It hurts my perfectionist nature to say this but communication is changing and in today’s market good enough is now good to go. This is not an excuse to do bad work in the name of efficiency but rather coming to terms with the new behaviours of consumers.
The sheer volume of messages and information have forced today’s consumers to develop very short-term memories. They view bite-sized messages quickly, process for relevance, and then act or move on. This happens almost instantly. That post on Facebook or Instagram that you worried over – it’s gone. It was someone’s 3 seconds of entertainment and now it’s forgotten. That email you spent an hour editing and making perfect – it was skimmed over and deleted or forgotten.
It’s possible to make your work life easier, produce more content, faster, and increase awareness for your brand without killing yourself. Here’s my personal Good to Go Tips that I use and which has been a tremendous help in the past few years.
1. Know the Level of Quality Needed.
There are now two standards of quality when thinking about content or output that you produce. One is of very high quality and the other is of very high frequency. Very high quality is about the great idea, high production cost, longer timelines and hopefully a longer shelf life of relevancy. For these projects such as a new service, produced video, printed materials, signage etc., it’s important to take the necessary time required. For most emails, social posts, quick pieces of content or comments, even many print and digital ads – don’t allow yourself or the organization to go through the same channels of approval or editing. It will kill momentum and stop people from creating content because the hassle will be too much.
2. Ensure Brand Maintenance, not Brand Status.
Every marketer and leader wants every brand touch point to be adding to the brand status they want to achieve and they think it’s about high quality that gives them that status. The reality is that people form stronger relationships with frequency rather than quality. Think of a friend you have a great time with once a year vs. the friend you have a good time with every week. The friend that’s there for you all the time is the better friend and the one you value more and give more time to. Your communication and projects that are built for frequency should maintain your brand and not detract from it. Make sure it’s a consistent voice, tone and brand personality and avoid negative or controversial comments. Controversy gets more attention and comments but it can also lead to brand image issues if you’re not careful.
3. Practice Makes Perfect.
If every post I create is meant to be even better than the last one, I would never be able to write every week. School and even some work environments place pressure on employees to be perfect with each assignment and task they perform. There are circumstances and industries when that pressure is absolutely needed but it’s this fear of failure and rejection that stops people from engaging in open public communication that today’s social media channels require. Bite-sized communication with high frequency is not going anywhere so you might as well embrace it and practice often. Get your hands dirty today, learn from mistakes (they will happen) and start to apply more frequency to when and how you’re communicating. You’ll personally get better and your organization will get better as you practice more. Besides – consumers have short-term memories and they’ve already forgotten about it anyway.
Have a great day!
Braden