Dear ,

Today is President’s Day in the US, a holiday celebrating George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  

Many US Presidents provide great examples for using words to inspire your larger community. This includes people who live where your business operates. (BTW, tech giant Amazon learned this lesson in New York City.)

As leaders they inspire us and provide examples of how to act for the greater good.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.” – Bill Clinton

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama

Lincoln consoled troops and families at a time of extreme loss and  asked them to treat each other as human beings. While he only focused on race, Lincoln's words can be applied to today’s broader and more inclusive community including ethnicity, language, religion and diverse sexual identification.

BTW, The Atlantic provides useful insights into Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Further, February is African-American History Month paying tribute to generations of African-Americans who struggled to achieve full citizenship.

So it’s particularly poignant that the Governor of Virginia is confronting backlash from when he was photographed in black face during his school days.

Also, Gucci faced social media challenges with their tone-deaf blackface jumper. 

What does this mean for marketers?

If you’re not sure whether a product or marketing campaign may be considered insensitive to a particular audience or demographic, get outside input. Or better yet, don’t do it!

Take advice from Comedy Central’s host of The Daily Show, Treavor Noah. As a biracial millennial from South Africa,  Noah is a smart, politically astute spokesman for our divisive times. 

In this clip, Noah  talks about his experience being biracial in South Africa (February 13, 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=d5SXQ_zb1XQ:

• Examine that your language and related brand guidelines are inclusive. Check that your firm is inclusive in its products, content and other communications, as well as your content marketing and other presentations. Where appropriate, offer employee training.
   

• Check visual and video presentations for diverse representation. People pay attention to visuals so make sure you convey the correct message. 
   

• Assess how inclusive your organization is in how it conducts business including hiring. 

So regardless of where you live or your race, country of origin, language, or sexual identification, think about how you can improve how you and your business engage with your communities.

Because it’s not just what you say that matters but also how your audience interprets your words.

Click here to get this and previous AMG newsletters on the Web.

Looking to deepen and improve your relationships with your customers as well as your larger community?

Here’s the theory to understand how your marketing works.

Also includes 100 tactics to show your community the love!

Beyond building your reading habit, these 3 non-marketing books will help improve your marketing and personal challenges.

Take it from me, I’ve read them all!

Social Media Marketing World 2019

If so, here’s what Mike Allton is doing with his quarter of a million followers (Yes, you read that correctly.)

I love that Mike gave Stephanie Liu and me credit including links as well as showing readers what to do.

Have you moved social media followers from Google+ or other dying social media platform? If so, please let me know what you did.

Looking to fill your feed with Content Marketing Smarts?

Then check out this mega list that Atomic Reach created. I’m on it along with many of my favorite content marketers.