Trafcom News

Can a 20-something be a social media expert?

At last night’s IABC/Toronto Professional Independent Communicators (PIC) meeting, Anita Windisman did a terrific presentation on LinkedIn, which I’ve blogged about here. In reviewing the tweets generated during Anita’s session, I noticed a single criticism:

Great networking & presentation at #pictips tonight. Some good tips, but I was surprised by 1 of the comments …

Ppl under 30 aren't all 'kids'. Just b/c someone has their MBA doesn't mean they're more of a 'SM expert' than someone younger #pictips

Let me put this in context. Anita mentioned that she has an MBA and 18 years of marketing and business experience. She made an offhand comment that she’s not a “kid” doing social media training.

[I did not write this down verbatim, but I think I’ve captured the spirit of what she said.]

I’ve always maintained that a social media “expert” is not someone who merely can train you in the mechanics of Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or GooglePlus or Hootsuite or TweetDeck or whatever. Anyone can learn how to retweet, how to tag, etc. These are necessary skills, but they do not in and of themselves yield business results.

Plenty of my clients attend seminars on social media, then walk away saying, “OK, so now I know how to do the mechanics, but what do I tweet about? Do I have to be on Facebook? Why would I connect with someone on LinkedIn? What do I say? How is this stuff relevant?”

These are important questions about business strategy.

So, yes, one does not need an MBA or any other degree for that matter to be a social media “expert.” [You’ll note I keep putting the word in quotation marks because I’m not sure that the word “expert” is even appropriate.] But I do believe that business people want to work with a marketing specialist or a communications consultant who can help them solve problems, using social media or some other tactic.

In a field as young as social media, there are bound to be many young practitioners. Last year I attended an event where I met one such woman. She described herself as a social media trainer who’d been in business about a year. When I asked her what she’d been doing before then, she said she was a wedding photographer. In fact, she still was.

I’m sure she’d be proficient at explaining how to retweet on Twitter or tag someone on Facebook, but I doubt she’d be able to advise a senior executive on a blogging strategy or a content marketing campaign.

After a decade or so in business, one’s degree is largely immaterial. I don’t think I’ve mentioned my own Masters in Public Administration to a client, with the exception of some of those in the public sector, who like to see consultants with these particular letters after their names.

But business experience is another matter. It’s a prerequisite, in my humble opinion, before one can advise another person.

One’s age is not a prerequisite. Someone can be 40 with two years in business. But I doubt that a 25-year old, unless he’s a prodigy of some kind, could have more than a couple of years of real-life business experience.

I’d love to know what you think. Does a person need business experience to be a social media “expert”?

Please share your thoughts on this. Am I off base?

Content marketing defined

Second in series

In the previous post I talked about the importance of content marketing for small businesses. Much of this is true for medium-sized businesses too. Heck, large brands use content marketing, but they often have large agencies to help.

Let’s focus on your small- to mid-sized business.

Perhaps we should define content marketing before we proceed further. When I speak to clients about content marketing, I describe it as: The creation and sharing of information that’s valuable to your prospects and customers. Content marketing is worthwhile because it can help establish or build your brand, cultivate thought leadership within your niche or industry, and ultimately generate leads. It’s like a magnet drawing prospects to you.

But content marketing is not advertising! And it’s not sales-y. This is an important distinction. After all, if a prospect wants to read your sell sheets, they can probably find them on your website.

How do we define effective content marketing?

When we measure results, we can see the needle moving. People discover your company, and feel that you are the one who can solve their problem. And then a funny thing happens. Prospects call you. Isn’t this type of inbound marketing every business person’s dream? To be freed of the burden of cold calling?

When your content is effective, people consume it and then share it, because it's practical and usable, and targeted to your market. Yes, it showcases your expertise, but in a subtle way. When you publish a case study about the success of one of your clients, for example, the narrative should be written in a way that shines the spotlight on them, not you.

In the next post, we’ll expand on this idea and talk about HOW to create excellent content so that you can enjoy the benefits of inbound marketing.

 

For more content like this, follow me on Twitter or GooglePlus.

Visit the Trafalgar Communications website for information about how we can help your organization to tell its story through traditional and new media.

 

Content marketing for your small business

First in series

You have a website for your small business. Your site may even be optimized for search. And yet, when prospects use their favourite search engine to find a business in your category, you’re on page 7. Or 19. Do you ever flip through to the seventh or 19^th page of search results? Me neither.

No one wants to be the proverbial needle in the haystack. So how do you improve your odds of being found? First, be sure that your site truly is search-engine friendly. Have a neutral third party analyze it for you. (If your web developer inserted your company name or the word “home” as the title of your main page, your site may not be as optimized as you were led to believe.)

But let’s move beyond what the search engines care about. What about your prospective customers or clients? When they discover your site, whether via search or by directly keying in your URL, what do they find? Lots of fluff about your company history and the awards you’ve won? A list of product features?

Let’s face it: No one cares about your company history except you, and many awards are meaningless to the typical client. As for product features – they do belong on your site, but more important to the prospect are the benefits of your product or service.

What your prospect wants to know is this: Can you help solve their business problem?

Content marketing allows you to accomplish this by enabling you to demonstrate your approach to business, your leadership in your industry and your track record of solving clients’ problems.

In this series of blog posts, we’re going to explore:

• The benefits of content marketing
• How to get started with content marketing
• How to use social media to amplify your content marketing
• How to keep your content marketing efforts going
• How to add content curation to your content marketing program
• And more

Feel free to send me your questions about content marketing.

Read all the posts in this series.

For more content like this, follow me on Twitter or GooglePlus.

Visit the Trafalgar Communications website for information about how we can help your organization to tell its story through traditional and new media.