In this webinar, Jon discusses humanizing your business with Bryan Kramer, author, speaker, and pioneer of the human-to-human (H2H) concept.
Bryan is a digital marketing expert who empowers people to connect more effectively and stand out from the digital automation that surrounds us to grow their business.
There is No More B2B or B2C — Just H2H
The concept of H2H emerged from social media advancements over the last ten years. Social media dramatically shifted the focus of the business world because it put everybody in touch with the customer, something no other technology advancement had ever done.
It no longer matters whether you are a business-to-business or a business-to-consumer company. Everyone has access to the customer, from the CEO to the person sitting at the front desk. We have the ability to hear from people and engage with people all over the world; anytime, anywhere. This changes the overall conversation from focusing on customer service to social selling.
Stand Out From The Crowd
In order to stand out as brands start transitioning to artificial intelligence and machine learning, everyone in your company needs to be empowered to build their personal brand by connecting listening, and engaging with the constituency around them.
We buy from people — not companies. The things that make us unique and human are what make people want to do business with us. Examine how your social body language lives on various platforms or throughout your digital marketing strategy and start to build your authentic personality into the ways you share.
The delight you get from receiving a handwritten letter or a thank you note is the kind of traditional human marketing that you need to create in order to stand out from the noise of your competitive landscape.
The Three Pillars of H2H
The three pillars of H2H can help you build a better social persona to make you or your company more attractive online and connect more effectively with prospective customers.
Simplicity
Simplicity is vital for effective communication. Whether it is the number of products or services you offer or your communications to customers, keep it simple and easy to understand.
Empathy
Empathy is what helps you connect with customers on an emotional level. When we embrace reaching out with our heart and soul, and listen to our customers to better understand their point of view, they will reciprocate. Companies that have empathy for its customers will win them over and close more deals.
Imperfection
Imperfection is what will separate us from the robots and the machines in the future. It is the imperfections that actually draw humans toward each other. No one is perfect and companies that embrace imperfection with authenticity will be the ones that connect with customers.
Build Communities of People
In order to grow your community, you have to start by building smaller micro-networks first. Look to people you know and trust; Facebook and LinkedIn groups are also great ways to identify the people you should recruit into your community. Similar to the viral nature of events like the ALS ice bucket challenge, everything pivots around smaller communities growing into bigger communities.
Sharing Experiences
With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), businesses will need to prepare for how it will transform the way they do business. What will it do to the noise level and volume of content that is out there, and how are you going to stand out?
The shared experiences of your company are what will help you stand out. The things you are proud of and do together, from company events to volunteer days, give customers greater insight into who you are. Those customers are more likely to do business with you as a result. It is the moments that we share that make us the most human and draw people in to want to get to know us better.
Sharing Emotion
Sharing emotions is what will define us in the future. There are six basic emotions as defined by emotional expert Paul Ekman: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, joy, and surprise. When you share an emotion, the likelihood of someone sharing back that same emotion in reciprocity is highly likely. If you share joy, most of the time people are going to share their joy back.
Sharing these emotions on social media drives a similar reaction from people as well. If you want to be a three-dimensional human-driven company, take your content and separate it into the different categories of emotions and start to think about how you can share it in a more human-like way.
Determine What Kind of Sharer You Are
People share content in different ways. Determining what kind of sharer you are, as well as understanding the types of other sharers, will help you to create content that resonates with your audience. You can take Bryan’s personal brand quiz here.
According to The Psychology of Sharing study featured in The New York Times, there are six general types of sharers:
Altruists
Altruists share from their heart. They love to celebrate in the moment, they like to share things that are near and dear to their hearts, and they like to celebrate other people as well. They typically use Facebook to share most of their content.
Careerists
These individuals like to share content around thought leadership and helping other people through platforms like webinars or LinkedIn.
Hipsters
These are early adopters of learning new things and educating others on what they have just learned.
Boomerangs
Boomerangs like to ask questions and get everybody to talk. They share information to elicit reactions from others.
Connectors
Connectors like to connect two or more people together. They see the power of connection by bringing two (or more) people together.
Selectives
Selectives like to private message, share over a private email, or have a private discussion on the phone. There is a little bit of selectiveness in us all.
Most of us typically lean towards one type, but you can be a combination of many types of sharers.
Use Technology to Make Connections
Technology can help save you time and bring together a more authentic and relevant conversation faster. Here are a few tools that can help:
Nudge.ai offers intuitive networking. Think of it as LinkedIn on steroids. Nudge.ai will import who you are connected to and show you what content they are sharing, enabling you to reach out to them quickly and engage in a richer dialogue. It’s impossible to go through all of the online content of our networks and stay up-to-date on people. Nudge.ai sorts through that for you.
Lately repurposes content you’ve already developed – blog posts, articles, press releases – and creates dozens of social media posts for you within seconds. Instead of handling this process yourself, Lately does it for you, saving you the time of writing, scheduling and publishing social media posts.
Nimble gives you all the features of Nudge.ai, Lately, and more in one system.
Imagine how organized and efficient you could be if you had access to a snapshot of your universe of contacts in an easily digestible format to keep you up-to-date and on task with reminders. Nimble gives you peace of mind and saves you the time and hassle of relying on five different platforms to store and manage your data.
