If I Had a Manifesto, This Would Be It
One of the reasons social media marketing is so easy, is that if you have a good brand, and you do a good job, all your social media manager has to do is keep your community informed on what you're already doing, the ways you already make things better or easier for people.
I tell my clients to be open, honest, even evangelical about their principals, promises, and philosophy (click here to read my post on why every organization should have a blog). I also tell them to be open and personally engaging, rather than just another faceless monolith vying for attention in an already cluttered arena (click here to read my blog on being a person online).
So, in the spirit of taking my own advice, I will attempt to lay out a clear, concise, and useful outline of my core beliefs. These are the conclusions I have come to from my experience of being a person and working with people.
1. People are good.
Everyone has an inherent need for community.
If you reach out with an honest hand, there will always be someone who reaches back to grasp it.
When feedback is bad, when it seems like apathy has won, it is easy to forget or doubt the general goodness of humanity. We all have times in our lives when it feels like darkness has set in, either personally or professionally, and I've noticed that during those times I have allowed myself to stray from my community. When I make an effort to reach out to them again, when I am honest about where I am and what's going on, I have never been rejected.
When things are looking up, this is doubly important to remember. It's easy to be flying high on success and forget about the obligation to community, the need to reach out with honesty. "Of course people are good," you think "they're giving me all this money!" But money isn't everything. Personal and professional integrity matters. For example, that's why I always print union (click here to read more) and why I never engage in black hat SEO tactics (click here to read more).
These principals are the reason I insist on working with organizations that share my commitment to community. A person can't grow something they don't value. It's only through honest connection with others that we accomplish anything ourselves. When your business is involved in community, the opportunities are both well-defined and endless.