Mind Readings: Heartbeats

In this episode of Mind Readings, let's talk about heartbeats. Recently I was having a conversation with a friend who was saying that they felt disconnected from their community. They felt like they were alone, um, that they didn't have that sense of connection that they used to, and they were concerned that maybe their community had forgotten about them. Uh, maybe they umbe their friends were forgetting about them. And this is a fear that obviously has become a lot more prominent in the last couple of years, um, especially in 2020 when a lot of folks were in you know lockdown and stuff, and you lacked the normal uh social conventions that you used to have access accessible to you.

Even today, for a lot of us who are used to going to things like conferences and events, there are fewer of them, and there are fewer of them in person. You know, there's still no shortage of of you know Zoom and webinar events, but uh the in-person events are fewer and they're smaller. And so the question is, how do you mitigate that feeling of being disconnected? And this applies to us personally as people, it also applies to our companies and our marketing as well. The answer is a heartbeat.

A heartbeat is nothing more than something that occurs regularly and frequently that reminds people that you're still there in a good way, in a positive way. Um we do this all the time. There's no shortage of of examples of this. When you uh you leave on a trip, or maybe you just leave for work. You you could you kiss your significant other goodbye, tell them that you love them, right?

When you tuck your kids in at night, uh, maybe there's a tradition of some kind, or uh that is the tradition where uh you give them a hug or whatever, and it's just a regular, frequent thing. Maybe you know, you uh you bring coffee and donuts to the office for for your coworkers um every now and again. You know, maybe it's a weekly thing that you do, but all these things are are rhythms, they're rhythms like a heartbeat that remind people you still exist, and in a way that is not demanding anything of them, right? You when you bring coffee for your friend, or when you uh text your significant other goodnight, uh, or anything like that, you're creating that heartbeat. And that heartbeat is so important because we are creatures of habit, we are creatures of routine, we like routine, we like stability, we like predictability.

As much as um folks may thrive on uncertainty, there's still rhythms of certainty in their overall uncertain uh lives, right? They still do things a certain way, and if you can introduce that sort of heartbeat into your friendships, your relationships, your professional connections, whatever, it's easier for people to remember you. It's easier for people to look forward to hearing from you. One of the reasons why in email marketing, I tell people, if you can swing it, do a weekly newsletter instead of a monthly one. Because it's a more consistent heartbeat.

Boom, boom. Every week, every Sunday or every Wednesday or every whenever, whatever day of the week it is, it gives you a chance to get back in front of people in a way that provides value. If you feel like you're disconnected from your social community, whether it's online or in person, say hello to them. Say hello to them every day. Just open up Twitter or Facebook or Slack or Discord or TikTok or whatever.

Just say hi every day and see who responds. Maybe for a while, no one will respond. But as time goes on, as your audience grows, as people who need to hear that heartbeat find their way to you, you'll establish those connections. People like to feel remembered. People like to feel cared about.

You know, uh when you read a story, um, there was a story on the BBC not too long ago about uh the police finding uh a woman who had died in her apartment and was laying dead in her apartment for three years, right? And finally somebody um actually checked in, like, oh, she's really dead. Um and you read the comments on stories like that, and everybody's saying, that's my worst nightmare that I will just die alone and no one will remember me. Just comment after comment after comment. That's a huge fear that people have, that they will be forgotten.

So if you can be the one to establish that heartbeat, that rhythm, you will be the one to provide that for people and help them feel like they matter. Right? That you're connected to them. What's one of the tips I picked up in community management from a number of Discord servers that I'm a part of? Um, question of the day.

Just get doing something every single day to get your community engaged. Make it a heartbeat that people can look forward to. Same time of the day. You know, when we think back, for those of us who have you know more gray hair than others, when was Seinfeld on? Do you remember?

What day of the week and what time? A lot of folks probably said Thursdays at nine on NBC. Why do we remember this? 25 years later, a quarter of a century later. Why do we remember this?

Because it was good content, yes, but it was a heartbeat. It was consistent. We knew exactly where and when it would show up. And it was there almost without fail. It was a heartbeat.

It was it was that rhythm. Think about your own marketing. How much rhythm do you have in it? Think about your personal relationships. How much rhythm do you have in them?

If you don't have enough, if you end up feeling disconnected, build in that heartbeat. Say hi to people. If it's appropriate to do so in your friendship, say goodnight to people, let them know that you know those people are the last thing you think of before you go to bed, and maybe the first people you think of uh when you wake up. That matters. So when you feel disconnected, find a heartbeat.

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