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My Generation…and Yours

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3 generationsDoes the title of this post mean anything to you? If so, chances are you’re a Boomer.

Baby Boomers are the people born between 1946 and 1964, and there are a lot of us. People born between 1965 and 1980 are often called Generation X—“X” as in “unknown.”

And people born since 1980 were once called Generation Y (because they came after X). Now, they’re better known as Millennials. And all three generations are reading what you write.

Now, I don’t want to exaggerate generational differences. Not everything changes in fifteen-to-twenty-year intervals! The advent of cable TV and YouTube means that there are younger people discovering I Love Lucy and Monty Python’s Flying Circus all the time. And you don’t want to fall into stereotypes. There are people in their 50’s who love Sarah Silverman and Lena Dunham, and people in their 20’s who can’t stand them.

If you really want to reach an audience across generations, though, follow these rules:

Http://www.trippbraden.com/2015/04/21/my-generation-and-yours/

Marathon: 4 Lessons Boston 2013 Taught Me about Communication

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“Oh my God,” I said, “I have friends in that race!”

I can’t remember exactly how I first heard about the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, but I know that was the first thing I said.

And I know the first things I did: turn on the radio, and get onto social media.

I spent a lot of that Monday listening for news, then sharing it with the immediate world via Twitter and Facebook.  That Patriots’ Day and the week that followed taught me four lessons I will never forget.

  1.  Write only what people care about.  On Monday, I cancelled any tweets I had pre-scheduled. I ignored any other topic.  I wrote only for people like me who said “I have friends in that race. Are they all right? What’s really going on?”
  2. Write what I know better than other people.  I live in greater Boston, and the local NPR affiliate, WBUR, is my soundtrack every day.  Simply by listening to the radio and following other Boston-area friends on social media, I knew more than 95% of the people in the country.  What I knew, I shared.
  3. Be a source of reliable information.  There were a lot of rumors flying around, and the media were more often fanning the flames than keeping their cool.  We were better off reading the Onion or the Borowitz Report than the New York Post (or watching CNN).  I made sure to pass along only what seemed certain–and even then, I gave my sources.
  4. Listen, and engage in conversation.  When I heard about friends who reported they were safe, I spread the word.  When people asked questions on Twitter, I used @ messages to write them back.  I followed the #boston hashtag to keep track of the conversation in real time.

Looking back at it, it occurs to me: these four lessons are not just for crises.

If you want people to pay attention to what you write, you should write what people care about and what you know best, giving reliable information and engaging in conversation, every time you post, tweet, or talk or email.

Only, don’t write as often every day as I did on Patriots’ Day 2013.  Because communicating with your readers is not a sprint.  It’s a marathon.

Chopsticks, Hammers, and Social Media

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My dear father could never master the use of chopsticks.  He resented people who did.  ImageWhenever we went out to a Chinese restaurant and other people reached for the sticks, he would grumble, “A fork has always been good enough for me.  I don’t know why it’s not good enough for you.”

I think of my father sometimes when I hear colleagues ask why they need to use social media.  I’m a big believer in print, video, and face-to-face contact myself, but I have to wonder: how much resistance to adopting social media comes from the fear that we won’t use them well?  That we’ll be still dabbing away with tools we don’t understand while other people have eaten our lunch?

This fear is unnecessary.  Anyone can learn to use social media well enough for company.  Once we stop worrying about how to master them, then we can really ask why–and get good answers.

Contrary to what enthusiasts sometimes think, it is not self-evident why organizations should use social media. I see people who leap on board each social media trend as it comes along.  They remind me of the saying, “To the person who owns a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”  Social media are tools.  One size doesn’t fit all.  We need to know what they can do, and what we want to accomplish.  Then, we can pick the right tool for the job.

Here are some questions we can ask ourselves to figure out what we really need, whether we are communications conservatives or early adopters:

  1. Who are we trying to reach?
  2. Where does our audience spend its time, and how do they like to get their information?
  3. What can we do for them?
  4. What are we hoping to get them to do?
  5. How much time can we invest?

Then, and only then, can we figure out which social media we should use, and how.  That’s a social media strategy.

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