photo by nick j webb

Which is more impressive? My 1,900 Twitter followers or your 50,000 followers? My blog’s Alexa ranking of 314,000 or your ranking of 750,000? My network of 300-plus LinkedIn connections or your network of 500-plus?

Social media numbers without context are meaningless. I can tell you that all of the 1,900 or more people I’m following on Twitter were selected by me after reading their profiles, giving their tweets a quick scan, looking at their blogs and websites, etc. I guarantee you that wasn’t the case for the guy with tens of thousands of followers who spends all his time promoting his get-rich-quick formula for getting more followers.

For those of us blogging for hundreds (or fewer), not thousands, are our Alexa or Technorati rankings of any real value? I suspect not so much.

Some have run up big numbers the old-fashioned way: hard work over time. And those numbers may in fact represent solid, impressive social networks.

But then there are those who have run up the numbers through the use of auto-follow software and various promotional gimmicks. The question that comes to mind, whether you’re talking about a network, blogging, micro-blogging or anything else social, is the level of engagement.

My point is that numbers don’t tell the whole story. Or even the real story.

Who says statistics have to be boring? Combining the right images with the right facts can pack an emotional punch every bit as powerful as the most compellingly crafted story.

Unfortunately, most of us think that people will respond to “the facts” when presented in a clear, straightforward manner. Forgot you’re dealing with human beings, didja? As overly rational and unemotional as I am, I still respond when you push the right buttons … just as we all do.

Jeff Brooks posted recently on how emotional messaging in fundraising appeals beats rational messaging every time. The study he cited found that emotional content in advertising outperformed both purely rational and a rational/emotional mix (significantly so compared to rational-only).

There’s a reason we respond to the emotional appeal … it’s because we’re wired that way. As much as you’d like to dazzle people with your brilliant logic, logic alone won’t do the trick. You need to make an emotional connection. I’m more likely to stop and think if you do.

The video above does a pretty good job of this. It contains a number of facts that would probably elicit a “hmmn, interesting” response if presented in a whitepaper or typical PowerPoint presentation. This approach grabs your attention and forces you to consider the ultimate question: “What does it all mean?”

Watch and then tell me it doesn’t make your spine tingle just a little.

photo by OK-57

“Improving communication is one of our biggest priorities.”

How many times have you heard this from the CEO? Your boss? Coworkers? It’s beyond counting, I’ll bet.

If you’ve been considering how best to improve the quality and effectiveness of your communication with stakeholders in your organization, the odds against success may seem insurmountable.

Consider your competition for attention. More than a billion people worldwide roam the Internet, 220 million alone in the United States. That’s nearly three-quarters of all Americans, by the way.

We’re nearing 240 million websites composed of  tens of billions of web pages. Facebook has more than 175 million users more than 200 million users. Millons of  Twitter users tweet their 140-character messages to the millions who follow them. If you’re still relying on email, there are a billion email users distributing hundreds of billions of emails per year.

Meanwhile, 100 million-plus blogs buzz about every subject imaginable. Some are no doubt blogging about you as we speak.

And let’s not forget the dinomedia—newspapers, magazines, print newsletters, TV shows, radio programs, etc.

You have a lot of company out there, trying to get their messages across. To say we live in a media-rich environment is an understatement. And if you think it’s overwhelming now, just wait. That buzzing sound you hear is only going to get louder.

Welcome to the communications beehive.

Sure, a lot of it is noise (you may be thinking this is noise). Much of it is never seen, read, heard or acknowledged by another human being. Even so, that’s an exhausting amount of competition for attention. What are your chances of connecting through the din of all that buzzing?

That’s the challenge we all face. It doesn’t matter what your job title is. What your business sells. What your organization is trying to accomplish. Communication is one of the top bullet points in every job description.

There are communication professionals who can help you. But if you’re a small business owner or a nonprofit manager, you may not have the resources to hire one. And you absolutely don’t have the resources to hire someone to handle every communication task large and small. You NEED to get better at this stuff.

Yes, this is giving you a massive headache. But guess what? Much of what’s out there is pretty bad. Poorly designed websites that create confusion. Badly written blogs. Pointless newsletters that say nothing useful. Advertising that in its rush to be entertaining fails to answer the real question: How does this meet my need?

So here’s the good news. If you can do it a little better, with greater clarity and more authenticity, you can cut through all that noise and poke the beehive. In a good way, of course.

That’s why I started this blog. I believe most of us (not all—some people are just hopeless) are capable of improving our communication skills in ways that make us more effective in our jobs and our lives. (In the spirit of transparency, I’ll confess that my wife thinks I’m a pretty lousy communicator at home. Don’t expect any brilliant advice on interpersonal relationships here.)

I don’t believe there are any secret formulas or dramatic overnight transformations. Improving your communication skills means learning to be a better writer and editor. Understanding how to use design to effectively deliver your message. Knowing how to strategize, plan, organize and execute. Developing a basic understanding of the many tools and tactics available to you.

By working at it incrementally, day in and day out, you can improve your communication skills. Whatever your goal—to sell, inform, entertain or just plain be heard—you can do it better.

I’ll share my opinions (because I’ve never been shy about doing that) and pass along what I’ve learned. But I also hope to point you to people who are smarter and better at this than me.

My job here is to find the answers when you’re too busy to do it yourself. Please feel free to share your issues, questions, problems, etc., and I’ll let you know what’s worked for me. Or I’ll point you to resources I think can help.