The Navigator is my monthly email newsletter. You should subscribe if you haven’t already. The theme of this month’s edition of The Navigator was relationships. With Valentine’s Day coming Sunday and the topic top of mind for many of us, I wanted to share some of the ideas here to further the discussion.

Social media brought humanity back to marketing. Brands engaged in social media activity are no longer monolithic, corporate entities. They are groups of interesting, diverse and valuable people — humans — who we often want to connect with, sometimes to build a stronger connection with the company; sometimes because those individuals share a common interest. This humanity gives brands a unique opportunity to bring romance into the customer equation. The theory here is that social media and that humanity allows us to make our customers fall in love with us.