vickioneill

From this episode:

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Are your Marketing and Sales posts self-promoting or helpful? 

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Hopefully, your social media posts are a combination of these two - heavier on the latter though.  

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I’ve read and heard from others a lot recently that there are more people posting only content that’s self serving – meaning self promotions, and “me” content.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong:  especially as entrepreneurs, we HAVE to self promote, right? We ARE The marketing team and all the others teams combined. BUT there needs to be a balance between self promotions and being overall helpful.

 

So that’s what prompted this episode because you know who’s part of this problem – well for businesses that have more than one person doing everything lol – Marketing and Sales. And when you have more than one person “promoting” there needs to be alignment and a balance between self promotions and being customer focused.

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So that's what this episode is about this week. 

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In creating this list, my intent is to be helpful to you, meaning provide you with something you can use and is actionable.

 

When I was thinking about this topic it occurred to me that maybe people don’t know HOW or WHAT to post that isn’t self-serving or self-promoting. So having an outside perspective can be helpful.

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So let’s dive in! Here are the 5 ideas for social media posts that Marketing and Sales can post about and be customer focused:

 

1. Industry articles and stats – this is the easiest of all the ideas. Here’s how I do it and it works great:  Google “<any industry> news” and hit enter. So for example, type “steel manufacturing news” and hit enter. If you go to the NEWS tab you’ll see a list of all the latest article on this topic by various sources. Same thing for stats “steel manufacturing stats June 2019>  Let’s say you wanted to share on LinkedIn and Twitter.
 

• For Twitter: it’s a headline type platform so create a headline and summarize or show your take away from the article, use the article image, shorten the link, add source via @ and use hashtags. The link is trackable so you can see how many people clicked on it and the hashtags will gain viewers and possibly followers – and the source may even RT it giving you more exposure to that audience.
   

• For LinkedIn: Summarize the article in your own words and include any key take aways, noteworthy bullet points and ask for thoughts/feedback at the end. DO NOT post the link in the original message – LinkedIn doesn’t like posts that include links that take users to another platform – so instead include the link in the first comment – and indicate that in your original message. You can also use the article image or create a video of your own (which gets high priority with LinkedIn’s algorithm) along with the summary. Use hashtags and tag source.
   

• Check with marketing. Check with sales. What do you they know and what are they hearing? Look at what’s being requested or what your industry is talking about – then provide the information they are looking for. This will help you become a sought after leader in your space.
   

2. Technology – look at technology specific to your industry or like businesses, like CRMs, customer service platforms, order platforms , etc. This could also be tools like Slack or DropBox or even Facebook. Technology is something that changes A LOT so depending on the tools you use, there might be updates to post about every day (not that you want to) but it gives you something to consider posting. As with anything, look at your audience, your business and decide what works for you. This is one reason why it’s good to have a Content Calendar – it removes the guesswork of when to post, what to post, where to post and who’s going to post. It just simplifies the process.
 

• What is marketing using vs. sales vs. customer service vs finance? Look at cross over in technologies between teams and look for ways to show how technology use can go beyond expectations. Maybe a company thought Slack was only for the Tech team. Did they know it can be used as part of the project management with customers? Or as a forum for raving fans? Share your expertise and knowledge. 

3. Helpful Tips – Think of your industry sources – those that don’t have an affiliation with any particular company but are there to serve the industry. For example in business it would be Forbes or Inc. Resources like this that publish Helpful Tips type documents are ones you want to share with your audience. If you have your own, great! Mix that in with the others but have content that’s valuable to your audience and published by a 3rd party that you can share.

 

Ex 1 If you are in the automotive space, NADA (National Automotive Dealers Association) and Automotive News are great resources to tap into.

 

Ex 2 If you are in Real Estate, Keeping Current Matters and Realtor.com are two insightful resources. If you want an all inclusive list, just type “Tips for selling in a Down Market” MarketWatch and MoneyCrashers are two results I received.

 

Ex 3 If you are in Marketing it would be American Marketing Association and Marketing Land are two resources that stay on top of everything marketing that you could glean helpful tips from.

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• Think about your target audience. What are they talking about? What do they wish they had? Find a 5 tips or so document to help them with what they need and share it
   

• What are the most commonly asked questions? See if you can find a Q&A document from a reliable 3rd source and share it with your audience.

 

4. Explainer Videos – Now I could explain these to you. In a video. Lol BUT the best way to do this is to refer you to a reliable 3rd party source, Steve Dotto. Are you familiar with him? He’s the person I think of when I think of explainer videos. So explainer videos are essentially 'how-to' videos of doing something.

 

Have you ever Googled or looked up on YouTube “how to do <X> where X is 'something'”? My latest 'how to' search was “how to convert .mp4 to .wav”. And there were various sources for me to choose from in article format, videos and websites. The video was helpful for me.

 

So if you see a customer or prospect wanting to know how to do something, search and send them a link. You don’t want to send them to your competitor (obvi) so look at 3rd party industry, reliable links to send them. By doing so will show them you’re listening, resourceful and helpful - regardless if your Marketing or Sales or Both. 

 

5. Tools List – This may be more difficult to find but it is extremely helpful if you can find it and share it.

 

You may have seen a product comparison spreadsheet, right? A tools list is similar but it shows, for example, all the tools for a particular need.

 

For example, I searched “tools needed to start a business” and the first result is “10 tech tools….” By business news daily. That’s not a competitor and is a 3rd party reliable resource so I’d feel comfortable in knowing I was directing them to an online source that would be helpful if they want to start a business.

 

Another example, if you’re looking to buy your first home, there’s a list of 15 tools every new homeowner should have published by HGTV. Reliable? Yes!

 

This is what you should do in your industry - and plan content according to value and resourcefulness to solving a problem. When you have a content calendar you can see who is doing what, when and where. 

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Quick Summary of 5 Ideas:

1) Industry articles (show your knowledge and expertise), 2) Technology (show that you’re keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s changing), 3) Helpful tips (show that you’re genuinely interested in helping solve a problem) 4) Explainer videos (show that you go above and beyond to help someone do something) 5) Tools List (show you understand that options can become overwhelming and you want to help simplify so you do the work for them).

 

I did mention earlier that I would indicate WHY this topic is important to Marketing and Sales alignment.

 

So, in a nutshell: by collaborating and communicating with each other, the list of what the prospects and customers need, grows. It’s also easier to brainstorm ideas with the other person or team and tackle problems and solutions from different angles but together. All 5 of these ideas can be done by Marketing or Sales. So why not collaborate and double down on content to your market, right?!