How to Create Digital Empathy in a Fyre Festival World

Fyre Festival still offers a simple and clear case study on why we need to create online spaces with digital empathy and rise above the noise, while turning followers into brand ambassadors. Learn how Stacey Abrams, USWNT and Glossier* applied these elements to their own brands - and how you can infuse them into your own brand.

For the resource notes, which includes articles from Harvard Business Review, Social Media Today, The Atlantic, and many others; videos like HBO’s The Shop: Uninterrupted; and two books I highly recommend as we make our way through the Conscious Consumer Era; please tap here to have them emailed directly to you (your email will only be used to send you the notes).

Transcript provided below video was edited for flow/readability. Please see note at bottom of page about the Glossier allegations that came to light in August 2020.

[Opening housekeeping notes.]

Hi. My name is Asia, and I own The Strategic Ampersand. I’m back once again [at Alt Summit], this time with a non-technical talk. If you were here last year, you heard my e-newsletter talk; yes, there’s still consent - it’s still important for newsletters.

But today we're talking about digital empathy in a post-Fyre Festival world. It’s super, super important in so many ways to keep talking about this.

If you can’t read [the slide], it says thestrategicampersand.com/digital-empathy-alt20. If you want the notes from this talk, as well as all the resources, and including articles, videos that you should watch all related to this topic, please go to that page.

And I’m using Stacey Abrams, the US Women's Soccer Team, and Glossier* as my digital empathy examples; but before we get into them, we’re diving into what is known as Fyre Festival.

Why are we still talking about Fyre Festival? 

Aside from all the wonderful tweets, or sandwiches - and as a sandwich lover that was one of the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life - but aside from all that, what's really important to understand about Fyre Festival is, it was based on a false narrative of FOMO: if you're not here, you're missing out. ‘Look at all these amazing people,’ and so forth. 

The second one was it was built on a false narrative of exclusivity. ‘You want to hang out with all these models. You want to hang out these bands,’ and then the reality was that didn't happen. 

And then lastly, there was a building anger. And, yes, [shows tweet of sandwich] I did include the sandwich, because it’s so sad. There was so much anger, and what ended up ultimately happening was people weren't being listened to; they were getting shut out and shut down super fast. And that, to me, was probably one of the worst things that, as a brand, it could have done.

There were obviously a lot of documentaries about Fyre Festival. This quote was from Fyre Fraud: “Our aim was to set the stage for a strange journey into a moral abyss of our digital age going beyond the mean to show the ecosystem of enablers driven by profit are willing to look the other way through their own game.” 

Visualization : Your Brand's Lobby

First I'd like you to imagine your brand's lobby. This is how people enter into your brand's space. Maybe it's cushy. Maybe you have comfy chairs. Maybe you have a giant table for everyone to sit around. 

Next, I want you to do is think about the people who are in your lobby. Imagine them. 

Then, I want you to think about the people who might be missing and who you would like to invite into your lobby. 

Now the big question: how are you going to draw them in? What service, or solution, are you able to offer to draw them in? 

This is where digital empathy comes into play. 

When we build our space - when we create digital empathy within our spaces, we're genuinely building our audience because we're being authentic; and as much as that word - authentic - is overused, it’s very important to have it truly mean something to you. 

As we move forward in building our audiences, often times people ask, ‘Well, how do I know what my audience is and all that?’ The best advice: do a social media audit - a digital audit - and you'll learn a lot about your audiences.

1. Connect with Purpose : Stacey Abrams

First we're going to talk about Stacey Abrams. Does everyone know who she is? Stacey Abrams ran for governor for Georgia in 2018, and she's a badass; she’s absolutely incredible. She ran an incredible campaign. She “lost” the election, but what's a really incredible story: she did not concede the election.

Her non-concession speech is worthy of listening to because what she did was she focused not on the perceived loss; but she focused on the issues at hand. She talked about fairness and election voter suppression, and what needed to be done to move forward. This was her story - and it was an amazing story. Her speech is in the resource notes, and it's bone-chilling in so many ways. But most important: she turned the conversation around. This is something that's important when you tell a story: you remove the focus from yourself and put it on your audience. You help them find a common cause that will further that trust within your brand.

Here’s another element she's so good at - and just such an important reminder for so many of us. While speaking at a Hollywood entertainment women's luncheon (link in resources) she spoke about the importance of not having your audience be a footnotes, but to actually be a part of the chapter. Your brand’s audiences are a part of your story and they're an incredible, important part of it.

And the more we can remember that, the better this space is that we're inviting people into. 

A huge part of Stacey Abrams, in her telling her story, is she definitely put down some boundaries. She is not verbal vomiting out there. She is not pouring out her soul in every single discussion, which is so incredibly important. When you start doing the emotional dump with your audience, it's not going to play off well. The only person that feels good after that, for maybe a minute, is yourself. It's really important to draw back, create some boundaries.

If anyone needs any help in creating boundaries, take a moment to check out Megan Dowd’s The Dirty Sock Method [in resource notes]. In short, it’s about allowing your audience to see one dirty sock from your laundry pile, not the whole pile, by setting boundaries.

2. Speak Up for Your Community : USWNT

Next, as we look at creating digital empathy, we’ll look at the phenomenal US National Women's Soccer Team. Truly phenomenal is Megan Rapinoe, both pre- and post-World Cup. Her story is remarkable; in short, she’s a white, gay athlete and she own it. And she owns also what she's comfortable in talking about, where she doubts, and she owns asking the questions and she owns wrestling with the truth. 

A little background on what Megan has dis. She kneeled during the national anthem, to show her allegiance with Colin Kaepernick’s cause of kneeling for social justice. And due to kneeling, she was sidelined. Then later the Soccer Federation, changed some rules, and Megan started playing again. 

When Megan started playing again, she just kept speaking her mind. She would ask, ‘how can I tell this story? What do I need to know? What do I need to do?’ - and someone she worked with, who also works very closely within the social justice realm, said, ‘keep asking the questions but tell it from your perspective; tell it from your perspective as a white woman. Don't be afraid of the truth; wrestle with the truth and ask the questions.’ And Megan kept doing it - she just kept moving forward in talking about equal pay and wrestling with truths in what it meant be a better person, to be empathic. After the World Cup, she just kept putting forth these challenges, unafraid to speak her mind.

What's also amazing is the team backs her up 100%. And a past co-captain noted if this had been their team in ‘99, they would have said ‘let's just pause on this, we're going to wait till we maybe win the World Cup - and then we'll talk about equal pay.’ 

Where as with Megan, she was on top of it, she kept equal pay and social justice issues at the forefront. When she won the FIFA’s top award - the Golden Foot - she spoke about others at the forefront of social justice. She talked about the woman who ended up burning herself, in the name of equality, being caught at a soccer match in Iran. And as Megan spoke, with a clear passion, other event attendees were in awe - here’s a woman who just won FIFA’s top award and she was talking about social justice and equality. It was a huge testament to Megan's personality and to her integrity.

Someone who I really admire who does this is Cyndie Spiegel. She's constantly wrestling with those questions, heavy questions, with both herself and her community to not only find the truth of the matter, but to further awareness. I truly appreciate that. 

3. Accept & Listen to Your Community with Intention: Glossier*

My final example is Glossier; they're fantastic in making sure their audience, their entire community feels genuinely included; feels seen.

A key point when talking about inclusion of community is you cannot treat your community like a checklist. When you talk about making sure people feel included, it does not mean you just happen to post a black woman in your Instagram feed; does not mean that you randomly include a picture an Asian man in your blog. It means you are purposefully - with full intention - drawing people in and making sure they are a part of your story.

Right now there's a lot of talk about the wellness community and wellness culture - and it's an area I often struggle with. For example: there’s a repeated notion that Self-Care Saturday is all about taking a bath. I am here to tell you Self-Care Saturday is not about taking a bath.

What I struggle about this whole notion that self-care is related to, for example, taking a bath, or doing a mask or whatever. It’s necessary to really think about your audience; can your audience participate in that? Are you truly reaching out to audience members who might be a single mom, and she doesn't want to touch her bathtub because it's gross? Or that she's trying to hold down two jobs and pay for the food to put into her baby's mouth? This is creating a space of digital empathy for your audience, and it's so incredibly important to really think about every single person who may be following you, who may be interested in your brand; who wants to be a part of your brand. 

Now on the flip side of all this as audience members we have to understand that not every brand is for us as much as our brands are not for everyone. We are going to automatically have those moments where we think “Oh, I can't follow this person anymore,” and that's okay. 

And that's where a state of grace needs to take place. If you are no longer connecting with a brand possibly because they might have said something that kind of pissed you off, let them know, but give it - give that feedback constructively. Don't just go off on them. Don't create this culture of hatred or ‘oh-my-god-so-much-drama’. It's just not worth it, but do let that person know ‘hey I really enjoyed following you. You made this comment. I'm not quite sure I can hang in there. But it's been great. Thank you very much.’

And then as the brand, just say, ‘thanks.’ If you're able to continue having that conversation, have the conversation with that person - you may end up learning a ton by having those conversations. Don't run away from them. Don't cancel that person out just because they happen to disagree; which is so easy on social media to do. 

What I really appreciate too about Glossier is their founder is all about creating this space of digital empathy, as well as what transfers into in real life empathy, treating their audiences with respect, and making sure that they feel like they are part of their fold. In that process what we do see how often our audiences are going to really respond to our brands by creating these spaces.

Sometimes I'm asked, "‘Well how do I know who I want to follow? Who I want to do this for? Who's part of my community.’ It's super, super important to go ahead and take a moment to think back to your visualization of your lobby, asking, ‘Who do I want to bring in? Who's already there? Who do I want to keep bringing in?’ A great example of meeting your community where they are not where you expect them to be which is a really part big part of last year's example is actually Racheal of Banyan bridges. 

If you haven't watched Racheal's videos, and Instagram stories, do. She does these amazing home murals, and without fail, I would say, 99.9% of time she will remind you how to do something, like how to paint over tape, or how to create an element, even if you’re thinking, ‘I am not going to paint a perfect circle. I am not going to do this perfectly’ she’s really showing you her own goofs. Racheal fully accepts you for where you are in your process, whether it's your first time, or your 10th time, or your 100th time creating these murals. She will always meet you where you're at, not where she expects you to be, which I think is an amazing testament to digital empathy.

[Thanks audience and wraps up sessions.]

*In August 2020, after various employee allegations of racism and mistreatment, Glossier and its CEO Emily Weiss apologized to former retail workers, saying it - and she - "failed to ensure that all voices are heard, and protected, within our internal community.” This serves as an excellent reminder that as brands, we must ensure our community includes the employees; the very people who make our brands’ existence possible. Read more about it here.