No, not one of those HR-related mid-year reviews. I’m talkin’ music, my friends.
I’m part of a collective of higher ed folks past and present who post occasionally on the Higher Ed Music Critics blog. And recently (following Ron Bronson‘s lead), I shared my mid-year review of my favorite albums of 2012. Feel free to visit that post and share your thoughts.
A few months ago, one of my co-workers suggested that a term much in vogue among social media marketing types — the word engage — be included in one of those lists of banned or banished words, like the one produced by Lake Superior State University. (Two cousins of engage — “engagement” and “engaging users” — have been on a UK list since 2007.)
At first, I wasn’t so sure I agreed with my colleague. The term “engage” seems to have a nice, um, ring to it. And it’s been useful to describe one aspect of social media marketing — the act of making connections with customers, audiences, those people we want to enga– er, interact with. Brian Solis added an exclamation point to the word and turned it into the title of a book, which I understand has done quite well. Then there’s Chris Syme‘s new ebook about crisis communication. Syme’s book includes the word in its title, and the placement there seems appropriate.
But I must admit that, since my colleague brought the overuse of engage to my attention, I’ve noticed the word being misused and abused widely and repeatedly. Here are a few of the many, many examples I could cite — these from a Twitter search:
“3 takeaways 1 identify + engage your customers 2 take advantage of your biz data 3 look at crowdsourcing models”
“Join us tomorrow with [redacted] for a Twitter chat on how to engage distributors and retailers to stock you product.”
“Lots of companies are using video to spread the word on their products and engage their customers”
“5 Killer Strategies for Brands to Engage on Pinterest and LinkedIn”
“Content is the new way of old marketing. Engage an audience and have them become social w/interesting content. “
“How to spot your best customers online and engage“
Is there anything we can do to rescue engage from its descent into meaninglessness? Perhaps so, if we start thinking about the meaning behind our words. When we talk about “engage” or “engaging” or “engagement,” what do we really mean to say? Are we talking about holding a conversation? Are we talking about getting someone interested in what we’re trying to promote or sell? Are we talking about getting people to interact with our advertising? Fill out a form? What is it, exactly, that we’re trying to communicate?
I hope you’ll think a bit more critically about the use of this word — and any other overworked, misused buzzterms listed in the links above — and if you feel so inclined, to share your thoughts about it in the comments box below.
I’m not sure I’m ready to completely disengage my use of this term. But I will try to think a little bit more about whether it’s the right word for the situation.
What’s not to like about Rohit Bhargava‘s new book Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action? It’s a quick, enjoyable read — perfect for a lazy day at the beach or a business flight. It’s loaded with real-world examples, many of them familiar to most marketing people. It includes quick case studies from a variety of fields (including one for education). It features a complementary website — likeonomics.com — where readers can access bonus material (PDF workbooks and “action guides” as well as links to many of the articles and other resources Bhargava incorporated into his book). And if you’re really pressed for time or just totally ADHD, Bhargava hits the highlights in 60-second recaps of each chapter at the end of each one.
OK, so there were a couple of things I didn’t really like. But they’re minor, nitpicky sorts of things — the stuff copy editors are more likely to obsess over than regular readers, like a typo on a chart in the introduction; but maybe the publisher sent me an advance copy, and that error was corrected before the book shipped). So I won’t go there. Because, well, Bhargava seems like such a genuinely good fellow and it would look like I’m taking cheap shots. And nobody wants to look like a chap shot-taking jerk who points out a few stylistic issues in a book with a title and theme as uplifting as Likeonomics. Besides, there’s more than enough positive and useful information in this book to make up for those trifling errors.
Likeonomics is the second book by Bhargava. He’s a marketing guy at the global PR firm Ogilvy and an adjunct marketing professor at Georgetown, so he comes with strong credentials for writing this book. The premise of Likeonomics (which is pretty obvious from the title) is that even in business, nice guys and gals can finish first.
The point is that you don’t have to be a ruthless, money-grubbing jerk to come out ahead in the world of business or, more to the point for this audience, the world of marketing. This should be obvious to us in the days of social media, when customers can and do use social media to complain about lousy customer service or shoddy products, and their networks can quickly amplify those complaints to a worldwide audience. (United Breaks Guitars, anyone?) But apparently the idea that being likeable is a winning business strategy hasn’t reached everybody in the business and marketing world. Here’s hoping that Bhargava’s book will help spread a virus of likability.
So, on to my top five takeaways from and about Likeonomics:
1. It’s not all about social media. Thanks to Facebook, “liking” someone or something has taken on a new meaning these past five or six years. Bhargava is quick to point out in the preface (“Warning: Unexpected Honesty…”) that“the idea of likeability goes far beyond getting people to like you on a superficial level.” And what is the Facebook “like” if not the ultimate symbol of social media superficiality?
2. Marketing and PR have caused a “believability crisis.” One reason people distrust corporate and government institutions is because of the way they’ve tried to push their products and ideas, or tried to manipulate and spin us into seeing things their way. The now-glamorized Mad Men mass-marketing era that gave us the Marlboro Man “played a central role in creating a culture where people are afraid to trust the media around them,” Bhargava writes (pp. 13-14). This escalating distrust has blossomed into “a full-blown crisis” (p. 14).
3. T-R-U-S-T is the answer. Bhargava believes that the remedy for this believability crisis is TRUST, a handy acronym for what he calls the five principles of likeonomics: Truth, Relevance, Unselfishness, Simplicity and Timing.(OK, I said I wouldn’t nitpick; but Bhargava’s reference to this acronym on p. 55 calls to the first principle “Trust,” not “Truth,” although he got it right in the first reference, back on page xxxvii. I would think Wiley’s copy editing would have caught that. Error-free books go a long way toward inspiring trust among certain obsessive-compulsive copy editor types who review books on their blogs.)
4. Examples abound. It’s obvious from reading Likeonomics that Bhargava is an excellent researcher. He cites numerous examples to support his TRUST principles — from the success of Costco’s ethical business practice model (Unselfishness) and Avis’s classic “We Try Harder” ad campaign (Truth) to the popularity of TED Talks and and the rise of the plain language movement (Simplicity). These examples show the practical nature of Bhargava’s ideas. And he was surprised at “just how easy it was to find examples of Likeonomics in action. It is all around us” (p. 146). I do wish he had found a couple of examples from the world of higher education, but I guess I’m just being selfish.
5. It’s good to be liked. Throughout my reading and re-reading of Likeonomics, my mind’s VCR (yes, I’m that old) kept replaying that portion of Sally Field’s 1985 Academy Award acceptance speech, the one where she exclaims, through tears of joy: “You like me!”
It’s good to be liked. And as Likeonomics and Sally Field both show, being likeable can also be good business.
Update: Tonya Oaks Smith, one of the conference organizers, recently asked speakers to submit video clips about their upcoming topics. She’s posted the submittals on the HighEdWeb Arkansas YouTube site. Enjoy!
Next month, I’ll be heading down to Little Rock to attend a great conference, along with a lot of great higher ed web and marketing folks. The event is HighEdWeb Arkansas, and if you aren’t yet signed up to attend this two-day conference at the end of July, you should register now.
I attended last year, presented on how our campus used blogging to talk about our university’s name change (was back in 2007-2008), and even won the coveted Red Stapler for my efforts. This year I’ll be talking about a topic near and dear to my heart, managing change.
But don’t let that keep you from attending. The lineup of speakers is ah-mazing, a veritable Murderer’s Row of higher ed web luminaries. (I’m especially looking forward to hearing from, and finally meeting, keynote speaker Mark Greenfield, whom I’ve followed on Twitter since my earliest days on that network.) The conference organizers are first-rate pros who are all passionate about putting together a great event, from the programming to the after-hours activities. And many higher ed partners — too many to list here but posted on the conference’s main website — join with the volunteer organizers to help keep the event affordable.
The event is July 26 and 27 in Little Rock. It’s cheap. You should join us. Register today.
