12 Leaving a Smaller Digital Imprint
I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter. —Blaise Pascal
Long story, short. Make social media posts and e-mails that capture and respect a busy executive’s time.

The Digital Flood
It’s official: we’re all wired.
A 2013 study on Internet trends by Mary Meeker and Liang Yu reports that people check their smartphones an average of 150 times a day.
Everyone’s glued to his or her electronic devices—in airports; at the office; walking between meetings; before, during, and after work; even sneaking it at home. We’re also hooked to our smartphones, tablets, and e-mail.
A July 2012 McKinsey Global Institute report says managing e-mail takes 28 percent of the average worker’s time. You spend a large chunk of your time just keeping up with the constant flow of messages coming in throughout the course of the day
In the midst of this massive data dump, people check their Twitter feeds nonstop, tantalized by the appetizing 140-character limit. Professionals scan their LinkedIn status updates to gauge who is coming and going and what business news they need to share. Addicted to our devices, we add tons of content that mostly gets lost in the rising flood.
So, what are the do’s and don’ts of brevity in the digital age?
You need to be economical with every word, or you’ll be chalked up as just another source of white noise. The last thing people want to read are paragraph-long status updates. Nothing annoys a Facebook user more than having to click “Continue Reading” on a rambling post that doesn’t ever come to a definitive point. Social media faux pas such as these will significantly reduce your number of followers. And if you don’t practice brevity in social media, you might as well be talking to yourself.
You must not only struggle to fit your message into a digestible length within this arena, but also fight against the sheer frequency of messages. You’re doubtlessly connected to people who are serial online updaters, begging for constant attention, yet unwittingly screaming to be passed over. Don’t imitate their bad habits. These people clearly don’t practice any self-control and abuse their newfound online freedom to share whatever comes to mind. Do I really need to know when they missed a flight connection or that they just ate a delicious ham sandwich?
Clearly, this new, long-winded abuse of power can quickly be career limiting—because these individuals are training the world to tune them out. They may have good intentions, but they aren’t sensitive to being brief. They fail to appreciate that everything they post, share, or send must be valuable, pertinent, and to the point.

There are people of the other extreme who set the bar very high. Everything they publish is worth reading. Their e-mails, updates, and e-newsletters reflect a mastery of relevance and restraint.
If you’re like me, you subscribe to many newsletters until your inbox is flooded with them every day. You don’t have time to read them all, so you either delay reading them or delete them.
What influences your decision about what to read? There are those select few that you absolutely must look at every week; their attractiveness is no accident. They stand apart because they speak in headlines and give you only what is relevant, short, and to the point. It’s economical, and it’s powerful.
Busy executives make quick judgments about what they want to read. Therefore, the way you communicate digitally must fit on a cracker.
Take, for instance, e-mail. One executive I know keeps his messages brief by writing all of his e-mails on his smartphone and limiting each message to what will fit on a little screen without scrolling. He knows he’ll ramble on and on if he writes his e-mails on his laptop. “My boss reads e-mail on the run; that’s why I keep it short,” he admits.
In this chapter we will look at successes of leaving a smaller digital imprint to make a much bigger impression.
BRIEF Hall of Fame: Verne Harnish
Verne Harnish is a master of brevity.
He is the “Growth Guy” columnist for Fortune Magazine and the epitome of BRIEF. As the founder of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and CEO of the global executive education and coaching company Gazelles, Harnish targets C-level executives by headlining and honing every e-mail, newsletter, and post. Every message he sends obviously indicates his preparation in making it clear and concise. It’s unmistakable; you see his discipline in action in every correspondence.
• Catchy headline: There’s always a strong attention-grabber in bold.
• Predictable length: The paragraphs are never more than a few sentences.
• Tightly written: He’s never wordy and always relevant.
• Time saving: There are often direct references to saving you time, from “take 3 minutes to read this whitepaper” to encouraging growth leaders to huddle for 15 minutes a day.

Not a moment is wasted when Verne’s readers follow up on his recommendations. It’s apparent that he cares about and respects their time. Within each of his newsletter’s sections, Verne executes a balanced structure between what information his readers need to know and the “so what” behind it.
And his strategy makes a huge difference. Not only does he give me primary resources to back up the headlines, but he always tells me why it’s important.
Even his columns adhere to the rules of brevity. His Fortune column has only five tips, every time. As he explains, “I get 75 words for each tip, and it is painful to try to figure out how you’re going to make something credible and useful enough in 75 words.” But “It’s been a good discipline. And it was out of necessity. It’s the nature of the market.”
“These are CEOs and executives of growth companies. By nature, they’re a tough group to reach. They are just time crunched.”

Harnish thinks like a journalist when he carefully crafts catchy headlines to outline his newsletters. Social media might be instant, but it takes time to reduce your ideas to as few words as possible.
“I know I spend as much or more time trying to figure out what the headlines are than what I write next,” he said. “I think writing headlines is a discipline every leader needs to adopt.”
Verne does this so that busy executives can scan his newsletters literally in 30 seconds and determine whether there’s anything useful. And all of the sections catch their attention; that’s why he has such a loyal following.
“I let them know specifically how long it’s going to take for them to dig in to something if they want to, so they can make decisions to do it now or later,” he said. Harnish emphasizes that all executives need to practice communicating briefly.
“You state it simply. Doesn’t mean it’s simple, but you do it so that the world gets it and can understand it.”
When it comes to getting your message heard, it’s best to use as few powerful words as possible.
Be brief in explaining what you do, so that your audience can compartmentalize and get your message.

From Social Media to Venture Capital
There’s power in a simple anecdote shared online. By keeping her story and products simple enough to share, develop, and sell online, Brandi Temple won $20 million in venture capital for her children’s clothing company, Lolly Wolly Doodle (LWD).
According to Temple, LWD has become a master innovator at social commerce because her company’s story is so simple and powerful. By harnessing social media to showcase its products,Lolly Wolly Doodle does 60 percent of its sales through Facebook and the remainder through its website.

“When things started taking off, I used customers as my sounding board. I interacted daily on [our] Facebook page, sharing my story and designing clothes based on customer feedback,” she said. “In turn, the customers became evangelists for the brand. Much of Lolly Wolly Doodle’s current success can be attributed to the relationship we have with our loyal fans.”
Each of the brand’s Facebook posts is only about 30 words; it describes the product, price, and available sizes, with a picture attached. Within minutes of each post, followers comment to request the sizes and colors they want. And this formula works. When I spoke to Temple during the summer of 2013, LWD had more than 605,000 Facebook fans.
“I couldn’t find outfits I liked for my two daughters, so I just started making clothing for my kids out of necessity,” she said. “I started sewing and then I made too much and thought of putting the extras out there on eBay and then Facebook. It came naturally.”
LWD’s manufacturing model attracted investors because it responded immediately and exclusively to customer’s needs.
“We produce only what our customers order, and we’re always tweaking designs based on what they say they want to see,” Temple said.
The only way that Temple could have accomplished such a reactive model was by using the instantaneous advantage of social media.
“The best way I can experience the joy of Lolly Wolly Doodle is to share our clothing, and let our community share their stories with us,” she said.

The feedback process that drove venture capital to Temple’s door wasn’t complicated. Customers gave short reviews online; Temple listened and responded accordingly. A simple, short story of success that was shared online by loyal fans propelled her business.
Social media is an arena where masters of brevity thrive. Your content can reach an unlimited audience; so make sure it is finely tuned to meet customers’ expectations of brevity.

Social Media Squeeze
If you struggle to get your thoughts down to a Twitter-tight 140-character limit, listen closely. According to Adam Brown, corporate social media pioneer at such leading brands as Coca-Cola, Dell, and Salesforce.com, the ideal level of engagement is even lower.
“Actually, the most effective social media posts are around 80 characters,” says Brown. “The most engaging from a branding and marketing standpoint are that (amount) or shorter. They are twice as effective as those at 140.”
So it’s time to learn to sharpen your tongue.
According to Brown, social media’s evolution can be characterized by a push for brevity. From blogs and microblogs to Twitter, Instagram, and beyond, there has been a growing emphasis to make communication easier and shorter to produce and share content online. But the level of energy and commitment needed to create quality social media cannot be ignored.
“There are a lot of people who have Facebook and Twitter fatigue nowadays,” says Brown. “It’s too much effort. Everyone began to realize ‘This is a lot of work; there’s only so many hours and minutes a day I can allocate to this.’”
Brown asserts that there are new and traditional skills that we all need to hone to stand out online.
“Social media that has a visual component is about five times more engaging than text,” he states. “The next evolution of social media is going to be that you don’t have to participate in the creation of the content that appears. You’ll wear something around your neck that takes a picture every minute or two and automatically checks you in wherever you go and knows your friends are surrounding you. It becomes something passive.” For the moment, however, being active means being succinct.
Ironically, Brown asserts, our education is somewhat at fault for our verbosity. The classic educational approach is to have students write to achieve a minimum word limit, for instance, an 800-word essay. To win mindshare in social media, however, is to do the exact opposite.
“It’s fundamentally against the way we have been trained to write,” he says. But nowadays, to succeed means to condense.
“Most people consume social media on their mobile devices. I call it the ‘brand in the hand.’ It’s very likely the person is on the move—on the subway, waiting to pick up their kids,” Brown says. “The bottom line is: they’re doing something else. So you’ve got to get those nuggets of wisdom, or conversation, or storytelling briefer and more succinct.”
Long story, short. Make social media posts and e-mails that capture and respect a busy executive’s time:
• How can you make your organization’s e-mail newsletters or social media posts more to the point?
• Pretend you’re the reader. What headline or image would grab your attention and make you read more?
• How can your customers help you with your digital imprint? Let them tell you briefly what they want from you, and they will be able to respond instantly. Allow them to share snippets of success online.