What do you do when someone comes to you and asks, “So, if you were to speak at this year’s TEDx, what would you talk about?” I’ll give you a hint:

Step 1: Crap your pants. It’s a trick question, the Kobiyashi Maru of speaking proposals, and there is no right answer.

Step 2: Instantly, a brilliant idea will come to mind. THIS TALK WILL BE BRILLIANT!

Step 3: Watch about 327 TED talks.

Step 4: Realize that your initial brilliant idea is much more Chia Pet than iPhone.

Step 5: Continue to freak out, even after they’ve accepted you into the speaker lineup. The freakout duration generally spans from about a week after you agree to speak until about 4 days after you walk off the stage at your event.

I’m frequently asked why I decided to write a book called The Power of Unpopular. My most common answer is that I feel we need to rethink what unpopular means. Some people get it. Others? Well, they do what others do. They don’t. And that’s perfectly okay.

On September 22 here in Boulder, Colorado, I was able to tell the story behind why I feel the way I do about “unpopular” at TEDx Boulder 2012 in front of an audience of more than 2,000 people (no pressure, right?!). And today, since you probably weren’t there, I’m sharing it with you. A few caveats before you hit the play button:

• I shared this evening in September with 9 other incredible speakers. Without each of them, none of us would have had an audience to share our stories. You can see their talks via this link. Thank you to Shannon Paige, Don Whittemore, Jenn Rubio, Hannah Nordhaus, Nathan Seidle, Alena Grabowski, Tim Shisler, Christin Myrick, Bella Hudson, Avery Bang, Brady Robinson, and Rob Drakin for being a part of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
• Events like TEDx Boulder, which happens to be the world’s largest independently organized TED event outside of the annual TED conference itself, don’t happen without incredible sponsors, organizers, and volunteers. THOSE are the people who make these things possible.
• The audience at TEDx Boulder was amazeballs. They shared four hours of their Saturday evening with us. They laughed, cried, applauded, breathed, and they are the single most important goal for any TED event. Without them, we’d be speaking to a sea of empty chairs. So the next time you speak, think about thanking your audience. They’re worth it.

If you like the talk, hop on over to YouTube and give it a like. Leave a comment. Share it with someone you know who might be a fan of Sarah Palin, polar bears, and pie charts. But most importantly, maybe it’ll help someone you know change the way they think about “unpopular.”

If you’re viewing this via email, click HERE to wach the video online.

If you’d like to download any of the slides from my presentation, you can view the Flickr gallery here.

The post Is it Possible to Rethink “Unpopular”? appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

When a brand is able to bring me to tears before 7am with a story well-told, let’s suffice it to say that they have my attention.

As a gal who travels hither and yon on a regular basis, I’m no stranger to Expedia. Search for this, search for that, book a hotel, do some vacation-flavored dreaming when I should be doing something else with my day — it seems only natural that they’d look to tell their brand story through the eyes of their customers.

The people who use their site every day to get from where they are to where they need to be, want to go, or have always dreamed of being.

Or in the case of one man, a place he never (ever) dreamed he’d be going — to walk his daughter down the aisle as she married another woman.

Here in the United States, we’re smack-dab in the middle of a heated political season — and gay marriage is a leading issue. Expedia could have taken the easy way out and shown a father or mother facing another heart-wrenching challenge regarding one of their children, but they didn’t. They chose the unpopular path — celebrating their customer, even though there was a certainty that they would lose business, suffer from backlash, and put their brand at a potential risk on account of choosing to tell this particular story.

Today, I’m celebrating Expedia for making the unpopular decision and telling a beautiful story that’s drawn the ire of a very specific demographic. Want to see the backlash? You can see 30 of the most outrageous reactions to the commercial here on Buzzfeed. But for the (to-date) 203 people who have openly disliked the video on YouTube, not to mention the adverse reactions posted on Expedia’s Facebook page, they’ve done the one thing that an unpopular brand always endeavors to accomplish: they’ve made a decision designed to honor their audience. And to their credit, stated that if this isn’t a story that sits well with you, you’re welcome to make your travel purchases elsewhere.

So bravo, Expedia, for a story well-told. Last week, you brought tears to my eyes before my morning coffee had even settled, and all through the simple act of celebrating your customers…even though you knew that some of your long-standing customers wouldn’t stand by and celebrate with you. And the best part? The people who choose to stay after you chose to take a stand will happily take turns holding the door so the folks who want to make their travel decisions elsewhere can leave with ease.

Stop by Expedia’s Facebook page and read one of the over 4000 comments and if you’re so inclined, add your click to the pool of 30,000 likes and growing on this particular video alone.

The post Celebrating Expedia – A Most Unpopular Brand appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

And then you start learning. You realize what you did right, wrong, sideways, completely fucked up, and how you can do it better –so that’s what the Unpopular team is doing: doing it ALL better than we did before.

There’s a big re-launch for The Power of Unpopular coming up, and today, you get to see the first part of it: the book trailer!

Thanks to the talents of Quality Schnallity – we’ve got the book boiled down to a minute. And shit howdy, I even got to keep some personality and snark in there to boot.

Enjoy — and can’t wait to hear what you think!

Can’t see the video in your email? Click here to see it online.

The post Black Sheep — RIGHT to Your Inbox! Announcing…the book trailer! appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

It happened while I was at the grocery store the other day. I was in the oral hygiene aisle to grab some toothpaste and I realized I was staring at a giant wall of teeth cleaning paste. WTF? Didn’t we just use baking soda 60 years ago? (Wasn’t my mother just shoving baking soda and a toothbrush in front of my face when I was 9?) How did we get to the point that we need “Total Whitening Complete with Tartar Protection and Gum Cleansing Agents?” NOW IN XTREME MINT!

We’re inundated with decisions. Which car to drive, which music to listen to? Hell, I go to the coffee shop and I have a choice of whole, 1%, skim, almond, hemp, rice, or soy milk to put in my latte. What happened to, “Here’s your black coffee. Cream and sugar on on the table.”?

It gets overwhelming. That’s why I’m so thankful when companies like Chik-Fil-A and Urban Outfitters (much to my disappointment, the owner is a fan of Santorum and also owns a personal favorite store, Anthropologie — DAMMIT) let their social agendas be known. It makes my job as a consumer SO much easier. Honestly, we need more brands like these.

I know the LGBT issue has been in the limelight for a while now. Regardless of my stance on the issue (which is solidly in favor of love is love and I think people should be able to marry penguins), brands are making their stances on social issues known and it’s about damn time. They’re making it a no-brainer for me to quickly determine where to spend my money and vote with my wallet, which is why I’m saying that we need more companies like Chik-fil-A.

On the other side of this fence, I’d like to thank the companies who gave all the “traditional marriage” fundies the middle finger by coming out of the corporate closet and saying, “We see absolutely nothing wrong with being gay.” Companies such as Oreos, which posted a simple photo on their Facebook page in support of Gay Pride, and JC Penney, who hired Ellen DeGeneres as one of their spokeswomen, then had Mother’s and Father’s Day ads sporting same sex couples. These are the companies who are brave enough not to mince words and say, “Fuck it. Equality is awesome.”

Also, kudos to Target. After having a bit of a kerfuffle with gay rights activists a few years ago for contributions to a gay rights opponent, is now coming out strongly on their pro-gay marriage stance by selling gay marriage greeting cards and starting a same sex gift registry.

So, yeah, I still have a ton of brand decisions to make every day and, no, I don’t have time to research every single purchase I make, but when companies decide to take the unpopular road and make a bold statement on their religious or political decisions that make national headlines, it helps me so much in my day to day life.

And, in order to make your life a little easier, here’s a list of companies that are vocal about gay rights.

Amazon.com
Microsoft
Starbucks
General Mills
JC Penney
Macy’s
Levi’s
Apple
Google
Home Depot

And here’s where I’m curious: what companies and brands can YOU share that make their views known and help you make wallet-based decisions? Share them in the comments. I can’t wait to hear what your wallets are saying.

The post We Need More Brands Like Chik-fil-A appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

…said every parent or adult trying to comfort a teen or young adult trying to cope with being unpopular.

“Boy, you have a valid point and I shouldn’t care what other people think of me.”

…said no teen ever.

Today, parents, I’m giving you the gift of a list. A list that will prove to your son or daughter that, yeah, it can suck to be unpopular, but look at the things you might just accomplish by doing things the unpopular way.

Ada Lovelace. Man, do I have a lady crush on this woman. Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Yes, she was Lord Byron’s daughter. Yes, she was married to an aristocrat. Yes, her name is perfect for a 1950’s pulp spy novel. But you know what she really did? She only came up with the first computer program ever written…in the mid 1800s! That’s right, this woman was the original lady hacker. Unfortunately, because she was blessed with a uterus, she found it hard to be taken seriously by her contemporaries.

Henrietta Lacks. OK, so she didn’t change the world as much as her cancer cells did after she passed away. For some reason, this woman’s cells never stopped reproducing even after she died. No kidding. It sounds like something straight out of X-Men, I know, but these cells are STILL alive in research labs around the world today. HeLa cells (because scientists like to shorten everything) have helped researchers develop the Polio vaccine, test cancer treatments, and develop treatments towards managing various infections. So why didn’t we ever hear of this woman before? Well, she was black in 1951. She passed away in the “black wing” of a hospital and doctors never even obtained permission from her family to take samples and run experiments on her after her death. In fact, it was decades before her family even found out about HeLa cells.

Gregor Mendel. Chances are that you probably studied Mendel in high school science class. But since it was high school science class, you were probably either asleep or doodling on your Trapper Keeper to pass the time. Mendel pioneered genetics before it even had the name “genetics” attached. Oh, and he was a monk AND a scientist. He developed the “Laws of Mendelian Inheritance” that explains genetic inheritance in most plants and animals. However, his findings completely conflicted with how science thought inheritance worked at the time, so he was completely disregarded as a whack job. Oh, how time can change things…

Samuel Mudd. This guy. I’m fairly certain that most people haven’t heard of this guy. As far as human beings go, he was kind of an ass. He was outspokenly pro-slavery and anti-Lincoln (yeah, Abraham). He was sent to life in prison after being convicted of conspiring in the assassination of President Lincoln when he set John Wilkes-Booth’s leg after he broke it during the assassination. But here’s where it gets… different. While he was in prison, there was an outbreak of yellow fever and after the prison doctor contracted the fever and died, Mudd stepped up and took over. He treated both the guards and the prisoners equally and pretty much stopped the epidemic. This guy is definitely a head scratcher of a person and he was certainly a very unpopular human, but he held to his ethics and his code of conduct as a doctor, even through prison.

Jane Austen. That’s right, guys. The alliterative author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice was not very popular during her life. But not because she was a jerk or anything — she was unpopular because she was unknown. All of her work that was published during her lifetime was attributed to “Anonymous Lady.” People totally loved her stuff, but she really didn’t care. She was all, “Here’s this awesome literature. Don’t you dare put my name on it.” It was only after her death that she was given credit where credit was due.

Ashok Gadgil. Gesundheit! Sure, his name doesn’t roll off your tongue like John or Bear Blu, but this inventor has and still is changing lives in third world countries. He invented a UV light that allows people to quickly and cheaply disinfect their water supply, as well as a highly efficient wood-burning stove that makes it so that women in Darfur don’t have to spend days out of every month gathering wood in war-torn danger zones of their country. So why haven’t we heard of this guy? Well, to put it bluntly, his work is boring and it’s not commercial. He’s not sending out press releases letting everyone know how much good he’s doing for the world. He’s just plain doing it. And apparently if you don’t care about your image when doing charity work for the Third World, no one cares back.

Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov. Vasili single-handedly saved the world and prevented World War III. (I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty impressed.) On October 27, 1962, he was a Soviet naval officer on board a nuclear submarine, which was under attack by the U.S. Navy in waters near Cuba. The Soviet government authorized the officers on the submarine to launch a nuclear missile, but only if the three officers aboard agreed unanimously to do so. The other two officers, who outranked Vasili, voted to launch, knowing that it would start a worldwide nuclear war. Vasili voted not to. Instead, the submarine surfaced and surrendered (risking the lives of everyone aboard), the Cuban Missile crisis began, and the world continued to exist.  This man voted against the wishes of his government and his superior officers, and risked his own life and those of everyone on board his submarine, and he refused to fight back when attacked—all because saving the entire human race was higher on his priority list.

Nikola Tesla.  Tesla’s inventions and theories are largely responsible for wireless technology, alternating current electricity, electronic devices, and radio communications as we know them today. He was a great inventor and theorist.  Tesla came into conflict with Thomas Edison, who was very good at being popular, marketing his inventions, and discrediting anyone he didn’t like. Tesla also, as The Oatmeal puts it, “suffered from a disorder we now commonly refer to as ‘being batshit insane.’”His mental illness made him unable to socialize, promote himself, or fit in well with regular society. He also swore off dating or sex in order to focus more fully on his scientific research. Poor Tesla died alone, penniless, and confused. He’s becoming a very popular icon for steampunk enthusiasts, science lovers, and fans of underdogs, but only today.

Captain Silas Soule. Soule was born into a family of Civil War-era abolitionists, and from an early age participated in many revolutionary activities in support of racial justice (including helping with the Underground Railroad and trying to spring John Brown from prison), but he is most famous for his actions surrounding the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado. By then, Soule was a Captain in the U.S. Cavalry. On November 29, 1864, Soule’s commanding officer, Colonel John Chivington, ordered him (and 700 other soldiers) to attack a village of Cheyenne and Arapahoe camped by Sand Creek. The villagers were peaceful, mostly women, children, and old men—including chiefs who were trying to negotiate a peace treaty with the U.S. The village was flying an American flag as a sign of goodwill. Soule argued against the attack, but Chivington ordered it, anyway. Between 70 and 163 native Americans were killed and mutilated, the soldiers taking trophies (scalps, fingers, ears, genitalia) from the bodies. Soule disobeyed Chivington’s orders and told the troops under his command not to attack. Soule and his company were unable to stop the massacre, but they did not participate, and some historians believe they actually helped some villagers to escape. Soule later blew the whistle on Chivington, and testified against him in court. During the court investigations, mobs outside chanted, “Stand by Sand Creek!” and Chivington and his followers dragged Soule’s name through the mud, testifying that Soule was a drunk and a coward. Soule was cleared of these charges, but he was widely hated and multiple attempts were made on his life. On April 23, 1965, Soule was murdered in broad daylight on the corner of 15^th Avenue and Arapahoe Street in Denver. His killer was arrested, but allowed to escape, and never heard from again. Soule was 26 years old, and had been married for 22 days.

Sooooo…unpopular today? It’s not necessarily going to be what your classmates think of you, your glasses, your jeans, or your looks that matters down the line. The above people accomplished some pretty amazing things and guaranteed – people thought they were nuts. Or in some cases, unremarkable. But they did what they did with passion. And remember Henrietta Lacks?  She might have been what some would consider unremarkable in her lifetime, but she made history in 2010 and became the subject of a New York Times bestseller when a writer decided to share her “unremarkable” story with the world. An amazing story, an amazing woman…and instead of worrying about your story today, wouldn’t it be better to think about the story people might tell about you for being brave enough to follow your own, perhaps unpopular, path?

The post Nine Awesomely Unpopular People from History appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

The folks over at Name.com asked me to spill the beans on the book. They even let me cuss (though some of the bombs have been strategically blipped out. DAMMIT!). I’d pretty much do anything for these guys, and here’s why:

Remember last year when GoDaddy’s CEO or something did something stupid (again) like support SOPA and there were hoards of folks looking for a new domain registrar for their websites? Well, Name.com stepped to the plate with massive discounts and kinda stuck it to GoDaddy where it hurt.

And I liked it.

So here it is, 3 minutes of semi-professionally edited insight into my head…and a lot of reasons I wrote this book in the first place. (And I got to pose in front of a super cool mural in downtown Boulder…)

The post Marketing Shenanigans: Name.com Interviews The Redhead appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

Admit it. You’re guilty of it. You see someone in a wheelchair. Someone wearing a prosthetic arm. Someone walking with the assistance of a white cane. You see them and you feel pity. You try not to make eye contact or stare at what makes them different from us. You automatically assume that they’re weaker than you because they don’t have all of the same limbs and sense you were blessed with.

London’s Channel 4 is out to change the way you’ll ever look at anyone with a physical disability again. I don’t think there’s really anything I can say that will properly preface the amount of awesomeness in this clip for the 2012 London Paralympics, so you should really just watch it. Now.

Meet the Superhumans from STITCH on Vimeo.

Yeah. Damn, right? Who else feels like a total jackass for being so proud of that five miles you ran on two perfectly normal legs this morning? *raises hand*

The point of the video isn’t to shock you into watching the London Paralympics for no reason other than morbid curiosity, and I think that becomes pretty clear after only a few seconds. What this video asks you to do is rethink how you imagine an athlete at the top of their game.

Sure, the media loves a good come-from-behind story when it comes to Olympic athletes, but why the hell aren’t they looking and some of the most incredible underdog stories in sports? Blind soccer (or football, if you’re in any other country on the planet)!? Wheelchair rugby?! Are you kidding me?

These athletes (and, yes, super humans for a number of reasons) have not only trained to become top in their sports field, but they’ve also had years of physical therapy and battles the same as any full-limbed folk with overcoming depression, bullying, mind numbing medical bills and God knows what else.

This 90-second spot points out all of this and, I don’t know about you guys, in the end, I’m left with a feeling of awe. There’s no pity left. These athletes demand to be taken as they are and not treated with kid gloves.

So what the hell does this have to do with unpopular branding? Well, for one, it proves that unpopular doesn’t mean that it’s unlikeable. I doubt many of you watched that video and thought, “Boy, I really think less about the physically handicapped community now.” But it also proves that by confronting what makes people uncomfortable doesn’t always result in a negative backlash.

It takes balls to put out marketing that basically says, “HERE! LOOK AT THIS THING THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE! LOOK AT IT MORE! KEEP LOOKING!” to the point that, by then end, you don’t see the disability as that at all. All you see is people who have more emotional and physical strength than you may ever have and it makes you want to root for them.

And, yeah, you want to stare at them. You want to see them in their wheelchair or fancy prosthetic. You want to see what they can do. How far they can push the limits of the human body.

And the Paralympians are all, “Fuck yeah, stare all you want. Now watch me do things they said I’d never be able to do again.”

The post 90 Seconds of Must-See Paralympic Action (and why you should care) appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

I’m a longhand notes taker. I rarely use a computer when in meetings or brainstorming. Everything is ink-and-paper (never pencil — ew). I was asked by Pilot Pens’ Power to the Pen program to craft a handwritten post to their campaign that talked about some thoughts or events from my childhood that have been influential to me later in life.

I thought the only appropriate place to take the pictures of these posts was adhered to the fridge in some way.

And here that is — and thanks to Pilot for asking a gal who loves ink-and-paper to be a part of this movement. The Power of Unpopular is delighted to share the Power to the Pen. You might think it’s old-school. And that’s OK. I dig ink. (Have you seen how much I dig ink?)

If you want to find more of these handwritten posts, simply click on this Twitter search for #powertothepen for great links!

Note: we were all sent some Pilot Pens and paid a wee bit for our participation in this campaign. Which is nice. But I would have done it anywhoo…

The post Power to the Pen: Lessons From My Childhood About Doing Good Business appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

I woke up on a Friday morning not too long ago to a phone that was exploding with voicemails and text messages. Up until July 2, I lived a stark half mile from Aurora, Colorado, and am a lifelong live-action comic book flick junkie. Many of my friends and family didn’t yet have the news that I’d moved 30 miles away to Boulder, Colorado.

They just wanted to know that, for once, I hadn’t gone to see a movie like The Dark Knight Rises on opening night. Thankfully, I had not. But as a professional who makes her living as a columnist, author, and advisor to brands regarding online communications practices, my state’s recent tragedy has become a case study in both exemplary and abominable behavior by brands far and wide.

The Fear of Screwing Up

A blog on the Harvard Business Review posted a study this weekend with some not-so-shocking statistics on brand attitudes towards social media. Thirty-five percent of brands indicated that they had not yet adopted social into their organizations because of fear. Given the social buffoonery that proliferates the digital space on a daily basis, it’s only compounded in the wake of tragedy. Brands are flat-out afraid of what their employees will say and do. In the case of my state’s tragedy, there are two incidents that shine as raving examples of what not to do.

First, there was Celeb Boutique. A fashion brand based out the U.K., they hijacked the #Aurora hash tag and latched Kim Kardashian onto it. You’ve likely seen it by now, but here it is in case you need some catching up.

Given that the theater shooting incident was international news by the time I woke at 6 A.M. Mountain Time and Paris has canceled its previously scheduled premier that evening by noon my time, this was inexcusable. A simple search for the hash tag would have slain this misguided brand’s ego-fueled dragon and protected it from bashings on Gawker, the Los Angeles Times, TechCrunch, and countless others.

On the flip side, public relations professionals got a special dose of special when we opened up our afternoon queries email from HARO (www.helpareporter.com). Apparently, E! Online was trying to ferret out news sources to say whether or not violence and shooting in movies contributed to the Aurora theater shootings. Reading it, I was sickened that a celebrity-laden tabloid-style news outlet was looking to boost its broadcast with a sensationalized story about the tragedy that had just rained down upon my community. While not social media in the “everyone can see it” sense, it was an action trying to fuel a story that would inevitably be shared – solicited under the guise of concern when all the while the concern was ratings and click through traffic.

These two brands – they screwed up. One screwed the pooch and queued up a very public lambasting while the other screwed itself with every HARO subscriber who looked at that query and thought, “Will you stop at nothing?”

It’s no wonder brands fear social media – brand audiences are ruthless and in the instance of the theater shootings, the community merciless when brands show disrespect to hearts, families, and neighbors who will never wake up feeling the same way again after Friday morning. But there’s a better path to alleviate the fear, I think (and one of which my fellow Coloradans would heartily approve).

A Bit on Social Responsibility

When a brand acts in a way their audience doesn’t expect, it will always be subject to criticism. Brands are stewards – protectors – of their audiences. If you’re in charge of running a brand’s voice in the digital realm, you have three responsibilities:

• Protect your audience – this is first and foremost, as they are the reason you get to wake up and do what it is you do every day.
• Stay informed – there’s this snazzy thing called the internet and you can find the most amazing things on it. You are trusted by your audience to deliver news, nuggets of information, and all that is the latest and greatest. You’ve got no business writin’ if ya ain’t readin’ what’s going on in the world.
• Protect your brand – this is more easily accomplished if you take the first two responsibilities to heart. When you protect your audience, they will protect you. When you keep them informed while protecting them, you build trust, which translates to an emotional investment in your brand. That’s the best protection you could ever have (and you can’t buy it – you have to earn it).

Local news and radio outlets throughout Colorado displayed the best examples of social responsibility. Instead of blasting sensationalized, breaking headlines and rolling through morning music programming per usual, something incredible happened. The morning shows became outlets for public sentiment, with call after call letting Coloradans know they weren’t alone with their feelings. News stations and radio alike consistently shared hotline numbers that concerned friends and family could call in advance of the victims’ names being released. We became a community banded together by information – Colorado media became a brand that protected their audience, kept them informed, and in turn, elevated themselves above the shock tactics and opportunistic headlines.

Colorado became re-invested in Colorado on Friday.

The Takeaway

I am grateful that no one I knew opted to see the movie premier in Aurora last Friday night. My heart is heavy for those who will never view something so simple and exhilarating as going to a movie in a positive light again. But there lies beneath this tragedy a beautiful lesson for brands (and perhaps states and nations) to glean regarding the power of community, and ultimately, the obligation we have to those who compose it.

We protect our own – to the best of our ability. While we can’t plan for every contingency and frankly, whack-job that will cause us headaches and heartaches, we can build an infrastructure that will support our community’s weight should an unwelcomed day come. To operate out of fear means that we let the bad guy win before he even tries to bring us down. Instead, let’s look to ignore the idiots, the insensitive, those who want to step on us while they rise to whatever “top” it is they envision.

Representative Ed Perlmutter, the Representative for this Aurora district, said it best, perhaps – and something that applies not only to our community, but perhaps your community (your brand) as well: “Colorado is not a violent place, but we have some violent people. We are a strong and resilient community, and we will lean on each other in the days, weeks and months to come.”

As that’s what a community does. We lean on one another when outside influences disrupt and we come back stronger.  That’s not unique to us here in Colorado, though we’ve risen from Columbine and we will rise from this, too. It’s just what communities do.

Just some thoughts from a live action comic book flick fan and branding consultant in Colorado.

The post The Fear of Screwing Up: Social Media, Social Responsibility, and a Brand’s Obligation appeared first on The Power of Unpopular.

Any author who expects the reviews of his book to be 100% sunshine and puppies is nothing short of delusional — especially when you’re writing a book with the word “unpopular” right in the title. This week, however, I got a bit of a shake-up. A reviewer on Amazon wrote a review that grabbed me by my sassy little red ponytail and wrote a review that:

1. Made plain he didn’t like my tattoos (which frankly, had nothing to do with the book)
2. Made plain he didn’t like my vernacular (which he dubbed “potty mouth”)

And here’s the kicker — As I started this post this morning, I bopped over to Amazon to link to the review…and it had been deleted. I can only assume that the author of the review opted to delete it, but here’s all that remains from a post I made over on Facebook about it:

And after a lot of digging, I found what is left of the cached review on his Amazon profile page:

The review generated over 20 comments from various sources, but here’s the gist:

• The reviewer admitted he didn’t finish the book.
• The reviewer was a part of Amazon’s Vine Program. This is where prolific reviewers are sent complimentary copies of a book in exchange for a review by the book’s publisher in conjunction with Amazon. So my publisher got to pay for him to receive a book for which he wrote a critical review and then got to delete the review when the heat in the kitchen got turned up.
• The reviewer mentioned that my tattoos made it difficult for him to take my book seriously (as we all know how tattoos, body piercings, scars, hair dye, and other cosmetic accoutrements are valid tools for discrediting sources).

And you know what? I LOVED the review. Simply loved it. I even left a comment for the reviewer thanking him, saying I would take a 3-star review any day from someone who named my tattoos and “potty” vernacular as the leading reasons. You know why?

Because Mr. Loren Woirhaye proved the concept for my book in one easy review.

No matter who you are or what you do, there will be people in this world who don’t — and never will — dig it. And that’s beautiful. And as an author, I’m grateful for every single review like Mr. Woirhaye’s that comes in. I’m grateful for every awesome piece of hate email that filters through my contact form on my various websites. Because here’s my litmus test:

When the volume of emails and communications I receive is overwhelmingly positive — I’m doing something right.

Negative reviews, emails, shitty tweets, and the run-of-the-mill I don’t like yous are your reality checks. Because life ain’t a field of unicorns and supermodels that crap $100 bills. There will always be someone who doesn’t like what you do.

So here’s my tip to authors — and anyone — who gets a negative review about anything:

1. Say thank you — and mean it. Every time I get a less-than glowing review (and y’know, 3 stars is more than half of 5 — think of it that way!), I thank the person who took the time to write the review. They didn’t have to. And in this case, the guy did something that was damn amazing — inarguably proved the concept of my book.
2. Consider the source. There’s a ninny in every office or community that has to be heard about everything. Then there are people who operate in the space you want to dominate and might be the audience you’re trying to reach. Take the time to figure out who’s talking and if they’re just talking for talking’s sake.
3. Share. Honestly, sometimes the negative reviews are funny (as was the case here). Not only was I grateful for for this 3-star review (where he, in earnest, wished me the best in my pursuit of unpopularity), I was simply ecstatic that it had come in! Critics have been around since the dawn of time (ever see History of the World, Part I?) and they’re not going anywhere. Embracing criticism and sharing that you not only receive it, but appreciate it, is a great way to get a pulse from your audience. In this case, sharing generated over 20 comments on Amazon (now deleted, including one that said, “Well, now I HAVE to buy the book!”), 60+ comments on Facebook (you can see the respective posts here and here) and a few book purchases.

If you have the book and haven’t left a review on Amazon — PLEASE stop by! Here’s the direct link. And remember — opinions are like assholes — everybody has one. Embrace the assholes. They get rid of stuff we don’t need, in every sense of the phrase. I truly wish that the reviewed hadn’t deleted his review (and honestly, I think it’s crap that he got a free book, left a review, and has the option to NOT stand by it), but so be it. If you’re going to be critical, people will find you — for better or worse. I guess Amazon’s one of the places where you can do so and be able to delete opinions that are equally critical of your critique.

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