7 social media lessons from Dr. Seuss

In true Dr. Seuss fashion, his quotes are worth listening to year round, regardless of age.

Guest blog by Heidi Cohen and ragan.com.

Dr. Seuss’ rhyming wisdom provides social media lessons for all of us. Here are a few:

1. “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.” Be yourself on social media platforms and reveal your true essence. Don’t try to be someone else. To this end, don’t pass someone else’s content off as yours.

Social media tip: Show who you are with your avatar and profiles. Include information that proves you’re human.

2. “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” Great advice for social media where space is limited and participants are constantly bombarded with information. Keep your messages short and on target

Social media tip: Integrate your branding into your social media interactions through your language, voice and graphics. Dr. Seuss’ tweets would sound like Dr. Seuss without needing identification.

3. “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” Given broad based use of social media, it’s easy to forget your social media peers may not be native speakers of your language or may have a different understanding of the same event.

Social media tip: Be a social media resource and help others whenever and wherever possible. Support those around you.

4. “For a host, above all, must be kind to his guests.” No place is this truer than on social media platforms where you should be polite and free of all scorn. Remember—you don’t know someone’s background, so err on the polite side.

Social media tip: Be generous in your advice and participation on social media networks and pay-it-forward.

5. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Dr. Seuss packed a lot of social media sense into a short phrase. In 2011, social media showed how people around the world could support others half a world away during the Egyptian revolution and the Japanese tsunami. On social media platforms, everyone has responsibility to make their forums safe. There shouldn’t be cyber bullying or other issues where real people are hurt by what’s said without thinking.

Social media tip: Social media has social responsibility! Take a stand on social media where appropriate to make them safer for people in need or danger.

6. “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Dr. Seuss’ words ring true on social media where it’s important to be transparent. While this involves telling the truth, it doesn’t mean divulging confidential information that would harm an individual or a business.

Social media tip: Help your employees by developing a set of social media guidelines so they know what’s acceptable to say on social media networks when they represent your firm as well as when they’re engaging as individuals. Be aware that privacy on many social media entities can be elusive.

7. “Oh, the things you can find if you don’t stay behind!” Learn to be a social media extrovert and engage with others across a wide variety of interests.

Social media tip: Build a social media tribe to engage with. Pay-it-forward on social media platforms like question and answer sites and participate in group discussions such as Twitter chats.

What’s your favorite Dr. Seuss quote and how does it relate to social media?

As always, comments welcome. Thanks for reading!

 

Heidi Cohen is president of Riverside Marketing Strategies. Follow her on Twitter @heidicohen.

Writing as sense-making

Guest blog by Ryan Namba.

I was reading an interview with Pico Iyer, one of my favorite writers, and a few lines jumped out at me regarding the evolving role of the writer. Iyer is a travel writer and novelist, but I believe his insights go beyond just travel journalism here. (All emphases mine.)

Back then:

… my job was to be an information-gathering machine, kind of an emissary, but certainly a representative to go and take in as many sights, sounds, facts, and sensations as possible, and just saturate the page with that almost like verbal television.

And now:

Now I feel like we all have much too much information and what the writer can offer is freedom from information, a way of stepping out of the rush and commotion and acceleration of the day, a way to try to put it in a much larger perspective and make sense of it ….

Writing can’t hope to compete with the Internet or TV or any of our latest inventions, so it has to stake its claim in those places of silence and nuance, the spaces between the words and intimacy that those other mechanisms can’t claim or colonize so powerfully.

From merely communicating facts to weaving together meaning; from saturating the page to cultivating perspective. To hear Iyer describe the writer’s task, it is less about objective retelling and more about subjective curation and explanation.

As a reader in these data-heavy, info-laden times, I wholeheartedly agree.

Read more from Ryan at ryannamba.com.

One more tidbit from Ryan:

“Green green green green green yel- brown.”

–Every banana I have ever purchased. Ever.

Dem bones, dem bones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our spring/April issue has been well received and we really appreciate your comments and feedback. I think people really love the cover photo, and we’ve also received great comments on the hanai family article about teacher Laura Fukumoto.

And work on our summer issue is going well. It will be our 20th anniversary issue and we’re very excited about it.

So just when we’re pretty pleased with ourselves, I’m reminded that each of our readers has different opinions  on our magazine and different uses for our pages.

One of our writers says she’s seen Island Scene on the floor at her relative’s home. As they start dinner, she hears a page being ripped out of the magazine and someone passes it to her … for her fish bones.

I love this story and am glad our readers are finding new and unique ways make the most of Island Scene. I just hope they read it first!

Thanks again for your feedback and for reading Island Scene and Island Scene Online!

 

 

Pledge to unplug?

Just for a day. Could you do it?

Take a respite from technology and information overload and unplug for a day, from sundown on Friday, March 23, to sundown on Saturday, March 24.

Take the pledge to join the National Day of Unplugging.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. Enjoy it! Whatever will you do with all that time?

Hate mail response

Interested in answers to issues raised from an anonymous HMSA member? Here they are.

Member comment: My co-workers and friends feel you should eliminate or just have your magazine online. It is a waste of our money to pay all these people for this magazine.

Island Scene staff size: I had to smile at this comment on “all these people” we’re paying to work on the magazine. Last year, Island Scene slashed its full-time staff by 100 percent — we had one full-time person and now we have 0. Island Scene and Island Scene Online are produced by HMSA’s Marketing and Communications department, and everyone who works on Island Scene and Island Scene Online spends the vast majority of their time working on other HMSA projects.

Print magazine vs. online only: Our readers vastly prefer the print magazine and only a small percentage of readers has visited Island Scene Online. Those who prefer to read the magazine online can be removed from the print mailing list — just email me directly at Lisa_Baxa@hmsa.com.

Member comment: Cut our premiums and give the doctors and hospitals more.

Cost for Island Scene magazine: Printing costs are about $1 per member per year. We used a household merge mailing list (multiple members with the same address share one issue of the magazine) to save significantly on printing and postage costs. HMSA also uses Island Scene to communicate member information mandated by the government, which also saves on separate mailings.

Member comment: A silent majority feels this way every month we receive your magazine.

Reader satisfaction with Island Scene: According to our most recent reader survey, 80 percent of HMSA members said they read Island Scene. And 85 percent of readers rate it above average; 59 percent rate it 8 or  higher on a scale of 1 to 10.

Island Scene is published quarterly, not monthly.

Cost is the biggest complaint we receive about Island Scene. Which means a few complaints about cost every year from a small number of total complaints. And the concerns raised are about perceived costs, since actual costs are low. Our design team just makes us look good.

Thanks for giving me this chance to respond and feel free to send me any other questions or concerns. Just try not to be mean about it, please.   

Hate mail

I am a reasonable person. Really. If you are an HMSA member and don’t want to receive Island Scene magazine, just let us know. It’s fine — people tell us they are too busy to read it, just not interested, they’re going green and reading it online, whatever.

Let us know, we’ll take you off the mailing list, save HMSA a little money, save yourself some time and maybe some aggravation, and save your mailman from having to deliver one more magazine.

But you don’t have to be mad about it.

Here’s a letter we got recently:

“My co-workers and friends feel you should eliminate or just have your magazine online. It is a waste of our money to pay all these people for this magazine. Cut our premiums and give the doctors and hospitals more. A silent majority feels this way every month we receive your magazine. Sincerely, Upset with HMSA”

I realize that people who write letters like this don’t really want answers to their concerns. They’re just mad. But when you send an anonymous letter with no return address, there’s no way we can respond or even help you get off the mailing list.

In another blog, I’ll address the points raised in the letter for those of you who are interested. I think the facts will surprise you.

In the meantime, just let me know if you want to stop getting the magazine. Here, I’ll make it easy — this is my direct work number: 948-6839 on Oahu. Call me, leave your name and mailing address, and we’ll take you off the mailing list.  Or email me at lisa_baxa@hmsa.com or message me on Twitter (@HMSAislandscene).

And for those of you who will keep reading … thank you!

 

 

Flowery rhetoric vs. plain speech.

Guest blog by Ryan Namba (ryannamba.com).

In his own words: I’m an aspiring minimalist, a fan of all noodle-based cuisine, and a firm believer that it’s never too late for coffee, or too early for beer. I’m an economist turned seminary dropout turned social marketer.

Here’s a recent blog from Ryan on plain speech:

“Anybody can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.” – Charles Mingus

It occurred to me recently: Somewhere along the way, I’ve started acting as if complexity conveys cleverness — that is, the longer and more jargon- and acronym-filled my words, the smarter I must be.

That isn’t true, of course. Even worse, it misses the point of communicating. No longer am I helping to make meaning for the listener; instead, I’m just trying to make myself look good.

Clarity is a virtue. Simplicity and brevity, too, if they get the point across. If my purpose is to inform and not to impress, then flowery rhetoric should take backseat to plain speech.

It makes sense. Now, if only my ego would agree…

Thanks, Ryan.

Comments? Feedback always welcome.