Leaders, talk to your people
Plus thoughts on Facebook's Meta and the best đ drop video you'll watch today
You are reading Social Signals, Gregâs weekly email about creative, digital, social, and cultural signals worth noting (and sometimes a dumb viral video worth sharing with your friends). Todayâs email was written to âThe Social Networkâ soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Follow @gregswan on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you havenât already, subscribe below:

For the second week in a row Iâm getting a ton of great feedback from other leaders trying to be proactive about âThe Great Resignation,â âThe Great Reshuffleâ or maybe itâs âjust trying to be a good leader right nowâ after my post Whatever Changes You Plan to Make in 2022, Start Them Today inspired by this TikTok from @DrKimHires.
Since then, Iâve been putting a lot of thought into what leaders can do TODAY as we try to navigate burnout, staffing, and getting ahead of 2022. These thoughts are primarily through the lens of remote or hybrid teams, and none of it is particularly new or groundbreaking. Just solid things we can be doing for our people in these super weird times. After all, empathy is the most important leadership skill right now and the ad industry is being rocked by mental health challenges and burnout.
đ Changes Leaders Can Make Today
Clearly communicate Q4 and Q1 goals, each personâs role to get there, and where the priority focus should be for each. Tip: try to do fewer things better in the short term. And donât forget there are only ~40 business days left in 2021.
Limit email, chats, and texts outside of business hours and over lunch.
Implement fewer team video calls and replace them with 1:1 chats and phone calls. If youâre a heavy video team, designate a video-off day.
Encourage teams to take PTO, but more importantly, ensure coverage during that time off so they feel like they can actually unplug and recharge.
Block your teamâs calendars for intentional, non-deadline hangout time during business hours. Set up IRL time, if comfortable and local.
Recharge yourself. Model good behavior. Leaders need a break, too.
Manage up. Tell your own boss what you need and how to get it. Help your boss manage up to their boss, too.
đ Real Talk With Your Direct Reports
Meet with your team members individually and ask them a predetermined list of questions. Be human. Ask them how they are. Be open about how you are. Listen. Help them prioritize and delegate. And try to make changes immediately.
When you work each day, what gives you energy? What takes your energy?
Whatâs the best personal thing that happened to you this year?
If you were me, what would you do differently to manage yourself next year?
What do you personally need to work at the office, work from home, or hybrid work as things may change in 2022?
If I could do one more thing today to make your career and role here more fulfilling and successful, what would it be?
Nothing too progressive in the above lists, I know. But they are a step toward empathy and controlling a handful of variables for your people, which is true leadership. If weâve learned anything in the last 18 months, it is to focus on circumstances we can actually control and that authenticity, honesty, and humanism are key.
Hereâs what else Iâm tracking this weekâŠ
đ If Youâre Lost, Answer Your Phone
Approximately 70 billion spam calls are expected to have been made to U.S. residents in 2021. Spam texts are also on the rise. In the first half of the year, scammers sent 47.5 billion spam texts, a number that's projected to reach 86 billion by year's end. So you can forgive Americans if they hesitate to answer the phone or respond to texts from a number they donât recognize. But last week a man who became lost for 24 hours while hiking on Coloradoâs highest mountain ignored repeated phone calls from rescue teams because they came from an unknown number.
Key quote: âIf youâre overdue according to your itinerary, and you start getting repeated calls from an unknown number, please answer the phone; it may be a search and rescue team trying to confirm youâre safe!â
đ±Facebook Meta
Besides the Facebook Papers news (which you can find a compilation of ALL of the stories about here), the big Facebook news this week came from the annual Facebook Connect conference, which focused entirely on the metaverse. I âattendedâ the event in my Oculus Quest, sitting in a VR theater and watching the keynote on a big screen with people around the world. Learning about the metaverse while in the metaverse. So meta.
So hereâs the thing:
The future of creativity and modern marketing is intrinsically linked to the metaverse. But just like the early social media days, modern marketers can't just be students of the coming change. We have an opportunity â and obligation â to actively participate and shape how brands, consumers, and technology combine to create value in this new and emerging world. Visionary and predictive milestones like Meta's announcement this month are historically important. Now is the time to dig in and start pushing the boundaries of ideas and possibilities, both on Meta's platform and others. Social media came fast. The metaverse will come faster.
The keynote video is mandatory viewing for modern marketers. It's a good 101 overview of the current and coming metaverse, a window into how AR glasses could reshape our life, and offers hints into how Facebook is planning to steer it, build it, and approach governance.
Of course, a ton of these examples aren't realistic or feasible in the short term. There are huge implications for competition, privacy, $$, DEI, and more. Facebook is... complicated. But these visionary and predictive milestones are historically important. So it's worth a watch. Set aside an hour and give it a stream.
But Greg, why do you think Facebook is changing its name to Meta? With the disclaimer that my day job and consulting work are thoroughly rooted in the major social platforms and they help pay my bills, I have some thoughts on on reason based on nothing but my own biases and analysis.
Facebook has an enormous education and technology fluency challenge across its business verticals and audiences â from general consumers to advertisers to policymakers.
Weâre less than a month from the congressional misunderstanding of what a âFinstaâ is BUT ONLY six years from senators openly bragging they donât use email and showing off their flip phones. Thereâs a lot to learn there.
When Facebook went down earlier this month, a lot of consumers genuinely thought the entire internet was down. Thereâs a gap there. And an opportunity, too.
Brands are feeling advertising pressure with these big and looming changes from Apple, death of cookies, and now they need to figure out how to operate in the metaverse? Itâs overwhelming.
So for Facebook to try to get ahead of the âmetaverse-Web3-NFT-smart glasses-future of socialâ education gap for all of those audiences seems to make a lot of sense early in the adoption cycle. Sure, there could be some short-term PR strategy here, but itâs clear from this weekâs presentation this decision factors in much more than political posturing. Rather, itâs a long-term strategy.
Making metaverse mainstream is crucial to it becoming mainstream, positioning Facebook as the owner/arbiter of whatâs to come, and avoiding some of the pain points we experienced stemming from the early days of social into todayâs very real challenges. Facebook doesnât own the metaverse. Itâs unownable by its nature. But by pushing out ahead so early, they could be the dominant player the rest of our lifetime.
Lots of people are taking pot shots about the unrealistic metaverse examples in the presentation and word âMetaâ being so predictable and boring. Killing the Oculus brand in a blog post was bold. But these kind of moves are bold, visionary, and end up being historical milestones for consumer adoption/non-adoption. Smart glasses are coming. The metaverse is coming. So of course Facebook wants to be part of that, whether you like their new name or not. It was a big and important keynote. I think weâll go back and watch it in the future.
Of course, I still refer to Alphabet as âGoogle,â so time will tell.
đ The Seven Rules of the Metaverse
Just because Facebook rebranded itself as Meta doesnât mean they own the metaverse. Itâs much bigger, broader, decentralized, and open that that. And just as they did with the social media revolution of the early 00âs, todayâs pioneers and early adopters are now trying to wrap their brains around the metaverse to understand where weâve been, where weâre at, and where things are headed in the next evolution of the internet. VR innovator Tony Parisi wrote The Seven Rules of the Metaverse, including observations and predictions about its control, accessibility, and terminology. Itâs a great read for anyone planning to use or work in the internet and social media in the coming decades.
đ€ The Good Tweets




đ Weekend Reads
The Grand Theft Auto III radio commercials are still awesome
Touch screens will soon let you feel stuff before you buy it
đ€Ż Quick Hits
Snapchat launched Halloween-themed AR lenses and Bitmoji costumes.
Instagram added Link Stickers for all Stories on all accounts.
Photoshop will add a âprepare as NFTâ option that will allow NFT marketplaces to show a verified certificate proving the artâs source is authentic.
FaZe Clan, the influencer collective, plans to become a publicly listed company.
Walmart shoppers can now buy Bitcoin at 200 kiosks in its stores.
The new Muse S EEG headband features a âDigital Sleeping Pillâ that responds to your brainâs activity and cues your brain back to sleep.
Google implemented a new process to enable minors to remove images of themselves on Google Search.
Disney and Star Wars NFTs will be launching on Veve.
Apple's WatchOS 8.1 update lets you keep your COVID vaccination card on your wrist.
Beepleâs latest artwork, HUMAN ONE, is a dynamically changing hybrid physical and digital piece that displays imagery stored on the Ethereum blockchain to create a generative experience. Itâs stunning.
Podcast of the Week: DEEPFAKES with Rex Sorgatz and Henry Ajder
Squid Game TikTok of the Day: Check out this Halloween display featuring red light/green light.
App of the Week: Hear Here is a podcast-type road trip app that shares location-based audio stories based on your location at the moment.
Twitter of the Week: @noodlesbonesday will tell you if itâs a Bones Day or a No Bones Day.
Viral Video of the Week: Giant pumpkin dropped 100 feet into a pool. Because they could.
See you on the internet!
Greg
If you like this, do me a solid and smash that âLIKEâ with the little heart. And share it. TYSM
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