The Vancouver 2010 Olympics revealed one loud truth that I’ve been hawking about social media for several years.

IT’S PERSONAL!

(sorry to shout)

In my talks when I discuss how to use Facebook and Twitter I note that, like many who use social media a lot, I have two faces — one professional and one personal.

The professional side is simple — keep tabs on companies, groups and people, and gather new from experts report what’s going on in my industry areas.

The personal side a a bit more complex — diverse — well, it’s personal.

Dirty Old Man?

One of the first times I showed my personal Twitter page to an audience I had a young woman in the front laugh out loud when I warned that this might look like the dirty old man side of Steve Lee. And it does. Not an “Aqualung” like dirty old man, I hope.

Here’s a selection of who I follow — gymnasts Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson, musicians Taylor Swift, Kellie Pickler, Amy Lee, Lily Allen, Lady Antebellum, and actors and notables like Kaley Cuoco, Ashley Tisdale, Olivia Munn, Kelly Osbourne, and Justine. Some of these ladies I have met over the years and grown to admire as I see them handle fame and the limelight.

Now to be absolutely fair, I also follow some guys, like Apolo Ohno, Lance Armstrong, Kunar Nayyar, Charles M Blow, Ozzy Osbourne, Kevin Pereira, Donny Osmond, Soichi Noguchi and sh*tmydadsays. So my tastes in who I follow and friend are not entirely disreputable.

Following these personalities is fun, freaky and always interesting — here’s what I mean.

When Taylor Swift won the Country Music Awards entertainer of the year, the first thing she tweeted was “Glad I wore my sparkly dress.” And in the wee hours of the morning she talked about sitting at the dining room table and talking with her folks. Pretty down to earth, but that fits her honest personality.

Shawn Johnson, who parlayed Olympic metals in gymnastics to winning Dancing with the Stars, was showing the dress she would be wearing while judging the Miss American Pageant one day and the next day she tweeted about how wonderful it was to eat a cheeseburger.

If it’s zany and irreverent you like, then follow Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira from G4′s Attack of the Show. Gorgeous Olivia, who is working on a TV series now, is always up to mischief somewhere and thinks nothing about taking you clubbing with her and her friends or apologizing when police cut off the freeway traffic to escort her to the Super Bowl in Miami. Cohort Kevin is just plain hilarious. Once while visiting Austin, Texas he was eating breakfast and began tweeting about the small cactus plant on his table. He couldn’t decided if this thorny plant was a condiment or not, but declared that Texans were tough because they were always surrounded by “weapons” like this.

And the tales go on and on (don’t even ask about Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne).

The Olympics

Then came the Olympics and I got swept up in the moment. From the first days of the coverage I began searching for and tapping into the personal wishes, feelings, fears and shout-outs of the teriffic young athletes I was watching compete each night. Shaun White and Louie Vito (Snowboarding), Lindsey Vonn (Women’s Sking), Evan Lysacek (Men’s Figure Skating), Rachael Flatt (Women’s Figure Skating), Tanith Belbin (Ice Dancing), and others.

Not only were the tension and drama of each individual event and all the issues surrounding the games displayed on TV, but now you heard how some of the athletes felt about each other’s trials and tribulations. Wins were exalted, and failure was met with a sea of positive attitude (think we can replace Congress with these athletes for a while).

Lindsey Vonn, who according to Nielson Company captured the most buzz of all the Olympians on social media, ended most days with a Facebook notes update written just before she went to sleep. From injury reports to the exhiliration of winning a gold metal early on to crashes and broken bones later, here feelings seeped through what she said to her adoring followers. The coolest was when she popped a quick shot out of her holding her gold metal just moments after she was honored.

North Texas local Jordan Malone’s up and down speed skating experience at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics is a chapter in the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” From hopeful, to fallen, to “unfinished business,” the gamut of emotions was clearly revealed.

One night during the snowboarding competition, I actually watched, and then read, while one of the athletes tweeted from the hill atop the half-pipe, just before he “dropped in.”

Even the controversial drinking and smoking celebration of the Olympic champion Canadian women’s hockey team made YouTube as well as worldwide press.

Unprecedented Access

This high degree of personal connection has never before been available to us “normal” people. It was an experience reserved for other personalities, athletes or the rich who could buy their way into the midst of the celebrities. Now we can not only peek into the day-to-day lives of our favorite notables, but even (digitally) touch them, on occasion.

So, for all the marketing and promotion that comes our way from the multitude of brands now flooding social media, there’s still a human and personal side. You just have to look a little deeper to find it.

Just Google your favorite personality and add “Facebook” or “Twitter” to the search. If they have an account, especially if it’s verified, then you’ll see it.

Fair warning — when you fan or follow one of your favorites you may be surprised to find they are a bit more normal than your expect. They suffer from the same ups and down as other “normal” people and wish for some of the same things that drive us all.

Until next time, may all the good news you read be true.

steve

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If your heart didn’t break for the Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette who skated her short program to a third place just two days after her mother’s tragic and unexpected death. Then your heart is colder than the sheet of ice in Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum. If you didn’t feel a tug at your heart and a tear in your eye, then I’m sorry for you because you missed one of life’s true wonders. Courage.

What Would You Do?

What would you do? An only child, loved deeply by your family, who although of average means, does everything they can to provide what it takes for you to realize your dreams. You’ve trained for years. You’re a Canadian National Figure Skating champion. You arrive in Vancouver ready to compete for the Olympic Gold Medal, and suddenly, cruelly a terrible and life-changing event occurs. Your mother dies of a heart attack.

Most of us, I suspect would thank the thousands who expressed sympathy, as Joannie Rochette indeed did, pack up and head back to our tiny hometown of 600 to mourn the passing of our loved one. Most of us would cry, and wonder and wish and remember as we changed our immediate lives to fit the new circumstances. Most of us would put everything aside, stop the world, so to speak. But most of us are not Olympians.

“I always encouraged her to have confidence in herself, to believe in her dreams, to consider the progress that she has accomplished over many years,” Joannie Rochette’s mother Therese said just last month. “But in periods of great stress, I also have the necessary distance to remind her of a rule she knows well: above all, skate for herself, for her pleasure.”

Courage

I do not believe courage is simply innate, something we are born with, but something we inherit and develop over our lives. It is not reserved for the rich, or poor, for the old or young or for those of faith over those who profess no faith at all. History is full of tales of courage in times of war and strife, and those people often tell how it wasn’t a matter of thinking, but just acting. Like the young man this week in Dallas, Texas who, while driving from work to school, stopped and pulled a woman from her overturned and burning car, saving her life.

But the act of Joannie Rochette was premeditated courage. Honestly, what did she have to gain? We didn’t really expect her to put aside her shattered emotions and skate a perfect program. But we’re not Olympians.

If she had skated, fallen, and skated some more it might have been sad to watch but would not have diminished in the least our admiration for her and what she was doing. Her skating could not remove the sadness so clear in her eyes or those of her father. But when Joannie Rochette stepped on the ice that night it was not about her, but about her mother and, oddly, it was about us.

Come Together

For all the dark and miserable things that go on in this world it is incredibly rare when we humans forget what country we are, what color we are, how different we are and freely give our hearts to one person or one thing.

Before the first note of Joannie Rochette’s program music began on Tuesday night she received the warm embrace of a standing ovation from the entire audience at the Pacific Coliseum and probably the millions watching from their homes. It didn’t matter that she was Canadian, or pretty, or white or young or talented. It was because she was a frail, suffering person who wanted to honor her mother and father the best way she knew how, by skating.

So we waited, and watched. Sitting on the edge of our chairs, wishing and hoping (and for some of us, cheering and crying) that Joannie Rochette would skate well. When she finished, those watching everywhere erupted with a great emotional release. Her success was our success. We had willed it to be so with our hearts.

Her program was perfect and her scores a personal best for the season, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that she had the courage to step out on that ice, on that huge world stage and share her love for her mother, her father and for skating with all of us.

Whatever I felt about the Olympics, the countries, the athletes, the commercialism, the politics, the joy and defeat all went out the window and was replaced by the picture of one small, young woman on a sea of white ice — resolute, and determined. Showing us the courage that she had gained from her mother and father, her faith, from friends and relatives in her hometown of Ile-Dupas, Quebec, from her coaches, trainers, friends, and others.

As she waited for her scores, with the glare of cameras watching her breakdown and grieve and under the thunderous applause of an adoring crowd, she completed the tribute to her mother in her native French saying, “Thanks, mom, for being with me.”

Thank you Joannie Rochette for showing us the good, and strong, and loving side of humanity. For having the courage to show your love for your parents and your sport and for letting us be a small part of it all. We so desperately needed that.

UPDATE: Two days after skating her short program, Joannie Rochette achieved a personal best score in her free skate and received a Bronze Medal for the 2010 Olympics.

At the end of her program she clasped her hands together, pointed and looked skyward as if to say thank you to her mother. Still extraordinary, still courageous. Congratulations.

If we’ve learned nothing else from the past few years it is to value dearly what you have.

Along these troubled times it seems we forgot the great old adage to “dance with the one that brung ya.” In our quest to solve overwhelming business problems, we ignored one of the most important groups in our corporate lives, namely employees.

In Crisis: Ask the Ones You Already Hired

As sales declined we saw company after company either dive headlong into risky marketing adventures, just keep doing the same old tired thing or stop doing anything at all. Rarely did any of these three tactics seem to work very well.

Equally rare was the organization who looked inside for help and guidance — who listened to and communicated often with their employees. Why? Because those internal publics are always going to be there, we were told? Because they are not seen as capable of creating sales? Because everybody is nervous about their jobs? And so on, and so on. The answers we heard were many, varied and honest. Companies, for the most part, want to trust and depend on their employees. But they find it hard when times are tough.

Since we hired these folks to do a specific job, it boggles me why we don’t ask them first for their ideas and answers on how to go forward. Who should know the company best? Who knows your strengths and weaknesses better than your own employees?

But since most companies turned away from their own employees we experienced a deepening morale problem with employee groups moving rapidly from nervous, to frantic, to scared, to angry to disengaged. Polls asked employees how they felt about their jobs and results reflected these devolving stages, and a growing lack of care for the company and it’s future. Younger workers seemed to be the first to grow disenchanted, not having years of positive company-employee experience behind them.

Trust Your Employees

If you don’t think one of your most important publics is your employees, just ask the likes of Southwest Airlines and The Container Store who clearly love and trust their employees and show it every day. In turn, those employees act as strong and vocal company advocates. They openly sing the company song because they are rewarded for that. They innovate and create because they are rewarded for that. And they talk about the company, their jobs and how to make things better all the time because the company encourages them to be open, honest and vocal. In other words, the company trust them and they trust and support the company.

It requires a special kind of management to care enough to listen to employees who reside outside of the top floor. A management that is secure in their ability to lead by doing, not just by telling. But as important as the attitudes of officers and directors are, all the levels between senior management and the employees in the trenches are equally important. Sorry to sound corny, but it’s we and us that wins. No “I” or “me.” A break in the management chain will have negative consequences to every employee downstream.

Talk Often, Listen Always

One of the great advantages we have today over our business brethren of the past is that we can talk and listen quickly and easily and constantly. With today’s wonderful digital communications tools it just takes some clear thinking and some time to craft dynamic, cost effective employee communications systems.

Beyond the typical employee newsletters many companies are creating social media-like tools that harness the growing human behavior of Facebook or Twitter. Quick, short updates that can be easily broadcast to groups within the company. These updates and functions like commenting systems are great ways for management to keep tabs on the thoughts and feelings of the staff. This “early distant warning” is great for heading off problems, and can be mined for idea and suggestion gems.

Make Employees Feel Like Insiders

We go to great lengths to make important groups feel like they are inside, trusted and important to our companies. The trick is to do the same with the group that’s already inside, the employees.

Give us a call if we can help.

Until next time, may all the good news you read be true.

steve

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I can’t spend one hour of one day without being bombarded with a litany of stories on how best to employ social media to market my business. How to get noticed on Facebook, step-by-step guides, getting more followers on Twitter, writing so your blog gets more attention and a profusion of other suggested tips and techniques.

But what I don’t see in this deafening roar of information is anyone asking the one and most basic question. Why?

Why?

Why would you use social media tools to market your business? Are they right for your audience? Is your audience already using social media? If so, which ones and how are they being used? If you inject your corporate message into the stream will it be out of character? Do you want to find and engage new customers or talk with existing customers? Are you prepared to listen to what your customers or prospects when they respond? What will you do with that feedback? How about employees, do they use social media now? Do they talk about your company, its products and services on social media? Do you want them to talk, or not?

Oh Who Cares? Just Do It.

Sure, you can do like so many other marketing communicators and just give up to the idea that all you read must all be true or you wouldn’t be reading about it so much. But then, in my opinion, you’re not doing your job.

Scores of questions need to be answered before you can even begin to see how to use employ social media for your company or cause. Nothing magical or very difficult. Just some common sense thinking about what you want to say to whom and what you want them to do once they hear it.

So, sit back, take a very deep breath and two steps away and avoid the knee-jerk inclination to dive in there without preparation. In the end you’ll craft an approach that will work much better for you and for your audiences.

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