Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #281 - Social Media

Episode Date: November 20, 2015

Mark talks about how he connects through social media to Magic fans.

I'm pulling in my parking space. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And I took my children to school today. Okay. Today's topic is something that I actually spent a lot of time doing that I haven't talked much about, which is my role as a spokesperson and how I interact with social media. So the topic of today is to talk about kind of some lessons of social media, sort of how I ended up being spokesperson and what that role entails, and sort of lessons of how to use social media. That's the topic for today. Okay, so let's start by talking about a little history. So how did I end up being the spokesperson for Magic, or one of the

spokespeople for Magic? How did that happen? So what happened is a flashback long ago. Um, before I started working full-time for Wizards, I was a freelancer for Wizards. And back in the day, we're talking back in the mid-90s, the internet as we know it wasn't really quite there yet. I mean, the internet, I guess, goes way back to the 70s, I think. But that was mostly on college campuses and stuff. Like, I remember that I had access to Wizards' website before I even had a graphical interface. So I used to visit the website, and since I couldn't see the pictures, I would have to, like, learn, like, three up and click is where it gets me where I need to go.

Because I only could see the words. And so if there were visuals to help you, I couldn't see those. And even then, Wizards was really, really early of having an actual website. Wizards was one of the earlier companies that literally have a visual website. And the idea of the World Wide Web, of, I don't know, the early Navigator, Mosaic, the early sort of ways to look at the internet. That didn't really, that came a little bit later. So the early, early days of magic, a lot of the activity was on what was called the Usenet,

which was kind of like a bulletin board. But it was a place where people could ask questions and talk about magic and such. And so I had a little bit of notoriety from just being the puzzle guy. And I'd written a lot of articles in the Duelists. So, I mean, as much as there was notoriety to have in magic, you know, as far as somebody who was talking about magic. So I used to go on the Usenets. Tom Wiley at the time, this was before Tom Wiley came and worked for Wizards.

The way Tom actually got his job at Wizards, so Tom Wiley was the very first rules manager, was Tom would go on to use Nets and just answer rules questions of his own volition of just like, I'm somebody who I think has a good grasp of rules, I will explain rules to you. And Tom used that to sort of end up getting a job at Wizards.

He became the sort of unofficial rules person to the official rules person. But anyway, I was I don't know if actor is the right word, but I would poke my head in from time to time to use that. And when I came to Wizards, when I officially started back in 95, I made a conscious effort as part of my job to sort of like poke my head in. I mean, people sort of knew my name. And once it was clear that I worked for Wizards, that I started

speaking with a little bit of authority. Now, the funny thing is, nobody said to me, Mark, do this. Nobody said I was supposed to do this. I just took it upon myself. So once, kind of like Tom, I just was kind of an unofficial spokesperson. You know, we would do something, I would go on the Usenet to explain what we were doing.

Meanwhile, what was going on is, I also was writing in the Duelist. I was also writing articles. And so, I was going on is I also was writing in the dualist. I was also writing articles. And so I was using the articles to explain things. So I was, a lot of what you guys know of right now of my column, the precursor to my column was in the dualist, in my articles in the dualist. And I would explain how things got designed and I would put together articles. And I was writing a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff.

I also started a column called Insider Trading. And the premise of it was that I was inside Wizards, but I was one of you, I was one of the players, and I'm going to report from inside Wizards and give you a scoop on what's coming. And the whole idea was you guys had an insider inside giving you information. And so I did that column. And so I really started doing a lot of sort of the, I was the person who was teasing things. And, you know, I started doing, my teasers were like, hey, Mirage has

a 12-12 that costs one, 12-12 Trampler, that costs one mana. What? You know. And so I started sort of building a rep. And what happened was kind of my unofficial thing over time slowly became official. That I became, you know, one of the default spokespeople for Magic. So what happened was as social media, as we know, it started to grow, I realized I needed to get involved. So I got on Twitter and I got, I mean, I tried Facebook for a while. I found that Facebook

hasn't been super easy for dealing with the public, just the nature of how Facebook works for me. But I got on Google and I got on Tumblr when that started, and Instagram, and Google Plus, and one of these days, maybe I'll figure out a way to make Facebook work for me. I've never really, Facebook is not, public-facing stuff has never been really easy on Facebook. But I know they've changed stuff. Maybe I need to go put my face back on Facebook. But anyway, whenever there's a place to do social media, I would always check it out. But anyway, whenever there's a place to do social media, I would always check it out.

And so one of the things to remember is, back in college, when I went to school, back in the late 80s, I studied communications. I went to Boston University's College of Communications. I got a BS in communications. That is legitimately true. And I learned a lot about how communications work. Now, it's interesting, from when I went to school back in the late 80s to now, wow, everything's changed. I mean, as far as the means of communication, like the internet really didn't exist when I went to school,

and now it's a giant thing, a giant, giant thing. But what I've realized is, like, it's very funny. When I became a game designer, if you had said to me, okay, how about your college education? I'm like, well, I guess that's going to waste. I'm not, you know, I plan to go work in Hollywood. And I spend a lot of time and energy learning all about communications and all sorts of things. And I thought, oh, I guess that's going to go to waste.

And the opposite's been true. My knowledge of communications has proved invaluable. I did a whole podcast talking about how I started the website for Magic. And I use a lot of my skills of understanding communication, how to the website so I've applied the same things to social media a lot of today what I'm talking about is how best to be using social media oh and when I mean that I don't just mean like hey I'm hey random person on social media I mean in a in the role of a spokesperson someone in which you're talking for a company or a product or you're you're using social media in a more business sense as a way to interact with the public. That's what I'm talking about today. I love social media for

social purposes, but more I'm talking about my role as, okay, I'm one of the spokespeople for my company. I represent magic. I'm on social media. What does that mean? What are my responsibilities? What am I supposed to be doing? So a lot of the things that I believe stem from just basic beliefs I learned when I was doing communication. So what I'm going to do is walk through some basic communication stuff and then see how it applies to social media. Okay, so number one is the following. One of the things I learned, which I think is super valuable, is people don't connect with ideas. People connect with people.

with ideas. People connect with people. So one of the things that's important to understand is when you're trying to build communications, the audience, humans have a need to communicate. So they learn how to communicate. Like Jesse, you know, interpersonal communication skills with other humans, super valuable skill. It is something that you learn at a young age and is something you use your entire life because as a human, you need to interact with other humans. So what that means is when you're using communications as a tool to communicate, you need to think about how humans best communicate. And the answer is people connect to people. That if you are a faceless thing, people don't connect with ideas. And if you have an idea or a product or something you want people to bond with,

you need to personify it in a person. And by personify it, what I mean is, you need to have a person that represents what that thing represents. So, for example, one of the things that's important on social media is, and I believe that you can't just be like, I am product X. Hello, product X is speaking to you. That is just not, it's not approachable. It is not something people can relate to.

What you need to do is be a person. And that as a person, you can represent the thing you're representing. For example, I'm the head designer of Magic. And long before that, I was still the spokesperson of magic. I represent a certain aspect of magic to the public, and so I want to personify those things. For example, magic is something that has a lot of different qualities to it. It has a lot of depth to it. I want my social media to have that kind of depth. There's a lot of creativity that comes along. I want to be seen as creative because I want the game to be seen as creative.

You know, I take all the aspects of the game that I want and I make sure to mirror those so that I, and as much as I can, am personifying what I want people to think of magic. But the important thing to remember is that I am a person. I'm not, you know, I'm not just the magic Twitter. I'm a person. Now, you know, I represent someone who works on the game, and I represent someone who can be the official source. So we'll get to that in a second.

But number one, be a person. And part of that means that you need to have stuff on your things that relate to you, the person. One of the things I believe big time, if you're behind a corporate thing, you at least need to have your name there especially on something like Twitter the audience has to know who they're talking to

that being a faceless nameless thing is just not as easy to connect to you know and that it is important it's one of the major reasons spokespersons exist in the first place to have a person something you can relate to even ironically fictional characters

at least have some personality to them that it's easier to relate to Tony the Tiger than it is to a box of Frosted Flakes. That, you know, that one of the reasons that spokes, you know, characters exist is it's some of the same thing. It's just, it's more relatable. So if you're getting on social media

and you're representing your product, you still have to be yourself. That means make sure people know who you are, know your voice. I personally think it's important to have some personality to it. If you notice on my Twitter, I will definitely share personal things from time to time. Like, hey, you know, I just did this this weekend. Or my daughter's doing this. Or, you know, I will share personal things.

I mean, there's a line. You know, you'll see that line on my blog. On my blog, they ask all sorts of personal questions. You know, I've taken pictures of my toaster and posted it. I've, you know, I've answered stuff about what I ate for lunch or what kind of food I like. There's a line I draw. There's my personal life and my public life, and I make sure the things I'm offering are things I want to offer. Remember, by the way, once you put something on social media, just assume the following to be true. It will be public always for the rest of your life. Do not ever post something that a year from now you don't want to be public or five years you don't want to be public. Anything you

post online, you have to treat it as it's forever public. Okay, so number one, be personal. Be a person. People need to connect with you as a person. Number two is, the way that communication works is that people, you want to become part of people's life. You want your communication to become part of people's life. Now, when I was in communication school, communication was a lot more regimented. Meaning, I have a TV show. It is going to be on at 830 on Tuesday night. If you want to watch it at 830 on Tuesday night, you need to be there. I am printing a magazine. I am going to come out the first of every month. You know, it was much

more what you wanted to do back then is you wanted people to create a schedule and include you in their schedule. That's still true today, but in a much more flowy way. And what I mean by that is, at the time, you used to make destinations that people had to come to. That is like, okay, I'm going to do this thing, and you've got to come see me. For example, let's talk about the website, for example. One of the things that I also try to do as spokesperson is I try to present myself in lots of different ways. Do you want long form? Do you want to hear me talk in great depth about what we're doing?

I have an article I write every week. Do you want to listen to me rather than actually have to read something? Well, I do a podcast, two podcasts every week. Would you rather be more informal? I have a blog, a daily blog you can read. I update daily on social media. I'm on, besides Tumblr, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Google+, I'm on Instagram. You know, I'm a lot of different places that you can be,

and I try to adapt, well, we'll get there. Adapting to the medium, we'll get there, adapting to the medium. We'll get there in a second. Sorry. Jumping around today. Okay. So you want to become part of the habit of the person who you're trying to communicate with.

You want to make sure that your messaging and what you're doing becomes part of the role of the person, part of their habit, The way communication works is people take time and energy to sort of bring communication into their lives. So what you want to be doing is not fighting but going with the flow. You want to become part of people's routine. Now, in the world of social media now, it's a lot faster than it used to be. It's not like I'm now on 830. So there's a lot faster than it used to be. It's not like I'm now on 830. So there's a lot more.

The big thing that's changed since I went to school is the basic ideas are still true. You want to become part of someone's routine, but the dynamics of how a routine works is very different. What happens now is people sort of log into the internet at down times. And what you want to make sure is that you are at a place where people will check in on and that you have enough regularity that they will see you, which is a little bit different. Like I said, I think that communication changes over time

because the means to communicate change. And when you go to communication school, you study a guy named Marshall McLuhan, who I think back in the 60s, he did a lot of the early studying in media. And his famous, famous quote is, the medium is the message. And what he means by that is

the way you communicate, the means by which you communicate, that telling a story as a movie versus a book versus a radio show versus a magazine versus the internet, that they're different, that each medium is a different medium, and that the act of how you talk to somebody is itself part of the message. The fact that somebody, for example, might go on YouTube and watch a video

or go on Tumblr and read your blog, how they interface, that's part of what the message is. So an important part of building social media is understanding what each type of social media does and how best to integrate it in. So for example, we'll use Twitter as a good example. Twitter is very fast and very, Twitter is here and gone. So what that means is Twitter is about sort of being in the moment.

Twitter is very fast and very active. And when you talk about something on Twitter, the idea is that you, it's very here and now. Like one of the things that's interesting is if I post something that has some relevance, some news that people don't know, I post something that's news that people care about, you will see it explode. And Twitter's usually where you'll see it explode because people share information so fast now. And Twitter's the place for instant information, for things to go viral and viral quickly. Now, on the flip side, something like Tumblr, Tumblr, right, it's more blog-oriented. It's more about interacting one-to-one with the

other people, and, like, that lends itself much better to something like question-answers. Not that people can't ask questions on Twitter. They do, but I only answer a few questions on Twitter because that's not the nature of the medium nearly as much. Because Twitter,

you get 140 characters. It's hard to talk on Twitter. It's hard to explain with any nuance anything. Where Tumblr, Tumblr is something where, I mean, I do try to keep my answers short for a different reason, which I'll get to, but I do have the ability to make my answers as long as they need to be to actually answer the question. Okay, so make sure that you understand the medium, how it's used, the role of the medium, and how your audience uses it.

Another good example of that is my Tales from the Pit comic. So what I realized was I was getting involved in social media, and what I started to understand is a lot of the way social media is used is it's shared. And what that means is once upon a time, communication was one-to-one where you connected with the communication. That's not true anymore. That the audience has become part of the system by which you share the information. So what that means is,

when I do something, if other people like what I do, they will share my information or what I'm doing. So what that means is, for example, I have a website, or I have an article on the website. Well, once upon a time, it's like, hey, I'm doing. So what that means is, for example, I have a website, or I have an article on the website. Well, once upon a time, it's like, hey, I'm here on Mondays. Every Monday, come and see me.

That's no longer true. What I need to do is not only am I here and set a schedule and you know when to come see me, but on addition, every Monday, I got to go on my social media and link to my article. Because there are people that never directly go to the website. That all they do is when they see me link, they go, oh, hey, Mark has another article. I'll go read it. And that you have to be more proactive. The way you get part of people's routine is you have to put your place in people's routine. Now, another big part of that is when you are being part of social media,

your job is not, one of the things they say in communication, because of the next point, is content is king. And what that means is the thing that drives communication, the reason people come to communication is there's something that they want to get from it. And one of the things I understand about how communication works is people go to communication because there's something they gain from it that we call takeaways. Oh, I listened to something or watched something, whatever. Was I entertained?

Did I forget about my troubles for a while? Did I learn something? Did I get to interact with somebody? Did I do something that is worth my time and energy? And that content is the number one driver for that. You know? And so one of the things to remember is if you are the spokesperson for your brand,

why is anybody going to pay attention to you? Now there's some pros and cons you've got to keep aware of. Number one is if you're a spokesperson and you need to be open and honest about being a spokesperson, if you are representing your brand, you need to be clear about that. Hopefully nobody who's following me on anything

is not 100% aware that I'm Magic's head designer and that I am a spokesperson for Magic. I am crystal, crystal clear about that. You need to be clear. It shouldn't be like, hey, I'm just a guy, and oh, by the way, I like this product. No, be clear who you are. It is very important when you're doing social media

that you are straightforward with your audience. That doesn't mean you need to say everything. Part of being a good spokesperson is knowing when to say things and not to say things in the sense that you're not obligated to share every piece of information you have, but nothing you share shouldn't be what you truly believe. Like, one of the things that's important for me is

I am excited about magic. I love magic. Magic has done wonderful things for me in my life. It's my favorite game. I owe magic a lot. I really, really love magic. I love my job. I love my job.

I love magic. And so when I get to the public, I'm genuinely excited. When I get to talk about a product, I probably worked on that product three years earlier and have not been able to talk about it since I started working on it. And so I'm excited to talk about it. People are like, why are you so excited? Because I haven't been able to talk about it forever. And I'm proud of what I do.

I'm proud of what my team does. I'm proud of what my entire, what Wizards does. We make an awesome game. I'm happy about that. I want to share that with you. So when I come on as spokesperson, I'm excited. Why am I excited? Because I'm genuinely excited. That's important. And I think one of the reasons I've been a pretty good spokesperson is I'm not faking anything. I honestly like the things I like. I honestly, when I get excited and I want you to get excited, it's not because I'm not really excited. I am excited. Anyone who listens to this podcast knows I'm an excitable person.

And, you know, we work long and hard on making magic. We spent years and years and years making magic. So when finally you guys get a chance to see it, I want you to see it. And I want to tell you what we're doing because I want you to appreciate it. Get back to the segue, which is content is king. So if you are a spokesperson, you need to be very clear that you're a spokesperson. And with that comes a bias, meaning, look, I am the spokesperson for the game. Am I going to be the number one critic of the game?

Probably not. Can I be critical? Yes. And part of being a spokesperson is making sure the audience understands that you are being as honest as you can with them. But with the caveat is, you're the spokesperson. It is not your job to trash your particular thing, you know, and I do not. I will show magic in a positive light.

I will be critical at times. I tend to be more critical backwards looking because I want to see what the audience thinks of something. I don't want to go, well, I'm not sure about this, so let me tell you I'm not sure about it the second the product gets released. It's like, I think you'll like this. Let me see what happens.

See what people, and then once I watch people interact with it, I have a much better chance. That's why stuff like my state of design, where I'm looking back at the previous year, I can be much more critical. And I do believe there's a time and place to be critical. But it's in a place in which you understand the product, and you understand how the audience experience the product. Anyway, okay, so content is king. So you have an inherent bias.

You're the spokesperson. Make sure people are aware of that. But the advantages you have is two important things. Number one, you get to be an official source. Like when I say something, when I say blah, blah, blah, people can go, oh, that's the thing. Mario said it. That's the thing. That's happening.

That when I say it, it's official. I'm the spokesperson. I said it. Okay, that's the thing. Mario said it. That's the thing. That's happening. That when I say it, it's official. I'm the spokesperson. I said it. Okay, that's happening. Mark said it. It's happening. Number two is you get to be behind the scenes.

A lot of what I do is you want to provide original content. Like, why is anybody going to follow you on social media? Because you have content that other people don't have. You get to be the official source. So even though somebody else go, I hear magic zoom such and such, when I say magic zoom such and such, you're like, okay, I can retweet this. I can let other people know this is true because an official source said it. Also, I know things other people don't know. How do I know about stuff for the latest set? Because I worked on the latest set. I was there. I was behind the scenes. You know, I was someone who might have worked on a particular thing or made a mechanic or made a card or whatever. Or, you know, I worked with people who did. And I

can tell you about that. I can tell you what went on. I can tell you behind the scenes stuff. And so the reason to follow me is that I have access to things that you won't know. The other thing that's part of being the official source, but I'll say this is the third thing, is you have preview content. That's something that we have access to. So not only can I tell you behind the scenes, but I also can reveal things ahead of time for other people. The way we do our preview plans is it's not just us that has the previews. We spread out the previews. But as the wizards, we'll have more previews.

We'll do more things. My articles will always have previews. And I'll have a preview social media card. And I will have access to more things because, hey, I'm the official source. So, okay. So the next thing to keep in mind is how... in mind is how, so being the official source means not just being somebody who is sharing things they don't know, that's important, but also part, one of the things that definitely has shifted since I went to school is the idea of how communities are formed through communication.

Definitely, back in the day, people bonded over things, but there wasn't an easy way. If you loved Thing X, you more in person had to find people that liked Thing X. Or maybe there was a magazine that was dedicated to it, so through the magazine you could bond with other people. But right now we live in an age where I love something. There are so many places to find online communities where I can interact in real time, face-to-face with people who love the thing I love. And so part of being a social media person is not just giving information they don't have, but also sharing information that you get about the community itself.

For example, there's a guy who works in some supermarket. I don't even know his name, but he, for a living, for what he does for a living, is he makes balloon animals. And so one day it'll be a giraffe, and one day it'll be a giant whale, and one day it'll be whatever. And I don't know how often he gets to do this, but he is allowed to, every once in a while, make whatever he wants. And he is a magic player. So what he does is, every once in a while, he makes balloon animals out of Ulamog, Jace, Chandra. I mean, I've seen balloon animals of all, I think he made Ugin. You know, it's like, so when I see a picture of somebody who took balloons and made a magic, a giant magic character out of balloons, you know what?

I'm going to share that. That is awesome. You know, when somebody bakes cookies of magic or decorates their store or just does something kind of cool, especially if it's visual, I'm going to share that. You know, if there's information to know, if something is coming up, you know, if we're doing something or there's some cool social media or something, magic gets referenced somewhere, I, and somebody lets me know, I let you know. Because part of being on social media is sharing the community itself with the community.

Of making sure it's not just my own content that I generate, because content is king, but one of the things that shifted is content is king, but you don't have to produce all the content. That's a big, big change. The content can come from other places. Now, I produce a lot of content. I have a daily comic, a daily blog, a weekly article, a weekly podcast. You know, I'm producing a lot of material.

But in the same sense, I'm trying to share material. And a big part of social media and doing it properly is helping Bond to become part of that community. Also, this is crucial. I'm not just, I am part of the magic community. You know, I'm not just somebody who's, I love magic. When I see cool magic things, the reason I want to share it is because I too love that thing. An oolong made out of balloon animals is an awesome thing. I want to

share that. That is just amazing. I, you know, I am part of the community. And I think this is very important, which is that if you want to be good at social media, you need to be part of the community that you're trying to represent. That you have to understand you need to be part of the community that you're trying to represent. That you have to understand the community by being part of the community. Okay, now here's another thing that's really important is if you are being a spokesperson, you need to represent your brand well in a couple ways. Number one, as I said earlier, whatever your brand represents, you have to be those things. You have to embody your brand because once again, people don't connect with ideas, they connect with people. So if you want to make sure the qualities that are important to your brand,

that you embody those qualities. I want people to see magic as being creative, I want to be creative. I want magic seen as being a deep thing, I need to be deep. I want magic to seem as being smart, I gotta be smart. That's important. Another thing is the social media is a jungle in some levels, and you will get a lot of people, part of being a public figure is you will get a lot of attention,

a lot of it negative, but it is your job as a spokesperson to be positive. And here's the thing that I always try to remember, which helps me. One of the reasons I'm on social media is it's my job to make the game fun for all of you. How do I do that? I do that because I interact with all of you, that I want to learn from you, and that one of my secret weapons is I'm just really, really connected in with the audience.

And I have a better handle of what people do and don't like because I'm constantly interacting with all of you. That is really important. It's why I, in some level, I enjoy the communication aspects. That's what I went to school for. So I think I started down this path partly because I enjoyed that. But another part I realized quickly was

it is so beneficial. I learned so much. I have so much ability to do things that you guys enjoy or I know you will enjoy because I interact with you. But an important part of that is remember that every single person you interact with, no matter how negative they are, they are sharing information with you which is valuable to do your job. They are sharing information with you which is valuable to do your job. That every person you interact with is telling you something that will make you better at your job if you listen to them and listen to what they're saying. Now, here's the important thing. People are very, very good at realizing they don't like something.

They are nowhere near as good at telling you what the right thing to do is. So what that means is when you're on social media, if someone says they don't like something, listen. Understand. They might not know why they don't like it. They might not know what exactly needs to be done to fix it. I mean, they'll suggest things and sometimes they're correct. Listen to that, but they're not

always correct. But people are very good at knowing what they don't like. And that's the message that's important. When someone yells at you and says, blah, blah, blah, I hate blah, blah, blah. I mean, I would like to, I encourage you guys to be polite. I try to on my social media to sort of encourage people where they can be polite. I don't think there's a need to be rude. But it's okay to be critical. I encourage people to be critical. If you read my blog, for example, I'm posting critical letters all the time. I want to respond to them. I want to answer them. That doesn't necessarily, because someone's critical

doesn't mean I agree with them, but at least I can either explain why we're doing the thing we are. Sometimes it's like, well, that's true, but either I can go, I think you're wrong and here's why, or I can say, oh, that does happen. Here's why it happens. And that comes at the cost of something else. Or it might just be, you are correct. We should try to fix that. Thank you very much for the criticism. And that comes at the cost of something else. Or it might just be, you are correct. We should try to fix that. Thank you very much for the criticism. And that is a very good piece of criticism. And I think I can act on it.

So it's important. When you are a spokesperson, you need to be positive. And you need to take in what everyone says. And understand that you're going to draw a lot of attention, some of it negative. But you, one of the things I always say is, whenever you do social media, you need to take a second. Whenever you're about to post something, I'm about to tweet something, I'm about to do a blog, I'm about to do whatever you want to do, take a second, read it again, and say, okay, is this what I want? Is this who I am? Is this who I want to represent?

And I erase tons of things. Sometimes someone will say something, and I'll come back, and I'm like, oh, no, no, no, I think that's coming across as too mean, or oh, I'm probably not supposed to say that. There's a lot of times where I

check myself. That's really important in social media of doing a sanity check. And sometimes I'm not sure, I ask other people. In the pit sometimes I'm like, okay, I'm going to read you something. Send or no send. What do you think?

And usually when you have to ask somebody else, nine times out of ten, the answer is don't send it. That's usually what I find. When I know enough to ask somebody else, usually they're like, yeah, you're not supposed to do that. Sometimes they're like, oh no, I think it's okay. But usually, usually, if you know enough to ask somebody else, odds are you're not supposed to do it or you're supposed

to adapt in some way. Okay. So I'm not at work. So let me quickly recap. So my lessons of the day for social media is people are people. You have to be a person. You have to represent your brand in a way that embodies the things that embody your brand, but you need to be a person that people can connect to that involves having some personality, having some personal qualities that people will respond to a person so much better than a faceless entity. Number two is understand how habits work and how communication is part of people's habit. Become part of people's habit. Make your communication something that they integrate into their lives, that they become part of what they do.

That you need to be part of the community and you want them to... The act of doing what they do is using you, that you are part of what makes the experience the experience. Number three is content is king. You've got to make sure you produce material. My example there was starting Tales of the Pit, my comic, to try to figure out, let's make sure I'm producing the kind of materials

that can adapt to the places I want to be. And there's a reason why my articles are 3,000 words and on the website for you to read, where my blog are very short snippets. Oh, one other really important thing is the power of interacting one-to-one. When I meet somebody face-to-face, I meet them for the first time. I'm at a show or I'm at a convention or something.

People always will tell me the story about how the first time they ever interacted with me. I wrote a question and you answered it or I tweeted something and you retweeted it or I wrote you an email and you wrote back to me that those are really really powerful that it's people remember that kind of stuff and that part of what you need to do is interact with as many people as you can um for example I've made a I made an effort I read every email sent to me I try to reveal

everything on my blog but I get so much much stuff I literally can't read it all. But on my blog, for example, instead of answering a few questions in great detail, I answer a lot of questions in small detail so I just can answer more questions and have more people who can say I answered their question. I have a long form, which is my

articles, so I have a place to write in great depth, and I do, but my blog is not for that. My blog is to interact with as many possible people as possible because I want to get out there and reach and get information and share with people. So don't underestimate the power of connecting with people. And finally, make sure that you understand that as a spokesperson, you are representing your brand, and that means you have responsibilities over and above. You're not just another guy on social media. And that means you have to be the bigger person.

You do not get into attacks. Do not go negative. It's okay to be critical of things, especially your own product, done in the correct way. But you want to, you need to be a force of positivity, and so that's important. If you're representing a brand, you can't get into squabbles. You have to be the bigger person. Okay, that, my friends, in 35 minutes, is my take on how best to use social media. So I hope today has given you guys a little better insight,

and I'll be seeing you guys on social media. But anyway, I'm now in my parking space, so we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. See you guys next time.