a number from April that’s certainly even higher now and will continue to rise.

Good marketing is good storytelling, and stories capture people’s attention – and their time – far better than a static direct-response banner ad. Stories that go beyond one-way interaction and tap into more immersive and participatory transmedia, such as USA Networks’ “Sights Unseen” adventure, not only capture time but bring people into a brand experience that traditional online marketing tactics simply could never hope to achieve.

Fish where the fish are, the saying goes – this too is about time. Print, radio and TV use is declining while Internet and mobile steadily rise. More people today go online via mobile devices than their PCs.

Time is about place as well as engagement. It’s about earning attention and trust, not expecting it. And most of all, it’s about accepting that the audience has moved on even if your marketing is still stuck in the past.

Watch the clock, not the click. Spend your time measuring what matters.

Revisiting the Ghosts of Auroras Past

“If we don’t meet again, your final assignment from me is perhaps the most important lesson you will learn in life. Go to your mother, father, brother and sisters, and tell them with all your heart how much you love them. And tell them you know how much they love you too. Go out of your way to make good memories…at some point these memories may be all you have left. May God bless you all, Bryan.”

Professor Bryan Cloyd’s e-mail to his students. Cloyd’s daughter, Austin, died in the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech shootings.

Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aurora. There are so many more, of course, so many we can't remember despite each time promising ourselves we will never forget.

There will be a time to talk about news and social media again. There will be time to reflect on key moments, such as when a selfless teen turned Reddit into the world's most important news channel during the first hours of the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting that left 12 people dead and many more injured, some permanently.

For now, we just need to listen. We always have and never really do, but I hope against hope that this time it will stick.

I will say this about the suspected killer: As many of you know I have some experience talking to capital murderers, and the question I'm asked the most is what makes them into these monsters. Are they all poor, are they mentally ill, are they all on drugs?

The answer is yes, and no, and everything else. The common thread, if there is one, is that they are far more like us than not. They are friends, neighbors, family. They are a poor mentally ill kid from Kansas City, Mo., and they are an upper-middle class neuroscience student from San Diego, Calif., who bought a movie ticket and brought hell to a Colorado town.

Everything else I want to say I've already said in the below post from just after the Virginia Tech shootings. I'm reposting here in its entirety because I don't want to forget, and neither should any of us.

Now, Hear This (published April 19, 2007)

An elementary school student walked into his classroom, sat at his desk, pulled a loaded gun from his backpack – and blew his own face off.

This was almost 20 years ago in Jefferson City, Missouri. It was my first story on my first day as a reporter for United Press International. I still remember calling in the copy from a nearby pay phone, the crime scene and the students. I remember thinking how could this happen, why did it happen, and would it happen again.

Twenty years later, all that’s changed is the technology. News moves faster, guns shoot better. But tragedy is timeless.

You don’t need me to go on about the Hokie Horror that devastated Virginia Tech and froze the country in disbelief; we have Anderson Cooper for that.

I’ll just say this: It took five syllables and about a week for Don Imus to lose his talk radio job. Cho Seung-Hui gives us more than two years of warnings via teachers and students, spends time in a mental facility where he’s deemed a menace to society, and we don’t hear a damn thing.

Listen now.

Journalists to Brands: Don’t Give Us “Content,” Tell Us Stories

ALTHOUGH I CAN'T TRACE THE ORIGIN with any certainty, I’m nevertheless pretty sure that the word “content” was first used by a marketer, not a by a journalist.

Journalists are in the business of stories. Always have been – and despite the 24/7 streams of info-snacks and feeds forced through ever-congested virtual pipes, they always will be.

So it should come as no surprise that a recent global study of journalists found that journalists don’t want “pre-packaged” news such as press releases, and instead are “looking for variety in the kinds of stories brands talk about and the way they are told. And they expect brands to be properly engaged with the relevant social networks – not a box-ticking exercise driven by the PR department, but a genuine engagement at all levels of the business.”

In other words, stop with the “content.” Even the word “content” is cold, distant. Content is artificial intelligence. Content fills the feed but leaves you hungry.

Stories, however, are emotional. Stories are history personified. Technology may be the heart of social media, the muscle that keeps it moving, but stories are its soul.

Journalists tell stories and want to be told stories. According to the study, they also want brands to “deploy a full range of storytelling assets – brand stories must be supported by videos, images, infographics.”

It’s also critical that the story be told consistently across platforms and social channels – media fragmentation demands clear narrative so the story doesn’t get lost or misinterpreted like a bad game of “telephone.” These narratives can and should vary based on the channels and makeup of the audience, but ultimately they need to be connected to a larger central theme.

With so much noise disguised as news, journalists want to hear from trusted sources and be engaged in real dialogue with real people. Social media gives brands a perfect opportunity to earn that trust – and if brands are ready, journalists are listening.

The Day the Scoop Died

LONG, LONG TIME AGO, I can still remember how the L.A. Times used to make me cry.

Hardly a week would go by it seemed without them scooping me on some local story. I scooped them once in a while, too, but our battles were more like the Celtics and Lakers in the ‘60s and ‘70s – always in the finals, but like those Laker teams, I rarely finished on top.

We lived by the scoop but for all the wrong reasons. It was about ego, not desire to inform a wanting public. These were the pre-Internet days after all, when a 24-hour news cycle still existed. If you missed a story you missed it by a day, not by a few minutes.

Back then news organizations got “credit” and kudos for being first, and if an error occurred along the way, it would be corrected the next day on the bottom of page 6 in 8-point type, next to the shampoo ad.

Technology has changed this, of course. We now live a world where the ability to be first, even if by mere minutes or seconds, is valued more by the media that being right.

Unfortunately, this is just another example of the media clinging to the past. Today’s technology demands that we be right, because if you’re not, the damage is not buried in a correction a day or two later, but amplified in a public firestorm of embarrassment that can undo a career in the time it takes to send a tweet. Accuracy is more valuable than urgency.

The latest example, of course, is Fox News and CNN’s rush to judgment of the Supreme Court’s ruling on healthcare. Both organizations reacted to the initial Court statement by saying the law was struck down, when in fact the core provisions had been upheld. CNN corrected the error (as did Fox), but not before a screen shot of the erroneous report spread throughout the social Web.

An NBC PR person wasted no time rubbing it in, saying via Twitter: “Important to underscore something I said at @NBCNews social media workshop last week: We'd rather be right than first."

Rem Rieder, an editor with the American Journalism Review, gave a less snarky but no less accurate assessment:

“Now there's no doubt the scoop is a time-honored tradition in journalism. Breaking a big story is a big deal. And that competition to unearth powerful and important stories can be a very positive force. “But worrying about being first on reporting something that is handed to you and everyone else? By 24 seconds? I think I speak for everyone when I say, it's really not important.”

Reider is right – it’s not important. The truth is that years from now, the public won’t remember or care who was first, but they will never forget who was wrong.

Reacting is not reporting, and unfortunately there are too many “reactors” today and not enough reporters. It’s time to go back to reporting the news – the scoop is dead, let it stay that way.

Social Media, Milkshakes, and Life After Death (Father's Day Re-Post)

EVERY FATHER'S DAY I use this space to remember those who don't or perhaps never had fathers. Usually I just repost this story, originally published in 1990 when I was a newspaper columnist.

Today, however, I decided to reach all the way back to 2010 and share a post I wrote titled "Social Media, Milkshakes and Life After Death." You see, when I wrote that first story in 1990, I wasn't a father myself. Now with a daughter about to enter high school, well let's just say I have a new appreciation for dads and what we do, which in my case is to try and screw up as little as possible.

The post is republished below -- and wherever you are this Father's Day, and whatever you do, remember that it will be more meaningful than anything you do at work come Monday.

Social Media, Milkshakes, and Life After Death

(originally appeared December 2010)

ONCE IN A WHILE, less often now than before, someone asks about my dad, and I tell them I never knew my father. He died when when I very young, I say, and therefore I never knew him other than in faded pictures and fractured stories.

I’ve said this so many times for so many years that I believed it to be true. But it’s not. It’s not a lie, but it’s not true, either.

I knew my father. I was 8-years-old when he died, so of course I knew him. I just don’t remember him. In fact I don’t remember anything about my life prior to the morning when I heard he died.

My memory up to that point was erased. I knew my family members and where I lived, but my experiences were gone -- including any experiences I had with my father.

As bad as it sounds, it really wasn’t a problem for me. I wasn’t sad about having lost my dad because, in my mind, I never had one. And you can’t mourn for something you never had. My mind created the ultimate defense against loss: The inability to recall ever having lost in the first place.

Then a few weeks ago something happened. Something scary. Something wonderful.

I was in the car with my 12-year-old daughter. She was drinking a milkshake and had put it in the cup holder when, suddenly, I had this urge to tell her to hold the cup and be careful not to spill it. And just as suddenly I saw my dad, in my head, yelling at me for spilling a milkshake in his car, a brand new Cadillac.

A memory. A real memory, bursting through my synapses with the force of 36 years, propelled by the power of milk and ice cream.

I don’t know why -- whether it was the milkshake that shook the memory from its moorings, or whether it was because I was driving my new car, which made me remember my dad’s new car and the apparent anxiety we both shared about people spilling things.

I don’t know why, all I know is it was real.

So what does any of this have to do with social media? Just this: If I die tomorrow, my daughter may not remember me, but she will know me.

Social media and search have put my entire life online. She will see me, read about me, probably learn more about me than she cared to know even if I were still alive.

Many people still see social media as the Realm of the Narcissist, a place for ego and adoration filled with banal Facebook updates and pointless Tweets. Some of that is true, although there is far more good than bad; far more about social media that moves us forward than turns us away.

I think about what it would have been like -- what I would have been like -- if social media was around when my dad died. Those banal Facebook posts would be priceless to me, those pointless tweets like sparks of light.

I still may not have remembered, but I would have known. And that, I believe, would have made all the difference.

In Memoriam: Remembering "Gentle Genius" Ray Bradbury

IT'S HARD TO BE SAD about someone who died at 91, who lived at full-speed to the end and who left a legacy far greater than even he, a man of infinite imagination, could possibly dream.

Ray Bradbury was all these things -- not to mention a literary hero to geek-kind and, for me, one of the reasons I keep writing. But to catalog him as a science-fiction writer is to miss the essence of Bradbury and his gift to us.

Bradbury was a social scientist, an interpreter and, in novels like his seminal Fahrenheit 451, a prophet of wicked things now coming this way. His novels, short stories and essays were less entertainments than they were observations of human behavior, the good and the bad. And in works like Fahrenheit, they were warnings.

Bradbury gave us a chance to be better. And although he is gone, he is still giving us that chance through his words.

In honor of Bradbury, a man whom I had the pleasure to meet and peek every so slightly into his gentle genius, I'm re-publishing below a post from May 2008 that was inspired by Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451. It's one of my all-time favorites and I feel still rings true today, just as Bradbury's stories continue to make us think and, hopefully, make us the better people he knew we could be.

We Are the Firemen

In May 1993 – the exact date and time escape me – my inner world, the one where thoughts are born, developed and processed, lost its ability to be silent. I since have lived with constant noise, the result of a tumor that, in an ironic nod to God’s comic grace, left me deaf in one ear yet covered in a perpetual blanket of ringing static.

Sometimes it’s not too bad, other times it’s so loud it sounds like there’s a KISS concert in my cranium. But it is always there, never fully abated, never completely quiet. It will never be quiet, and it has been so long I have forgotten what quiet is, what silence sounds like, what kinds of thoughts stillness brings. How much smarter, how less painful the headaches and seizures, how more aware of my environment would I be if only I could hear more – and then, like most people, dial down the volume and hear nothing but thinking.

Rather than go insane, I did the next best thing – I went into marketing. Turns out my decision was less pathos than it was prescience, as I watch my former trade of journalism in some cases melt away, in others morph into a new kind of socially-driven journalism enabled (if not always ennobled) by modern technology.

THE DESCENT OF PRINT alone is not a problem for our society. But the descent of thought is. And this death of reasonable thinking and discourse has given rise to a ringing in all our ears, a cacophony of “social media” for its own sake rather than the sake of the consumer.

Don’t get me wrong (though I guarantee someone will) – I love technology and Web 2.0. I believe in the power of conversation and the promise of connecting people to each other with authentic communications. But in this new silicon rush we far too often discount what’s gone before, throwing judgment into the intellectual pyre like so many worn newspapers.

In other words, in our well-meant effort to broaden and share our knowledge, are we also destroying the very knowledge and reasoned discussion we so boldly claim to seek?

Because we can connect with people like ourselves, we do. And then we act as if other opinions don't exist -- or if they do, then don't matter. We do this within our social networks, the pseudo social media intelligentsia do it at conferences and on their blogs, and the news media does it by giving us news tuned to whatever ideological frequency we desire.

We jump to conclusions and applaud hyperbole until the slightest chance of digesting an idea is gone. That idea is destroyed forever, lost in the echo chamber of self-important consultants and rash Twitter feeds.

Never before in human history has so much information been available so readily to so many. Yet although we are creating and writing more, we are saying less.

IN FAHRENHEIT 451, RAY BRADBURY’S seminal novel about censorship and intellectual intolerance, a “fireman” was someone who burned books. Well, we don’t burn books per se, but we burn discourse. We don't destroy newspapers, but our actions are killing them off just the same. We are the firemen.

So this is my warning and my plea: don’t get caught up in the social media panacea. Instead, experiment and decide what works for you and your company. Focus on the customer first and the technology second. It’s okay to take small steps, to do what’s best for your business, to embrace new tools at your own pace even if it goes against the “purists” who argue that there’s only one way to move forward.

And above all, take time to think, to plan, to discuss and learn. Embrace the unknown and reject those who insist they know it all. Find some silence and make decisions without being surrounded by so much noise.

I would give anything for just a few seconds of mental peace and quiet. Don’t squander yours.

Communities of Intent: The New Bing Tries to Resuscitate the Web

THE WEB IS BACK. Or at least Bing, with its new social-focused interface, is trying to make the Web relevant again – while making Google less relevant in the process.

Over the coming weeks, Bing users will not only get search results, but social recommendations from multiple sources including Facebook and Twitter (and yes, Google Plus.) Search will transform into conversation, tapping your friends and other “influencers” to guide your actions. So for example, if I’m looking for a good sushi restaurant in Los Angeles, Bing will find Facebook friends who posted about sushi in LA and may have a recommendation for me.

It’s search with a pulse. It’s not even a search anymore – it’s discovery.

But most of all, the new Bing is a call to arms against the modern, siloed, fragmented Web.

Planet of the Apps
The World Wide Web is now the Planet of the Apps. Bing wants to be the unifier, to break down the silicon walls and be the one-stop shop for people, places and ideas. There are still some blind spots, but Bing is at least trying to be the Master Curator of All Things Social online.

And let’s also be honest – Bing, meaning Microsoft, wants to kick Google’s ass in the process.

Google’s “Search Plus Your World” approach delivers results from its own Google Plus social network pages more prominently than other Web properties like Wikipedia. This is supposed to make search more personal and relevant – who you know and what your friends like, or share, or do, will have a greater influence on what you see in your search results.

The problem, at least for now, is Google focuses primarily on Google Plus, and even then still delivers results as part of a list entwined with static pages. Google provides links but doesn’t necessarily spur conversations. And it’s still a walled garden at least in term of the broader social web – Google in fact is becoming less like the web and more like an app.

Communities of Intent
Bing isn’t perfect either and still has a long way to go to catch Google in terms of market share and ad dollars. Bing merely won a battle in what will be a long war.

But this battle also represents a significant shift. What true social or conversational search does is move us from interest to intent.

Facebook is great at revealing interest – whether I like cars, for example. Seeing this, an advertiser may target me with car ads. But just because I “liked” the Mercedes page doesn’t mean I want to buy one. I may already own a Mercedes, or maybe I just liked a video they posted. I have an interest in the brand, but uncovering my intent is a far more difficult proposition.

But what if advertisers knew I was looking to buy a Mercedes very soon, and could target me at the very moment I expressed that interest? I’d be a more valuable lead, and therefore media or search properties like Bing could charge a lot more for the pleasure of reaching me.

Communities of Interest are broad and largely static, but “Communities of Intent” are specific, focused, and fleeting. The more that search moves away from providing static results and toward providing fluid conversations that lead to identifiable actions, the more that Communities of Intent will give advertisers quality prospects – and give people ads that they may actually want to receive.

(Disclaimer: Microsoft, which owns Bing, is a client, however I don’t work or communicate with the Bing team.)

Why Most Brands Will Suck at Storytelling

"STORY" IS THE NEW "CONTENT."

As buzzwords go, story isn’t entirely bad -- for years I’ve pushed clients to be storytellers. I’ve berated the descent of story into a furtive sea of “content,” stripping all emotion from human pursuits.

So I’m good with story. But let’s be honest, success lies not in the idea but in the execution. And the truth is most brands will suck at storytelling.

Why? Because most brands won't do what good storytelling requires.

Stories – real, honest, emotional, transformative and inspirational stories – have conflict. They have villains. They have winners and losers. They have personality and flaws, great highs and severe lows.

In other words, stories have many of the things that brands don’t want anyone to know about. So the content – err, sorry, the “stories” they create – get sanitized. Every story ends with “and they lived happily ever after.” That’s great for fairytales but not for real life.

The non-fiction story about a company is inherently more interesting than any fiction created for the purpose of earning friends, followers and customers. It’s what has always worked for marketers and still does:

• Tell a great story
• Create emotional impact
• Embrace your friends and respect your enemies
• Acknowledge mistakes, then fix them
• Don’t ask for trust or loyalty, earn it

Notice I didn’t use the word “strategy.” That’s essential, of course, but too often companies create a strategy first, and then the story. A better approach is first to have a story – not a mission statement or a press release, but a real story. The strategy is the easy part.

Brands aren’t buildings and companies are not logos. There are human beings behind them all, not a great and powerful Oz.

Just tell us a good story, we'll listen. And if you still just want to produce “content” that's fine, as long as you keep calling it “content.” Leave story alone.

A Living or a Life: Preparing for the Second Grand Entry

I'M SOMETIMES ASKED WHY, back in the early ‘90s, I wrote a book on the death penalty. There were the obvious reasons, from my work as a reporter covering capital murder cases to the resurgence of executions in the United States. But the real reason I wrote the book had nothing to do with anything so complex.

My reason was simple. I wanted to know what it was like to know when you were going to die.

I was never too sympathetic toward any of the inmates I met, but I was intrigued and maybe even a little envious of them. Death Row inmates not only knew when they were going to die, they knew how and why. They knew how many days they had left and what they would do in those final moments. They had time to plan.

There are two key moments in life, moments I call the “Grand Entries.” The first Grand Entry is when we are born – we are not and then suddenly we are, just here, sucking air and frantically trying to figure out what’s going on (this feeling continues long into adulthood.)

We can’t plan for this Grand Entry. We just start living and keep on going until time or circumstance forces us to stop.

Then there is the second Grand Entry. Most of us don't see it until it’s too late. But if we choose, we can enter on our own terms.

We can either live to make a living or live to make a life. We can choose to leave an imprint on the world, to leave a legacy, to get affairs in order and prepare for the second Grand Entry.

We still can’t know when this Grand Entry will happen. But if I learned anything from my time with the denizens of Death Row, it’s that the “when” doesn’t matter if you’re ready to go.

The first Grand Entry is a gift. The second Grand Entry is an opportunity.

Don't waste yours.

Why the New Facebook Matters for Marketers – and Why it Shouldn’t

(The following post originally appeared on the Velocidi.com blog.)

Remember the days when Facebook would launch new features and then announce them? What a difference an impending IPO makes.

Now Facebook not only tells us what’s going happen, it has day-long events to educate and court marketers, as evidenced by last week’s Facebook Marketing Conference in New York City. And make no mistake: Facebook is all about marketing now. This isn’t a bad thing or a good thing; it’s just the natural order of things. Welcome to adulthood, Facebook.

But perhaps the clearest sign of Facebook’s power is that the decisions Facebook makes as a business have far-reaching implications for other businesses. What Facebook did last week was nothing short of making every other company that wants to advertise on the platform rethink its own business model, not to mention forcing them to dedicate more resources (i.e., money) to “content development” and engagement.

There are three key reasons why Facebook now matters more than ever to brand marketers:

1) A Tougher Sell: Facebook is rolling out more paid products, but the format will make it harder for brands that don’t have compelling stories or “content” to share – harder still for those who just want to sell you something. I’m fine with the latter, as I’d rather have a brand be honest about the fact that it just wants me to buy something vs. a brand that tries to tell me a “story.” Regardless, some brands will need to change how they connect with customers, which leads me to reason number two...

2) No More “Random Acts of Content”: The Timeline format places storytelling and a new narrative structure, the “layered narrative,” front and center – brands can no longer get away with pushing random and reckless pieces of content through the channel.

Layered narratives allow space for interaction, sharing, collaboration and contribution. Every unique layer makes the source material stronger and the story more engaging. Many brands, however, haven't done this very well. The “early days” of social media marketing -- you know, 2005 or so -- saw brands simply putting their commercials on YouTube or posting press releases on their blogs. The "stories" were meant to be consumed, not shared. Narrative became lecture and story became content.

The digital world expanded but brands did not expand with it. Facebook is now forcing the issue by treating all content – whether a traditional display ad unit or a comment in a new feed – as related chapters in an overall and evolving brand story.

3) End of the “Ownership” Debate: It’s the number one issue inside most companies and agencies – who “owns” social? Is it PR or Marketing? Is it corporate or the business units? The product teams or the customer service folks?

I’ve said for years and to deaf ears that no one function can “own” social media any more than someone can own the air you breathe. And now Facebook has made it official.

With premium advertising now originating from the brand page, it’s essential that earned, owned, paid and shared media are closely coordinated. Think about it: Facebook page community managers create content but are not the same people who create or buy ads – but ads are now, well, “content.” At the very least these two groups need to talk to each other.

PR, marketing, customer service, creative, product, analytics, corporate – everyone needs to work together or the results will suffer. New models and processes will be needed – for example, creating an “audience engagement team” with people from all these areas represented and led by a “quarterback” who calls the plays and ensures that the team plays as one cohesive unit. There will be many new approaches I’m sure, but what’s clear is that the days of the marketing and PR “silos” are over.

One Reason Why the New Facebook Shouldn’t Matter to Marketers at All

There’s a classic Chris Rock routine in which he ridicules people for being proud of things they are supposed to do anyway. “I take care of my kids,” he says, imitating his subject. “You’re supposed to take of your kids!” Rock screams in mock response.
Rock was right – you don’t deserve credit or kudos for things you are supposed to do. So why should we praise brands who, thanks to Facebook, are now dedicating themselves to having deeper relationships with their customers?

I have a question for every brand marketer on the planet: Are you so out of touch with the digital consumer that you needed a technology company to teach you how to talk to your own customers? Really?

You needed another company’s advertising products to convince you to tell real stories and connect with your customers? And now you want credit as an early adopter and trailblazer? You’re kidding, right?

Brands should have been doing this anyway, Facebook or no Facebook. The unfortunate reality, however, is that Facebook’s decision to change its own business model will result in a lot of crap being produced, as everyone will try to become a content marketer, err, I mean “storyteller” now.

Do yourselves and your customers a favor: Don't make the new Facebook a clarion call for creating content, make it a wake-up call for getting back to the basics of listening, learning, and communicating with people as people, not as data.

Do this not just for Facebook or because of Facebook – do this because it’s the right thing to do.