Importance of social and online presence

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Clarissa Cole
5 years ago
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1 Get in the game

2 Importance of social and online presence Don t be afraid to get on board with social media or even help drive the bus. The more you understand social, the easier it will be to understand how and why to use it. At the same time, do a check of your own digital landscape. What does it say about you? Potential clients do come to your pages and in fact, 57 percent of the time, B2B consumers have already scoped you out online prior to reaching out to you. 1 Why use social? It s a way to strengthen your brand. (Remember when you first started understanding why you needed a website? This is the same.) Reach is the biggest proponent of social media and online presence. You can reach prospects you never thought you could find. Gather intelligence and use that analysis to reach out to prospects or understand what your competition is doing. Contribute insights and establish yourself, your team and your company as experts. People still buy from people. It s all about trust. Providing relevant and worthy content and establishing your brand as a trustworthy resource means something, especially in an era of noise and quantity over quality content. Purchase decisions People want original content and thought leaders. And social can actually help with that, as well as with purchase decisions and relationship building. Having a desire to be a thought leader, both as a company or as an individual, is a great goal, but you need to have content that backs it up. Content can make you stand out intelligently and influence decision-making for clients and prospects so share it with these things in mind: Show a new approach to a problem. Demonstrate the real value of a product or solution. Have an understanding of customers needs in today s world and also tomorrow s. Share your message New approaches, great thought leadership, innovative products, solid relationships and valuable service are all amazing, but what happens when no one knows about it? To help build your brand and grow your business you need to make sure to share that message. And for that, you need a conduit social media. Social selling is taking out the pitching and creating conversations about your products and services. Keep that in mind when posting. Those conversations can lead to sales conversations. DON T FORGET 1. Determine your brand voice and how you want to be portrayed on any digital presence. 2. Tie social media into your entire strategy: a. Website content (needs to stay fresh, up-to-date, and meet the needs of users who come to the site.) b. Content marketing/ongoing development of materials (i.e. blogs, articles you ve published, infographics, new marketing brochures or videos) are all necessary to keep a great presence. Canva is a great free tool if you are looking for something to build quick shareable images for social, postcards, brochures, infographics, etc. Check out And if you are looking to start a blog, it s best to add it into your website. If that s not possible, try wordpress.com and add a link to your website. c. Online or print advertising. 3. Determine your goals and KPIs how are you going to get there? 4. Understand the best platforms for your business and who should be in charge of them. This is important and should be someone you can trust to post content that reflects your company s brand appropriately. 5. A solid tracking and reporting process. 6. More followers does not mean better. B2B is specific. Quality over quantity is better.

Platform overview LinkedIn A place to network and connect, it s a platform for businesses and business professionals alike with close to 380 million users today.

3 Platform overview LinkedIn A place to network and connect, it s a platform for businesses and business professionals alike with close to 380 million users today. As a business: The first thing to do is to build your page, if you haven t already. Make sure you include information on your products and services and put your differentiators right up front. Although it s not about the immediate sale, it is about lead nurturing, so use the page to your advantage. Here are some tips: Company description Put your differentiators in your company description. Don t make this description a dry blurb about how you grew or how many offices you ve opened. Make it worthwhile and pique interest right from the beginning with how you are different. Employee network Make sure your staff is following the page and sharing your content when appropriate. Website available for increased traffic Add your website to the company description. Showcase pages Create a showcase page or two based on specific products or services you want to highlight. Many times these pages are geared to a specific segment of your audience to help drive more interest. Thought leadership Comment in groups that are in your niche as an easy way to position yourself and your company as an expert.

Here are some tips: If you decide to join groups At times, LinkedIn might not seem like it, but it is considered a social network. The keyword here is social.

4 Platform overview (cont.) As a business professional (you): Believe it or not, people stalk your LinkedIn profile. They do! And you need to make sure the information you have out there puts you in the best light and makes you shine. Here are some tips: If you decide to join groups At times, LinkedIn might not seem like it, but it is considered a social network. The keyword here is social. Demonstrate your ability to network with like-minded professionals by joining LinkedIn groups. Look at your co-workers and competitors profiles to see which groups they ve joined pick the best of the bunch you find there. If you maintain visibility in some of these groups in your niche, you can nurture leads and develop relationships. Be sure to follow some influencers By following LinkedIn influencers, you give viewers a sense of which thought leaders you respect. Influencers regularly post to LinkedIn, so you ll also be able to comment on and share articles that are meaningful to you. Follow your own company It s a no brainer, but it s surprising how many employees do not follow their own company s page on LinkedIn. Be sure to share the content posted to increase your reach. Select skills and expertise for which you want to be endorsed There is a ton of controversy over the value of LinkedIn endorsements. But you know what? They re here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. So use them to your advantage. Take as many recommendations as you can get and be proud about it. Edit your contact information Is your and phone number still valid? You want those leads coming to you and not to a void in cyberspace. Share Share. Share. Share. There s only one way to get people to see you as a thought leader and resource, and that s to be one. There s a lot of great content out there. Push it out on your own channels. You making a name for yourself also makes a name for your company. Additional information: How to share Just go to the post that you like and click Share. The next box that comes up will allow you to type in your own commentary. When you re ready, hit the blue Share button at the bottom of the page. Posting It s important to pay attention to not only what you are posting but also when you are posting. To start, try to post at least twice a week. Here is an easy guide to help you get going.

5 Platform overview (cont.) Twitter If you re ever out on Twitter, have you noticed how many companies are there? At the same time, have you noticed how many business professionals are there as well? It s turned into a social networking world for the business elite. Want information about a certain topic (i.e. healthcare reform, employee engagement, voluntary enrollment or financial wellness)? Well, hop on Twitter and you ll find a ton of articles that users have posted. I bet there s a lot more industry-related information out there than you thought. Not to mention, if you ve been to any conferences in the past few years you will see Twitter handles for most of the speakers. They are thought leaders in the industry and they position themselves that way. Connect with those people. Comment, retweet and share their content, and they may do the same for you. Twitter is very fast paced and it s meant to be short and to the point (with 140 characters or less). For lead generation, you can easily find prospects in your area, but on top of that, you can find out what they like, and what their hot topics are before you ever make a phone call just by adding their feed. Twitter just surpassed LinkedIn as the most actively used platform for sales. 2 Branding & How to get started Many companies use Twitter as a way to connect with other professionals and as a 24/7 customer service venue. We mostly use it to push out meaningful articles about the industry, about Trustmark, or just to simply entertain (because it s meant to be social). As a business: Know your followers and try to post the type of content that will be useful to them to maximize your credibility. If you re only planning to use Twitter to promote your own content, you re doing it wrong. It s great to promote your own content, but share interesting links to articles, blog posts and other websites that aren t directly associated with your company if you think they are worthwhile. Rock the boat a little if you are comfortable. Being different will help you gain followers. Twitter is not meant to be as conservative as LinkedIn. Don t be afraid to share your point of view even if it differs from the rest. Make sure your background and profile photo are a reflection of your company. Follow other influencers, others in your industry, partners, etc. as a great way to stay in tune with what s going on, to stay connected and to also gain more followers. If you scope out potential prospects, follow them. Comment on their posts and offer beneficial feedback. But beware do not go for the hard sell here. Make sure to use the analytics available to you within Twitter to see top posts and mentions. This will help you tailor your content to post more of what your followers like. And don t forget to promote the fact that you are on Twitter. Add the icon to your website, your signature and your marketing materials. As a business professional (you): Creating a brand for yourself is another important facet to creating a brand for your company. Get in the limelight as a thought leader. Don t forget that what you post does not need to be just company- or industry-specific. Add in information about yourself, too. There s no right or wrong here as long as you re appropriate. Your audience likes having a chance to get to know you on a personal level. Show them the real you, and share articles that you would also find helpful. If your interest is employee enrollment or healthcare reform, post more articles about those topics, and intersperse them with information about your favorite sports team, or hobbies/activities that you love. Show who you are from both a personal and professional side. People will follow you. It takes time. The best way to get followers is to interact with others in the industry who are already out there. Follow them and they might just follow you back. Make sure to use hashtags that correspond to what you are posting. It s yet another easy way for people to find you.

Platform overview (cont.) Additional information: The scary hashtag You probably hear about this hashtag business a #million times but you may not know what it is. Don t be afraid of the hashtag.

6 Platform overview (cont.) Additional information: The scary hashtag You probably hear about this hashtag business a #million times but you may not know what it is. Don t be afraid of the hashtag. Use them. It s just for searching. It allows people to easily find your post should it be on a certain topic. So, for example, if you posted an article on healthcare reform, it could read: New reporting regulations were just released. What s next for #ACA? Find out what this means for you You may decide to use the hashtag within the post rather than at the end to save room since Twitter only allows you to post 140 characters. Posting Twitter is extremely fast paced, which means, people can easily miss what you post. So feel free to repost the next day or in a couple days if it is something important (such as a new product launch or a new service you have added). On Twitter, it is OK to post a few times a day. It s nearly impossible to over-publish on Twitter. To begin, you may want to try to post seven days a week and work up from there. Posting on the weekend does not have to be hard. There are tools available to help you schedule your tweets. Try a free tool such as Hootsuite, Ways to make a killer first impression on social media. Louis Foong. Nov. 11, Forbes.com. Twitter overtakes LinkedIn. May 16, 2015.

How to Succeed in Social Selling with Employee Advocacy

How to Succeed in Social Selling with Employee Advocacy What is social selling? Social selling is about leveraging social networks to interact with potential buyers to build revenuedriving relationships.