So, if you use social media to connect with your customers (or fans, or followers, or tribe…), authenticity is a must.

Keep reading to discover five tips to make your company more “human.”

#1: Use your name

Putting a name (that’s a real, human name) on your blog posts, tweets or status updates shows your audience that you’re not a robot or an automated stream of sales pitches and company news. Using your name when updating social media humanizes your content and makes you relatable for your audience.

If you use a team of people to update your accounts, each one can sign off on his or her contributions. Even if they just use initials to save space when posting to limited-character services like Twitter, this shows your audience that thought and effort have gone into creating and distributing your content.

Comedy duo Hamish & Andy sign off their tweets and status updates to show who contributed the content.

#2: Add a face

Adding a face to your social media accounts works in the same way as adding a name. It humanizes your content and gives your followers an idea of the person behind the keyboard.

If you prefer to use your company logo or a product image as your profile picture, you can still use photos to add real-person value to your presence.

Many companies have “meet the team” pages, with information about the company members and what they do. This is a perfect place to add a team picture or individual photos.

David Hartstein has some great tips for using photos effectively on your Facebook page, which can be equally useful when adding pictures to your website, Google+ account or photo-sharing sites like Flickr.

Maintaining professionalism in your images so they represent your brand well is a must. As you can see below, IdeaPaint balances fun and creativity in its team photo to show off what the brand is about without losing its professionalism.

The IdeaPaint Facebook page features a great team photo.

Adding new photos regularly is a great way to keep people interested in what you’re doing as a brand. You can show the personality behind the logo by adding “behind-the-scenes” photos and sharing your work in the community through pictures.

#3: Connect with people through your writing voice

So now your audience knows your name and what you look like. They feel like they recognize you, but they don’t know you yet.

Adding personality (your voice) to your content creates a whole picture of you as a person. If you want to connect to people (Remember my intro? That’s what social media is all about!), you need to be a person.

People don’t connect to corporations, robots or automated messages.

Aussie bookshop The Nile does a great job of adding personality to tweets.

Your voice is a huge part of drawing in your audience and engaging them. The way you write has to replace facial expressions, body language, physical gestures and tone of voice, all of which help you get your point across and keep your audience interested in face-to-face communication.

That’s a big task for a 400-word blog post. It’s an even bigger task for a 140-character tweet! Which is why analytics and research are so important to companies using social media—we need a way to measure whether our voice is coming across in our content, and whether we are engaging people or turning them off.

Developing your voice takes time and effort (what doesn’t in social media?), especially if you are acting as a channel for your company’s message.

The important thing is not to quash your own personality in favor of your brand’s message. Writing like you talk can be difficult at first, but by free-writing in your spare time, or just through practice, you can incorporate what you sound like in a conversation into the way you write.

Re-reading your work is important here, too. Even a short blog post can give you some great insights into how you sound by reading it aloud or going over it with someone else.

Jeff Goins has some great tips to help you find the things that make you unique, and how to develop your writing voice to reflect who you are.

With a face, a name and a voice full of personality, you are now a fully equipped human being! Exactly the kind of person your audience wants to talk to, which means you can get your brand’s message across more effectively.

Now for a couple of tips on how to interact with your audience using your new-found humanoid existence!

#4: Listen (the great equalizer)

One of my favorite things about social media is that it acts as an equalizer in a way that no other communication channel does. Unlike writing letters, calling a switchboard or emailing a support team, social media can (and often does) give you access to Fortune 500 company CEOs, celebrities, future employers and those amazing people who make it all possible: web developers.

You can use this to your advantage.

By interacting with your audience on their turf, you have already taken the first step. But engaging your followers takes more than being in the right place at the right time.

If you show up on Flickr and try to generate discussions about new home-security equipment, you probably won’t have much luck. Or if you start a Facebook fan page and fill it with legal jargon, your fans will probably dwindle quickly.

Interacting with your audience in the right way is imperative to a successful social media strategy. This is where listening comes in. Listen to your fans; not just to find out what they say about your brand, but also how they say it. How do they interact with you? How do they interact with each other?

Listening has proven to be influential in driving social media campaigns. Listening, as opposed to talking (or selling!), allows you to determine the best way to connect with your audience.

Monitoring mentions of your brand name, your own name, your industry and your competitors shows you where the conversations are happening and what people are saying about you.

Once you’re in the right place, listening to the conversations around you (and about you) will give you the information you need to jump in with a useful comment, propelling the conversation. You can also tailor your content to be more personal and engaging by listening first.

The great thing about social media is that the consumer finally has as much power as the corporation. Your customers will show you how to engage them, if you will just listen.

A company that listens immediately demonstrates genuineness, originality and credibility. And you know what those equal, don’t you?

#5: Determine why you are here

To quote Jay Baer, “for many companies, the conversation has shifted from ‘why’ or ‘should’ we do social media, to ‘where’ and ‘how’ social media should be done.” The only problem is when a company decides they need to “do this social media thing” just because everyone else is.

No matter what your strategy for social media, you must have a reason for it. Otherwise, you’re just adding to the noise.

Having goals for your social media team (or just you!) to work toward will give your content purpose and will give you motivation and clarity in monitoring and updating your accounts. This will eliminate the wishy-washy gap-filler posts that lower your brand’s credibility.

Plus, your audience will be more likely to get on board if you not only create and share great content, but also have a demonstrated purpose behind your actions.

What do you think? Does your company do a great job of showing authenticity as a brand? Or do you need to adjust your approach? Maybe you have some great tips to add? Leave a comment in the box below and let us know!

Are you considering using humor with your social media activities? If so, this article reveals some tips to get you on the right track.

Why humor?

It’s no surprise that using humor in advertising is an effective way to connect with your audience and humanize your brand or company, but what about using it for social media?

Adding humor to your social media strategy can be a great way to get people’s attention.

If you appeal to your audience emotionally, you’ll have a much better chance that they will further engage with your brand or product. Doing so will help your customers remember you, share your content and have a better understanding of what you stand for.

Finally, an emotional appeal differentiates you from the millions of other companies out there bombarding their social channels with nothing but self-promotion.

If you’re not “humorizing” your brand, product or business, then you might be missing out on a ton of unseen potential.

Here are 5 tips to help you get started:

#1: Ask yourself WWJD?

(What Would Jerry Do?)

Jerry Seinfeld has a simple formula for comedy. He takes everyday situations and asks himself, “What’s funny about this?” Apply this type of thinking to your brand, product or company.

A perfect example of this is Otterbox, a manufacturer of protective gear for handheld devices. Check out how they take a seemingly boring product and make it funny as hell.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ApUYl8t7Ms

#2: Keep it clean

Steer clear of controversial topics and jokes in bad taste. A good example is earlier this year, fashion designer Kenneth Cole tried to be funny but instead won the award for most insensitive tweet of the year.

The offending tweet was eventually removed entirely from Cole's feed, and a statement about the incident was posted on his Facebook fan page.

#3: Wittiness is terribly underrated

Twitter and Facebook updates can go a long way with the right quip. Use your wittiness to compete against big budgets. Here are three perfect examples of how the wit is mightier than the ad dollar.

Here’s a tweet from “Rebel Red,” part of the www.MiddleSisterWines.com.

Their philosophy: Smile! It won't mess up your hair.

A witty take on a popular quote for a Facebook update from Cups and Cakes Bakery.

Join them on Saturdays for Cupcake Super Happy Hour!

And a brilliantly funny Facebook update from Boccalone: Tasty Salted Pig Parts.

Known for their authentic Italian sandwiches.

#4: Just because your company is serious doesn’t mean all marketing has to be

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Poke fun at yourself by doing a parody of your company or your industry. HubSpot wears their marketing mullet loud and proud—mixing the business up front with the party in the back. Check out how they spoofed social media with Foursquare Cops.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4rfzYul9O8

And in this video parody, IBM had some fun with Art of the Sale.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSqXKp-00hM

#5: The best humor comes naturally

Experiment by recording video interviews with quirky customers and employees. Again I reference Otterbox as they apply this principle very well. Check out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH4GeskwiTY

Being Funny Is a Risk

Some people might not appreciate your company’s brand of humor. Business owners need to observe their target audience to make sure humor fits.

Being funny may not work for healthcare, financial services or any highly regulated industry.

The target market must always be considered. Running tests and focus groups to gather feedback is always a great idea. Try using an online survey to test your attempt at humor against an internal audience before you send it out. Comedy is subjective so don’t expect to please everyone.

Using humor in social media levels the playing field between big-budget creative ad agencies and a clever marketer. Try having fun with your social messaging. You’ll know it’s working when your customers enthusiastically reply, “That’s gold, Jerry!”

What do you think? If you’re using humor with your social media, let us know how it’s working for you. Leave your comments in the box below.

Rohit talks about how to put personality back into your company to tell a better story about what you do, get people to believe in your company and tell everyone about it.

Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.

Personality matters because people matter. Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video about how to humanize your company:

• What you can do get personality back
• Where to focus your attention to humanize your company
• How to identify the employees who are your “accidental spokespeople”
• How to cultivate these people to become a voice for your company
• Why Innocent Drinks has a great personality
• How to find the right backstory model for your company
• How to humanize your brand

Find out more about Ogilvy on their 360° Digital Influence blog. Connect with Rohit on his Influential Marketing blog and download a chapter of Rohit’s book at Personality Not Included.

How do you humanize your company? What tips do you have to share? Please share them in the comment section below.

In this interview I talk with Scott Monty—head of social media for Ford Motor Company—and the man in charge of Ford’s social media presence and initiatives like TheFordStory.com.

When you think of Ford, you might think “old American car company.” However, under the direction of Scott Monty, Ford has become one of the leading big businesses in America using social media to connect directly with consumers. And it certainly seems that Ford is on the right track to success, recently reporting 1 billion dollars in profit!

In this video, you’ll learn how Ford uses TweetUps to help Ford executives connect with customers across America and how Ford is humanizing its brand. Scott also provides advice to other businesses that are looking to capitalize on social media. Scott also has a little fun, as you’ll see…

VIEW VIDEO HERE NOW:

What did you think about the video? How has your opinion of Ford changed in recent years?