Trafcom News

Content marketing and social media work hand in hand

 

Content marketing and social media go together like peanut butter and jam. You see, when you go to the trouble of creating great content, there are two ways people can find it:
(a) search, whether organic or paid
(b) sharing, by you or others.

Let’s focus on (b). After you write an article or blog post for your site, it’s important to get it in front of your customers and prospects. You might follow steps like this:

• Tweet a link to the blog post
• Post an update to LinkedIn with a link to the blog post
• Publish an item to GooglePlus with a link to the blog post
• Share the blog post on your company Facebook page or your personal page or both
• Pin the item to Pinterest, if it has a visual aspect

By the way, there are good reasons to not publish simultaneously on all platforms via a third-party application. Please refer to this blog post for several reasons why.

You might also add a line to your email signature with a teaser about the blog post and a link to it. Of course you’ll refer to it in your newsletter too.

If your post or article is relevant and well crafted, chances are that others will share it with their friends and followers. And so the conversation will continue and more people will discover your business. Perhaps they’ll subscribe to your feeds or sign up to get your newsletter.

In the same vein, content marketing solves one of the problems many businesses experience around their social media presence: “We are on Twitter and GooglePlus and so on, but what are we going to say?” The answer is content marketing: You are going to publish meaningful content that’s relevant to your audience, and you’re going to share it on your social media platforms. Think of it as a cycle – a cycle that gains attention and potential business.

Of course you don’t want your social media accounts to look like advertising, so don’t let them become push-only platforms. Be sure to engage with your readers, to ask questions, to answer questions, and to promote the work of others in your network and beyond.

Do you have any tips to share about the links between content marketing and social media?

See the other posts in this content marketing 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.

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?

Stuff communicators say

Please note the G-rated headline. ;-)

Unless you've been on Mars for the past few weeks, you've seen some entries in the "shit so-and-so says" meme, which began (as far as I know) with ShitGirlsSay (Twitter stream and then video). On a snowy afternoon yesterday, avoiding work, I started one of my own: #ShitCommunicatorsSay. Here's a Storify version of it. (There were LOTS more retweets, by the way; I've just grabbed some representative ones.) If you played along, thanks -- and feel free to keep it going!

 

You need a strategy and content plan before launching social media tools

Lately I’ve received calls and emails from existing clients and new prospects seeking ways to use social media tools. They want to find out how to set up a Twitter account, exploit the ins and outs of LinkedIn, create a Facebook business page, and maybe even learn about GooglePlus so they’re ready when Google admits brands to its new platform.

Some of these people are pretty smart about their requirements. In many cases, however, I discover that two things are missing:

1. A commitment to developing an overall marketing or communications strategy first, before diving into social media. If you don’t know what your goals are, or who your target market is, how can you even dream of reaching them? And how would you measure success?
2. The allocation of resources for content development, curation and publishing. Think about this: After you’ve set up your cool-looking Facebook page, put a snazzy avatar on Twitter, and added fancy plug-ins to your WordPress blog, what are you going to say? Do you have a plan for curating, creating and publishing content?

Spending a few days hashing out your communications strategy and then planning your content flow will make the whole process of “using” social media a lot more effective.

I’m assuming here, perhaps too optimistically, that the organization in question is already monitoring mentions of their brands and their key people on the Web.

Do you agree? Easier said than done? Do people argue with you when you say “There’s no such thing as a Twitter strategy”?

Reasons to keep Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn updates separate

Social media updates are converging. Now you can easily use such tools as TweetDeck and Hootsuite (and others) to post your status on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter at the same time, or just LinkedIn and Twitter, or… You get the idea.

Speed and simplicity are wonderful, but what about communication? When I teach business writing, one of the first points I discuss with the class is the concept of knowing your audience and your goal. So I think of my online audience's needs and my own goals before I publish any status update anywhere.

In my world, LinkedIn relationships are the most formal; this place is strictly for business. Facebook is more social; many of my “friends” are actually family members and old schoolmates. That's the place where I might write about my aunt’s birthday party or comment on someone’s new baby pictures.

Twitter is my online water cooler, research department and referral engine, all in one. Most of my Twitter updates are business-oriented (such as an invitation to my upcoming Webinar: "Take your podcast to the next level"), but some are more personal, showing my authentic self, as they say. (I heard a great quote last year, and I wish I knew the author: Facebook represents the people you used to know; Twitter represents the people you’d like to get to know.)

If I posted the typical Twitter update on Facebook, most people would be flummoxed. The hashtags, RTs and @ signs don’t contribute much to readability when you’re not accustomed to them.

Each of us uses these social networks slightly differently, but I doubt that many of us are speaking to the same audience in each arena.  At least for the foreseeable future, I’ll continue to update each site manually, with rare exception. What about you?

UPDATE: Since this post was written, Facebook changed its way of deciding which posts get into your friends' streams. Items posted directly to Facebook are favoured over those posted via a third-party application. So there's another reason to post diriectly to Facebook.

IABC/Toronto Communicator of the Year

Peter Aceto, President and CEO of ING DIRECT Canada, received the 2010 Communicator of the Year  award from IABC/Toronto this morning at a ceremony downtown. ING DIRECT Canada is the largest direct bank in the country.

If you’ve seen Mr. Aceto in one of his videos or read his tweets, you know that “what you see is what you get.” He carries this sense of transparency in all of his communications.

Powered by two lovely cups of coffee, I’ve captured some of his remarks for you.

Truly a “social CEO,” Peter Aceto places the highest value on communications and connecting with people, referring to this strength as the biggest predictor of leadership success. Of course a CEO must be concerned with profit, but he contends that the leader must also be held accountable for valuing people and communications, for behaving responsibly, for providing value and service, and for always telling the truth. “Communications will become the most valued leadership skill in five years,” he predicted.

To be effective, messages must be simple, transparent and honest. He believes that there’s no longer a need to communicate differently to different stakeholders.

Throughout his speech, Peter Aceto emphasized the excellent contributions of his team at ING DIRECT Canada (some of whom were in the room – along with his wife and mother), and introduced a few of the staffers who so capably handle internal and external communications.

He reminded us that communication occurs when the message is understood, not just when it’s disseminated.  He then shared a story of one time within the bank when leadership assumed that all employees were aware of a new program. Thanks to Peter’s brown-bag lunches with call centre and operations staff, he discovered that this wasn’t the case, and that employee communications needed to be improved in this particular area.

When asked about internal communications, Mr. Aceto told us that the bank has recently implemented Yammer, an internal Twitter-like micro-messaging tool. “It’s important for us to hear what people within the organization really care about,” he said.  

Responding to a question about the time he himself devotes to social media, he said: “We know that social media is not going away. We need to be there, to be a part of the conversation.” He cited the example of ING DIRECT Canada’s new Thrive account. “Online we’re getting direct feedback from people, from customers,” he said. The public responds through social media much more easily and quickly than they would by email or letter.

All the IABC/Toronto members I spoke with were impressed with Peter Aceto’s passion for his work and his dedication to constantly improving as a communicator.

We were also inspired by a speech by Priya Bates, ABC, who has been named a Master Communicator, the highest honour bestowed by IABC in Canada. Congratulations, Priya!

Thanks to the organizers of IABC/Toronto for this worthwhile morning, and to the event sponsor, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority.

Curating Twitter content with Paper.li

If you’re not going to check your sites, then don’t bother with social media

My friend Dave Howlett once suggested that people wouldn’t have pet peeves if they stopped feeding their pets. (I’m paraphrasing.) Dave is right; in a perfect world, I wouldn’t let anything bother me.

Well, I’m still working on being perfect (ha!), but I do need to get something off my chest. Here goes: Increasingly, I’m coming across Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, blogs and other social media presence points that have been created by organizations and then seemingly abandoned.*

Just imagine a customer or prospect being interested enough to post a comment to your blog or Facebook page, and then being ignored. This is the equivalent of never returning phone calls or answering emails.

So what’s the answer? Do not create a social media site if you don’t have the resources to maintain it and to monitor it. Simple, right?

When I work with my clients, I try to help them to understand the conversational aspect of social media – the give and take, the exchange of ideas, indeed the social aspect. Unfortunately, too many people still view social media as a broadcast mechanism, a way to shove content out into the world. This approach just does not work.

Thanks, I feel better.

(*UPDATE: I haven't even addressed the scourge of spam left on blog posts and FB pages because admins don't even know it's there. Sigh.)

Yes, content does rule

“We don’t really have any stories to tell in our organization.”

“What could we possibly share in a blog or on Facebook or Twitter?”

“What would we talk about or show in a podcast or video?”


If you’ve ever uttered these phrases (or have heard your clients say them), then hop on over to the Trafcom News Podcast and listen to this interview with Ann Handley and CC Chapman, authors of the new book, Content Rules – highly recommended for every communicator and marketer. This is a book you will refer to again and again as you create content for blogs, podcasts, videos, ebooks, webinars and more.

 

What I learned at school last night (advice to comms students)

I had a great time last evening at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus, on a panel for Communication, Culture & Information Technology (CCIT) students. The panel was part of a networking event for mostly third- and fourth-year students.

We panelists talked about our own work experience: how we moved into our current positions, where we came from, what the work is like, and so on. In smaller groups, we answered students’ questions about résumés, interviews, work environments and much more. 

These CCIT students are bright! I especially admired the ones who had really thought about their questions in advance, and who were able to be very specific about what they were looking for in a career. (Unlike me at that age.) Some have already followed up with me by email or Twitter.

I wish I’d had more time at the end of the night to chat with my fellow panelists, but I had to get back to my desk to finish some proposals. Here’s a shout-out to Jason Hashimoto of Sony, Darin Bristow of Nelvana, Conrad Muan of Amalgam Design, Chrissy Newton and Lauren Dodge of Vocab, and photographer Michael Willems (plus one person on whose name I’m drawing a blank). And thanks to Brendan Shaw for organizing us.

For many of the students, these might be the key take-aways:

• Blogging is a must if you want to distinguish yourself and attract potential employers.
• Networking is the number-one way to find a job (no surprise here).
• Learn to use LinkedIn and Twitter, and Facebook to a lesser degree, for networking.
• One recent grad experienced great success after creating a video résumé.
• Your job interview starts as soon as you exit the elevator. Be kind to the receptionist!
• Join a professional organization such as PRSA or IABC, and volunteer to get known.
• Never be afraid of hard work.
• Being happy at your job is more important than how much money you make.
• It’s best to work for someone else before starting your own business. Learn on their dime.
• If you don’t have enough samples of your work to show, volunteer to design a Web site for a church or small charity, or write articles for a community newspaper. Whatever your skill set, use it!
• You have to hustle! No one is going to hand you anything on a platter (I think my Mom said this first).

UPDATE: Students, read this post about how one student used Twitter to build her network and find a job.