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Why talk if nobody cares? (no shouting, please) (3/4)

The entire purpose of social media is to connect with others, plain and simple. Connection (outside of social media) happens when we talk with others and share experiences. Connection is a meaningful thing, it’s the 2nd and 3rd most important in Maslow’s Hierarchy after our basic survival needs. Translated, this means connection isn’t just being someone’s friend on Facebook or following someone in Tumblr. Social media connections are made when we talk with people (not at them), when we feel a sense of community, and when others care about what we have to offer. Connection doesn’t happen just because we live in the same city or occasionally go to the same party.

We now have to figure out how to connect with people on these social media platforms. In Part 1 of Social Strategery we talked about being everywhere so we could be found at any party if someone were to look for us. Then in Part 2 we talked about picking one or two platforms that will have the largest demographic of our customer base and preparing to focus our efforts on those platforms. In Part 3 we’ll discuss how to make those connections on our hand-picked platforms. In Part 4 (tomorrow) we will talk about how to distribute information to the other accounts that we have setup we are not focusing on.

Communication

Communication is a two way street: talking AND listening. The most effective social media campaigns listen more than they talk. A common mistake that many businesses make is to just post on Facebook when they want something. We post when we have a new product, or we post when reduce a price, or we post when we want to same something from people. We need to post when we have something that will bring value to our customers, not just when we want something from them.

Here are some of the worst practices on social media that many businesses have in common:

they do more talking then listening, and some don’t listen at all
they only post things that are beneficial to them
they don’t have authentic personality in their posts
they aren’t clear with their messages

Here’s now we can avoid those mistakes and build effective social media campaigns by listening, engaging, and then asking.

Listen

Think about the guy that always talks and you can never get a word in. How did he get invited to this party? Does anyone like him? Does anyone ask his opinion? We don’t have to because he usually offers it without being prompted. This is how we are perceived when all we do is post on social media without engaging. It’s a self-serving approach that would be scoffed at if we changed the setting to a party. I call this ‘shouting.’ Telling people to “Look at me, I’m the greatest!” without bringing value the people we’re trying to convert to customers.

If we watch our timelines we will find out what people want and we can offer something to them if we’re attentive. We can see what is popular online and craft our messages to resonate with the people that follow us. When we cater our messages to our audience we are much more likely to get them engaged with us. I use the below tools to monitor what is going on in the world. Set these up and have them sent to your inbox once a day/week so you can find out what is going on outside of your immediate circles.

Another way to listen is to ask for feedback on our social media accounts. Ask followers what product improvements they could use, ask them what new services they would like us to offer, ask what they don’t like about our business, ask what they had for lunch today. Just ask! And when people give us honest feedback, we need to respond honestly to them. Even if we’re not face to face, people’s noses still work. BS is easy to smell.

Engage

One way Epic Day Outdoors has engaged with users on Instagram is by finding pictures that are relevant to our niche and commenting on them. If we find a great fishing photo we tell them congrats, if we find a great surfing video we compliment them on their wave and ask where the video was taken, and if we see funny hashtag on a rock climbing picture we make a relevant joke and ask tell them it looks like a fun day.

We like as many photos as possible and we do our best to comment on the ones that aren’t quite “like-worthy” so that our outreach is even larger.We follow the people we engage with and do our best to flatter them when we initially follow them. We are giving as much as much as possible so when it’s time to ask, people are more open to give back. If all we did was post photos and follow people, we wouldn’t have a very engaged user base and our social campaign wouldn’t be very effective.

Beneficial

So we know what NOT to do; don’t shout at people, it’s rude. When engaging, remember the party analogy, we want to provide value to the people we’re talking to. Value can be funny posts, value can be telling someone they have a nice cover photo, value can even be sending people to your site using content marketing (free info) that could be useful to them. Value is not what we sell.

People need to know who we are and know that we provide value of some sort or they will tune out our noise. We can also provide value by offering helpful tips, free user guides, or even interesting articles that pertain to our business. The most effective social media campaigns will provide beneficial, authentic information that is relevant to what is happening right now in the world by keeping an eye on trends with the tools above. This does not have to come from us, it can come from other sources as long as it’s relevant and trusted. When we post things that we didn’t create, our credibility is on the line.

If a tree falls in the woods…

Authentic

When we mix the personality of our business with our valuable posts we are moving in the right direction. We want to convey messages that reflect who we are and what people can expect when they get us on the phone, when they come to our website, or when they visit us in our store. People should not be able to tell the difference from social media messages to in-store conversations.

It’s important for a brand to have an authentic voice or else we can become lost in the noisy world of social media. Think, what makes us unique? Why should people be our customers instead of our competitors? When we answer those questions, infuse our social media messages with those answers to get our authentic voice.

Asking

To avoid ‘shouting’ we need to be transparent about when it’s time to ask for the sale. This means we don’t try and trick people into clicking a link or signing up, we tell them up front what they’re getting. On sales calls, we don’t just walk up to someone and ask if they want to buy. We take time to build rapport, we make connections, we ask questions about their business/life, and then when the time is right we go for the close.

We have to engage before we close or the sales process will never work. If we change the setting, we see how redundant our efforts can be on social media. So now that we’ve provided value more than we’ve asked for business, we can be clear about what we’re asking for. The best sales people are not sneaky, they are not liars, and they are good communicators. Now we have a voice, we have attention of our users, and have the opportunity to ask for the sale. We have set ourselves up for success, just ask the question, “Will you buy my product?”

Thus far in Social Strategery we have covered how to be everywhere on social media, how to pick the right platform for our business, and now we know how to communicate effectively on our hand-picked platforms of choice. In Part 4 we’ll explore how to maintain a presence on other platforms that we do not use as often as our hand-picked accounts.

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How do you engage with your followers?

Connect with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear your successes (& failures) on the subject.

P.S. 14 Days till Christmas!

How to be Everywhere on Social Media Without Losing Focus (1/4)

With the ever-growing number of social media platforms available in the world today it’s easy for us to get lost and confused like a scared puppy that’s run away from home. We see so much out there and we want to chase it all, but we don’t really know how to use it or what the benefits are. Then if we catch it, we don’t really know what to do with it.

I’m coaching a friend and when discussing all the social media platforms he told me he felt “overwhelmed” attempting to figure them all out. I concur, it has taken me a few years to accumulate the knowledge I have and he’s trying to squeeze it into a weekend.

What I want to attack in this mini-series known as Social Strategery is the burning question that comes up so often: “What is the best social media platform for my business?”

Why Social Media

I have extensive experience in traditional & guerrilla marketing as well as sales, but over the past 2 years I’ve noticed that without an understanding of social media those skills aren’t as useful as they once were. More and more people are relying on social media for their information instead of the phone book or even Craigslist.

So how do we find customers on social media? How do we engage with them? And most importantly, what do we do when we find them? I’ll cover all these topics and more in this series on social media over the coming holiday weeks so we can take this information into the new year with a better understanding of how to leverage social media to grow our businesses.

Have them all, but don’t spend time on them all

I hear this question often posed on podcasts interviewing social media experts and people that have much more extensive experience than I do. I get irritated when nobody is willing to go out on a limb or make bold statements in these interviews about what platforms to choose. I didn’t realize how difficult that question was until I began writing this…

Here is my personal philosophy: Have them all, but don’t spend time on them all. Notice I didn’t say “use them all,” we’ll be using them, but we’ll use them efficiently. We can only dedicate so much time to social media in our personal and professional lives. That being said, we don’t have time to ‘personalize’ a message to each social platform (yes, the messages need to be different) and still have time to think at the end of the day. However, if we pick 2 or 3 of the best social media platforms for our business and we focus our efforts, we will see great results.

So does that mean we should delete our Tumblr account because we don’t use it that often? No. I am a big advocate of being able to be found anywhere on the internet and social space [see below]. I learned this from my friend James that has taught me a great deal about connecting our social accounts to our websites, thank you sir! The more our names are out there, the more of a chance we have to be found. If we are only on Twitter and we don’t have a Facebook account, than the people that only use Facebook are not ever going to know what that we even exist.

The goal of social

Is not to get people to stay on social media with you, it’s to get them back on ‘our turf’ aka our website, our landing pages, our brick and mortar stores. When we get people on ‘our turf” we are then able to focus them in on what we want; to sign up for our email list, buy a product, or bookmark our website. When people stay on social media, it’s more difficult to get them to focus on what we are trying to get them to do.

Think of social media platforms as different parties where people are interacting, each with their own unique themes. The goal of social media should be to get them to leave that party and come to ours aka our website or store.

This cannot be walking into the party and announcing with a bullhorn, “We are the greatest, come back to our party now for discounts on X!” as many people do. People will laugh at us and look the other way. However if we come in and talk to a few people and engage in conversations, make some compliments, tell a few jokes, and then tell people that they can get discounts on X at our party, we are much more likely to get them to come with.

As you can imagine, it’s impossible to make sincere, honest, meaningful connections across all forms of social media every day. So we need to pick the platform(s) that are best for us and focus on them while leaking messages to the other platforms when we can so the accounts aren’t dormant. I’ll go into more detail about choosing which ones to focus on as well how to use the other platforms without wasting time.

How to do all this

First, sign up for as many social accounts as you know about. We want to own the same name on each platform so we’re easier to find. Once we sign up for each, make them all same name or as close to the same name as possible. I would advise using the same email and password on each so it’s easy to login. Here is a list of my accounts on each platform I recommend having, these are each of my real accounts so you can see a real example.

Facebook.com/mike.mccann.165

Twitter.com/mikemccann3

Instagram.com/mikemccann3

Tumblr.com/mikemccann3

Pinterest.com/mikemccann3

youtube.com/user/mike1582

Plus.Google.com/mikemccann3

StumbleUpon.com/stumbler/mikemccann3

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-mccann/32/511/966/

FourSquare.com (I don’t use this, but it’s very important for brick and mortar businesses)

And my email account is mikemccann3[at]gmail[dot]com. As you can see, almost everything matches with the exception of LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. Facebook and YouTube are difficult to change because I’m not the only Mike McCann in the world and LinkedIn requires a paid profile upgrade to change. I really hope nobody guesses my password now…

The next step is choosing which of the social platforms are best for us. Choosing the right platform, an outline of the top social networks, and communication through each are all soon to come. I’ll be breaking down different social platforms by relevance in more detail over the coming days. This will shed more light on each platform and help us choose which one is right for us and our business.

If you don’t already know your platform, and even if you do, sign up for each of these and get the ball rolling. The worst thing that can happen is you sign up and the account sits. The best thing that that can happen is you gain more traction/customers, so what do you have to lose?

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If you have a favorite social media that is not listed here (yes, there are many more) please let me know what it is and share this article on it so I can add it to my list.

Connect with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear what you have going on.

P.S. 16 Days till Christmas!

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Memorable is Bad

We have interactions every day with various businesses from coffee shops to hardware stores to beauty salons and everything in between. Many of these experiences are exactly what we expected, and some of the special ones are even memorable for a period. But what we don’t encounter every day are unforgettable experiences. Experiences that make us tell friends and family what it was like and why they should go experience it too, even years after their story happened.

Publix grocers are great. They have all the food we need, it’s fresh, and the staff is extremely friendly. And it’s always like that, it’s what we’ve come to expect. There’s usually a slight grin on people’s face as they walk out of the automatic doors pushing their buggies full of groceries and household supplies. But we rarely go out and continue to talk about how great Publix is to our friends and family. We rarely attempt to convince someone to switch from Harris Teeter or Bi-Lo to Publix because Publix is so far superior. Instead we go there each week and we get our groceries and we smile and have small talk with the employees and we go home. We have memorable experiences that fade out after time.

There is nothing wrong with this, Publix is a great company and has a great model. They have one very loyal customer in me, but they don’t stand out head and shoulders above the rest. Many people go to Harris Teeter or Bi-Lo and experience the same thing, it often comes down to preference and geography.

Then there are companies that create unforgettable experiences. These are the places that we walk out of with an open mouth because we’re in awe. These are the places that prompt us to call friends and ask, “Have you been here before? Why didn’t you tell me about them earlier?” These are the unforgettable experiences that people talk about, not just smile about.

When I did sales training I would preach about a ‘wow experience’ for customers from start to finish. Since it was not a traditional furniture store the possibilities were endless, people did not know what to expect so the bar is relatively low for newcomers. The sales people had great influence on how to create that experience and the best ones took advantage of it; combining personal charm with a bit of smart-aleck customer service, and great values in the furniture. This paired with the methods people would find the stores like Craigslist, word of mouth, and even seeing paint markers on someone’s back windshield made for an unforgettable story that customers could tell their friends. Plus when people find a great bargain, they are ready and eager to boast to their neighbors about how much money they saved. This made for the perfect storm of referrals for the company.

So how is that replicated in large stores that have been around for years? Or in places like Publix whose customer base might frequent the store multiple times per week. How can they continue to create those ‘wow experiences’ for customers?

Continue to push the limits. Continue to experiment. Continue to make our organizations stand out. The risks are worth the reward to create something that is unforgettable.

What if Publix gave out “Customer of the Month” to the person they see the most or the one that spends the most? Will that be a customer for life? Will that make some people want to win that and frequent the store more often? What if the furniture store sales people all wore bright green polo shirts to work EVERY day with no exception? What if they then added bright green hand-written thank you notes in the mail to their customers after every sale to reinforce their experience? They would begin to stick out even more to customers and encourage them to keep talking. These types of things reinforce the experience and can turn a memorable experience into an unforgettable one.

What can we add to our businesses that will make us unforgettable?

#140charactersorless

Twitter has changed the world. Whether you use it or not, it’s changed your life. It’s not necessarily because of the brevity of Tweets, it’s due to the fact that Twitter entertains us. All of social media is there for our entertainment, and we are so engulfed in it that we expect all information to come at us as it does via Twitter, or Facebook, or Pinterest: Visually appealing, Simple to understand, and Amusing.

We are in the process of re-vamping our website to have an online library and it’s going to be tricky because on one hand we need an excellent, extensive, in depth content side that pleases the search engines and helps us get discovered by our target market. On the other hand, we will need a very simple, straight-forward portion of the website that is very instructional based to retain the attention of our potential customers. The instructional side of the site will have “how to” & “where to” & “what not to” do sections with short outlines that are user-friendly and don’t scare people away. Intimidation is exactly what the FWC (and all government run sites) does through information overload, so we’ll simplify things through info-graphics, bulleted lists, and instructional videos. Essentially we’re taking the FWC’s website and transcribe it into short burst of information so people are more likely to be entertained by it (Tweets).

Entertainment is the key to engagement today

People have been trained to learn in very short bursts of information (Tweets) and that is what they expect out of today’s businesses, minimal thinking involved on their part. Thus making the job of the business to serve up a pre-made set of information that is useful and helpful while simultaneously entertaining our consumers. Is hunting fun? Yes. Is cleaning a gun? No. But you better believe we’ll do our best to make that gun cleaning instructional video as entertaining as possible to keep your attention.

If you have a great product or service but can’t seem to get the traction you want, analyze your presentation. How appealing is your storefront? Is your website easy to use and filled with helpful and entertaining information? Do customers know what they’re supposed to do when they get to your site? Does your sales process flow? Are your designs too cluttered? Ask yourself these questions and be honest with yourself, don’t compromise. Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes and challenge yourself to simplify everything you can, eliminate that which is unnecessary, and focus on get to the core of your message so it is crystal clear. Once you know what your message is then it’s time to engage your users by making it easy to understand, simple to get, and visually appealing.

Simple and entertaining enough for you?

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P.S. I edited this post at least a 10 times, and each time I took something away to ~~use less words and make it easier to read~~ simplify it. Try it with your next ad and see what happens.

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