Fixing YOUR Boring Social Media Brand?

So you’re putting all this time into social media, but what exactly are you getting back?

Well, it doesn’t seem to be driving conversions, really. You don’t seem to get much referral traffic either. So what the heck is the point? You spent at least two hours a week writing social content, why isn’t this whole thing paying off yet?

We get it. Your boss read an article about social media and all the cool brands are on it, so you now need to be on it too. You’re spouting some nonsense about your business, but you don’t seem to be getting hundreds of followers. All of your sales messages seem to be getting ignored, which is weird… Wasn’t social media supposed to drive thousands of sales for the business?

Well, guess what? Social media is not going to work for your B2B product, or your financial product – unless you’re investing heavily in paid ads. It just isn’t. Your brand is boring, so no one will pay attention to you. It’s as simple as that.

I know that this is hard for a lot of you to hear, but it’s time to face facts. Your brand is boring and people don’t want to engage with things that are boring.

Who among us wants to constantly be sold something? Who among us wants to constantly be pitched to, over and over and over? No one.

Related Article: The Art Of Winning Social Media Conversions?

So what’s the answer? Be creative..

Knowing what people like doesn’t require a marketing study and you don’t need to spend thousands of pounds building customer personas.

Take Innocent for example. I know they get dragged up time and time again as a great social brand, but there’s a reason for that. It’s because they are.

They don’t spend every waking moment telling us to buy smoothies, or reminding us of the health benefits of fruit. Innocent aren’t here to constantly sell, sell, sell. They understand the real power of social media is engaging with fans, which is exactly what they do.

Innocent are fun. They engage with their audience base in entertaining and creative ways and, shockingly to many people in the c-suite, they have quite a lot of autonomy.

Related Article: The $7 Million Social Media Marketing Affiliate?

Innocent’s community managers are free to tweet things that are quite abstract, but they’re often the posts that do the best.

They don’t take every opportunity on social to plug their products because they know that doesn’t work.

Compare that with what you do. Wait, what do you do? You spend two hours a week writing product-led content, schedule it and leave it.

Set it and forget it. And you think this is going to drive engagement? You think your audience is going to be interested in a couple of generic, bland tweets and a boring Facebook post?

They’re not. None of us are. If you read back your social content and think ‘wow that’s boring’ then there’s a strong chance that everyone else will. If you, as an employee, aren’t even interested in what you have to say, then literally nobody else will care either.

Related Article: YOUR Content Distribution Machine?

Instead, you should be thinking of ways you can add value to other people’s timelines. Humour is a good way to go. It’s worked for brands like Denny’s, Taco Bell and Netflix, but it can be difficult to master.

The other option is to be more informative. Helping people get the information they need is a great way to gain more traction for your brand. But don’t take this down the typical, boring route. Think about whether or not you’re actually helping your customers. If not, scrap it and start again. Getting messaging that works for both the brand and your customers can take time, but it’s worth it.

So mix it up. Be creative. Think about how you can position your brand to be more engaging with consumers. Then you’ll really start to see proper engagement and, who knows, maybe your brand will become a bit less boring.

Guest Authored By Billy Leonard. Billy is content and outreach executive at Harvest Digital, the oldest Digital Media Agency in the UK. Follow Billy on Twitter.

Related Article: A Social Media Creativity Boost?

“Mix it up!

Be Creative.

Think about how you can position your brand to be more engaging with consumers.

Then you’ll really start to see proper engagement and, who knows, maybe your brand will become a bit less boring.."

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

YOUR Content Distribution Machine?

In the B2B space, social media marketing is largely about building clout through content marketing..

Alyson Griffin, vice president of global marketing at Intel Corp., spoke with eMarketer's Maria Minsker about why social content is crucial not only for driving clicks, but also for positioning the technology company as a go-to source in emerging fields like artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

eMarketer: How does Intel leverage social media to reach its B2B customers?

Alyson Griffin: We want to meet our audiences where they are, with the right content. Whether they are in a leaned-in mindset and actively looking for content, or they're in a more leaned-back mindset, we want to make valuable content easily accessible and discoverable to our audiences.

Related Article: B2B Brand Boosting Social Media?

We also want to meet them with the right content wherever they sit within the buying decision committee, whether they are a technology decision-maker, senior business decision-maker or line-of-business influencer.

Finally, we want to meet them where they are in their buying journey, with content they will find valuable at [that stage].

eMarketer: How is paid social media advertising integrated with organic marketing tactics at Intel?

Griffin: We rarely run [traditional display] ads on social media, because we find people just don't engage with them in the social feed. We consider paid social posts to be a method to reach the right audience with the right content. Whether it's paid or organic, it has to be good content that's built specifically for the platform, or people will tune out.

Organic [social] marketing still serves a purpose for us, but it has changed. We look at it as a way to test what people are engaging with, and help us determine where we should be investing with paid social.

"Companies can't be complacent because [social] platforms are constantly changing, and the way people use them is constantly changing."

eMarketer: What social networks are you most focused on?

Griffin: We use a variety of channels including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. With social, companies can't be complacent because the platforms are constantly changing, and the way people use them is constantly changing. We're always evaluating and testing. We look at our audiences and determine where they spend their time and how they use the networks. We build our strategies [around] that.

Related Article: The 7 Best Social Marketing Channels?

eMarketer: What are your goals for social media marketing?

Griffin: All of our social media activity ladders up to business objectives. From a business standpoint, we want people to open their minds about what Intel is, beyond just thinking of us as a chipmaker. We understand that business is now moving at an incredible pace, and our customers are thinking about how things like cloud, 5G, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and autonomous vehicles will disrupt and transform industries. That's why we need to have conversations on social that give our customers confidence that we have what they need to stay ahead of the next wave.

We also know our customers have business challenges they need to solve today that may not be as buzzworthy as something like autonomous vehicles, but are critical to their business. We need to make sure we're having those conversations as well.

Related Article: Your Fractionalized Video Marketing Content?

"We need to provide something of value in the [social] feed, even if someone doesn't click through to our owned properties."

eMarketer: How do you measure success?

Griffin: To determine whether we're moving the needle, we look at a mix of attitudinal and behavioral metrics.

eMarketer: As a distribution channel for content, how do you harness social networks to reach your audience? What type of content works best?

Griffin: Social media is an important channel for content distribution. Through our analysis of conversion attribution data on our owned properties, we know that social is an important part of the mix and can be a strong traffic driver. With that said, we understand people often don't want to leave the social feed. We need to provide something of value in the feed, even if someone doesn't click through to our owned properties. If it's valuable and interesting, they will consume it in the feed and share it with their own networks. That's a win.

The types of content that perform best vary a lot by social platform, but video has been a winner for us across multiple platforms.

Guest Authored By Maria Minsker. Maria is a Reporter @eMarketer, contributing Writer for @SmartCustServ, @Cornell. Follow Maria on Twitter.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Success Metric?

"Social media is an important channel for content distribution.

Through our analysis of conversion attribution data on our owned properties, we know that social is an important part of the mix and can be a strong traffic driver.

With that said, we understand people often don't want to leave the social feed. We need to provide something of value in the feed, even if someone doesn't click through to our owned properties.

If it's valuable and interesting, they will consume it in the feed and share it with their own networks.

That's a win.."

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

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