Great post and great point. I like this: “stop thinking like marketers and start thinking like friends.”

I think we’re often lacking the perspective of “friend,” possibly because it’s too easy to feel removed from individuals as real people when we’re interacting through a platform … I’m fortunate to work with a marketing team that also feels how important it is to “get back to basics like treating a person in the online world like we would treat them in the real world.”

We’ve got to recognize that it comes down to forming meaningful relationships. Relationships are what affect growth, change, and the ability to connect with people enough to make a real impact on them, to know them enough to help them find the right resources or provide the right information.