When I launched my first podcast in 2011, I created a Twitter account to help me promote episodes. Twitter was a pretty good platform to promote a podcast - if you knew how to generate interest in your copy.

It was not uncommon for me to see very generic and simple episode promotions from other shows. They would read something like this:

Our new episode is out now! Listen here!

Episode 233 is now live! Listen here!

​We just dropped our latest show about cow-tipping. Get it here!

Okay, I made up the cow-tipping post, but it represents a limited explanation of an episode. You can insert any topic there.

​I interviewed movie and television actors in my first podcast, and instead of "cow-tipping," I would highlight who I interviewed in each post. 

I thought dropping names would be enough.

I was wrong.

For example, I interviewed Anthony Michael Hall, and we talked about his early success, John Hughes and modern comedy.  It was an enjoyable discussion, and I was anxious to share it with everyone. 

So, when the time came, I promoted it on Twitter. I can't remember what I wrote in the first Tweet, but it was something simple, like:

In the latest episode of the show, I talk with Anthony Michael Hall - (link)

I might have added another minor detail. Either way - engagement was extremely low.

I knew my copy needed something more. In a lot of ways, my post wasn't any different from saying, "Check this out! - (Link)"

So, I thought about the conversation.

What was one of the more intriguing questions and answers?

What was a question that I couldn't wait to ask?

Then it hit me - What was it like for a kid your age in 1985 (17 years old) to play Kelly LeBrock's love interest in Weird Science?

So I created a post that said something like:

"Anthony Michael Hall describes what it was like playing Kelly LeBrock's love interest as a teenager in Weird Science..."
​

• Engagement went way up.
• I picked up more listens.
• And Kelly LeBrock followed the show on Twitter.

It was true then, and it is still true today (especially with all of the other podcasts promoting episodes now) - Give people a reason to click.

​"Check it out" and "New episode!" aren't the best examples.

Think about your audience.

Keep it simple, but be specific.

Finally, make it more appealing than a greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray.

You can also listen, download or share the audio version of this blog.

What makes a good relationship between marketer and their target audience has changed. This has been true for several years, but many marketers have been unable to adapt.

Two ways marketers can ruin a relationship with their target audience are:

1. They approach conversations with a "sell first" attitude
2. They cling to outdated marketing strategies
​
As Judy Ungar Franks, author and clinical assistant professor in the Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University, says - when you apply old-school media thinking to a new media world...nothing happens!

In simplest terms, the catalyst of change in the relationship between marketer and audience is the internet. Trends in social media posts, influencer blogs, customer reviews and instant communications gave the consumer more control in the relationship. Marketers had a lot more power when the relationship was more linear. Back then, they made sales pitches to captive audiences through TV, newspaper or radio.

Then, the world of media and communication began to change.

Suddenly, people could skip commercials and turn to the internet for entertainment. So, marketers followed them and tried to communicate the same way they would on traditional broadcast media.

They found out the results were not the same:

• Their consumers don't want to be "sold" on the internet
• They are not a captive audience, and they can ignore, block or remove you from view
• They need more than a pitch - they need trust, value and recommendations from others

​As Dr. Franks points out in her book, Media: From Chaos to Clarity: Five Global Truths That Make Sense of a Messy Media World:

Old school marketing was about four Ps: Product, place, price and promotion
There was certainty in every medium, limited selection and media was product

Now it's about the four Cs of social: Content, connecting, community and curating
Media are strikingly similar (it's all on screen)

Today, people flock to all kinds of media for a comprehensive, engaging experience, and consumers are the distributors and accelerants of the marketer's content.

If the "sell" or "pitch" is the end goal, you can't spend all your time focused on that part of the conversation.

​Recognizing the change in the relationship is only half the problem. The second half deals with a crowded room of people trying to woo the same consumer. If everyone is talking the same way, it's harder for brands to make their case.

​One of the best ways to optimize communication in a personal relationship is remembering to put yourself in the other person's shoes. This relationship is no different. You have to think like a marketer and a consumer.

When marketers are not thinking like marketers, they can find similarities in how both parties respond to online content.

• What gets their attention?
• What angers them about sales and promotion tactics?
• What content is almost automatically ignored every time?
• What draws them to a brand and what earns their trust?
• How much do time they spend reading, watching or listening to something (and what keeps their attention)?

Think about that. When you're not at work (or wherever you spend time on marketing strategy), how do you answer those questions? 

Remembering your consumer habits can help you develop better marketer habits. At that point, your focus goes deeper than just selling to the other person and puts the relationship on a better path.

Whether it's Terminator 2 or the AMC series Humans, people have always had that worry in the back of their mind about "the machines" taking over. My question is - why don't we have the same concern in marketing?

After all, you can do something about it before it can start to damage your business. Before you get visuals of your office computers growing legs and saying, "Must destroy the company - resistance is futile," let me explain what I mean.

Whether it's Humans or Westworld, the story always starts the same - we develop robots to make our lives easier, and then everything goes to crap. In the realm of social media or content marketing, we're seeing an overreliance on making things easier through automation and analytics while forgetting to be human.

Unlike the apocalyptical machine stories, I'm not suggesting it's something you shouldn't be doing in the first place. However, like a recent Forbes article pointed out - automation still has to have a human touch. This is especially true on social media, especially since it's called social media.

You'll find plenty of brands of all sizes that are doing nothing but automating the content on their feed. They'll post content all of the time, hoping that it will gain them the benefit of your engagement, and that's where the effort ends. You never see them start a conversation, or  start one with wanting all the replies to come from you, but they don't feel they have to add anything more.

This is actually a pet peeve of mine. I've been known to unfollow social media feeds that  feature easy automation but not human interaction. It tells me they don't care that much about my involvement in their online presence. On the brand side, lack of a human element can cost you engagements, shares, reputation and advocacy.

Unfortunately, I also see an overreliance on automation and a lack of human effort from many content marketing and social thought leaders. To me, promoting yourself as a thought leader in social media and then never engaging with people on a platform is like an ad agency touting their social media strategy tutelage while showcasing terrible following numbers on their platforms. ​

If you've spent quality time on social media over the last few years, you've probably witnessed or experience an automated response fail.  For example, there was the time Dominos apologized for a customer's great pizza. I've also seen automation offer a positive response to a post about a negative experience or situation. In this case, the "machine" isn't intelligent enough to respond, but people definitely know the difference.

Another example of an automation challenge that does more harm than good is utilizing a powerful social listening software that doesn't have the right data incorporated into its processes. For example, if Chevrolet told its social listening engine to track people talking about "Chevrolet," they would overlook the audience that refers to them online as "Chevy" or "bowtie."

Bots and automation aren't the only things that provide a critical pros/cons dynamic to your marketing efforts. Humans are also capable of taking data, analytics and code and jumping to the wrong conclusions:

• In baseball, it can be when a manager pulls a pitcher too early because it's what the analytics say
• In hiring, it can be overlooking potential talent opportunities hidden in resume keyword data
• In marketing, it can be confined to specific rules that don't allow much creativity or humanity.

While such parameters could be rooted in meaningful and relevant standards, it's important to have flexibility or awareness of some of the unique ways to create engagement, leads and ROI.  A great example is the story of Nathan Apodaca.

Andrew makes the same point  - Could you pitch an idea featuring someone riding a skateboard on an actual highway with one hand guzzling a branded drink and lip-syncing? If your automatic response is no, you may have some good reasons why:

It's unsafe?
It doesn't directly sell the product (where's the CTA)?
It doesn't fit the brand (but what brand would this fit)?

Then again, you would've never tested it and seen the amazing results. In Ocean's Spray's case-  skyrocketing sales and doublimg their stock. Some people think it's nothing more than one of those lucky viral video stories.  Mark Schaefer says it's a prime example of the power of creating "human" commercials.

"The video is real, raw, human, and vulnerable. Generally speaking, everything ads are not," he said.