I use the term ‘ego-posting’ to describe the behaviour of many companies in their communication. They communicate on their company website, their other presences and in their outbound activities only from the ego perspective (= ego posting).
The term is derived from ‘first-person shooter’. These are computer or Internet games in which the player moves through a freely accessible game world from a first-person perspective. I use the term to describe how companies only write about themselves and their products, benefits and offers without empathy and reference to desired customers (buyer personas). Offers (products and services) and sales messages are placed or sent from the ego perspective. Technology companies in particular quickly fall into ego posting and write enthusiastically about their technology and technical offerings. Enthusiasm about their own technology and products is understandable, but often not conducive to marketing success.
Ego-posting can be recognised by the intensive use of the words: ‘I’, ‘WE’, ‘OUR’ in communication. ‘I’, “WE”, “OUR” stand for a sender-centred texture. You show empathy for your customers with ‘reader-centred texture’.
In your texts on your website, blog, newsletter and social media channels, highlight every sentence that contains the words ‘I’, ‘WE’, ‘OUR’. The more markers you see, the greater the need to reorganise your texts.
Let me explain with an example:
Imagine you are single and have a first date with a potential new partner. You are sitting in a nice pub, looking forward to an interesting evening and would like to get to know the other person better. He is ‘nose-washed’, speaks in full sentences and is otherwise quite bearable to look at and endure.
Getting to know someone successfully requires empathy, openness and listening. How would you feel if the other person didn’t listen to you at this first meeting, didn’t respond to you and only boasted about their car, job, income, luxury goods or other supposed advantages? Or even worse: if he immediately switches to ‘initiation or sales mode’?
If you are looking for a real relationship and not monetary enrichment or ‘drive compensation’, the chances of success for this first date would probably be poor. In the context of a human approach, this is understandable and logical for most people. In a sales context, unfortunately, things look very different.
Many companies only send messages to the market and their customers in the form of:
- ‘We are the market leader.’
- ‘We are the technology leader.’
- ‘We’ve been around for 30 years.’
- ‘Our products are the best.’
- ‘Buy now.’
This is pure ego posting. With buyer persona profiles, you build empathy for your ideal customers and establish a basis for empathetic communication.
