Ripping Off the Band-Aid

In his “Authors @ Google” talk, one of Dan Ariely’s most interesting stories involves his experience in a hospital as a teenager while being treated for severe burns. He recounted how the nurses would remove his bandages in one quick swoop, an experience that he dreaded due to the incredible pain. This technique was utilized because the nurses believed it was the most effective way to limit his pain, a logical assumption considering the pervasiveness of “ripping the band-aid off” as common wisdom. What’s extremely interesting about this, however, is that later in his life he was actually able to test this theory, running experiments to determine the best possible way to deliver pain so as to minimize its intensity. What he found was that a slower method would have actually been preferable. When confronted with this truth, one of the nurses responded by asking “what about my pain?”, referencing her desire to have the emotionally taxing process over with as quickly as possible.

I feel like many businesses are making the same mistake as Dan’s nurses when it comes to implementing a social presence for their brands. A brief overview of the Twitter and Facebook accounts of many businesses, not to mention their Youtube and Tumblr, reveals a communication strategy that’s either non-existent or crammed with self-serving press releases. Despite this, these brands continue to promote their presence and develop extremely sophisticated custom tabs and apps. In my opinion, these CEOs and CMOs are acting just like Mr. Ariely’s nurses, seeing a challenging and potentially painful transition and opting to dive in head first.

The issue with this philosophy is that much of what makes for a great social media presence is predicated on time and effort. Truly leveraging the platform requires a culture and mindset that was easy to neglect just five years ago. It requires a certain level of openness and willingness to communicate with users on an individual, personal level that would have been nearly impossible to scale before social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Unlike flipping the switch on traditional advertising, these platforms are built on relationships and communication in a way that some businesses may not be initially capable of. That’s not a comfortable thought, however, and I understand that. It’s tough to accept change, especially when it strikes at something that you’ve known and understood at your core.

In the end, the important person in this equation isn’t yourself, it’s your company and your employees. Taking the easy way out may work right now, but it’s going to put your company in a much more difficult position in five years. It’s a great thought, declaring a company is now “social”, but in practice it’s more beneficial to focus on small victories and build the foundation. It may be a more difficult process as a whole, but it’s ultimately what will be effective and thus, the right decision for the company.

As a company that helps businesses establish effective and sustainable social media communications strategies, we face the same struggle every day. It would be great for us if we were able to advise clients to dive in, knowing that with us looking over their shoulder they’ll be able to handle any situations that come up. The sooner we get into an aggressive communication strategy, the sooner the client will start seeing big results and the better we look. What happens after we leave though? As a principle, we believe that every company should be able to handle their own social media communication – not building the correct basic skills and mindsets makes that impossible. So in the end, we have to fight the same temptations as the businesses we help, which is healthy. If Dan Ariely’s nurses had been burn victims in the past, they would have chosen a more effective method.