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Permalink to How to Use Content to Build Thought Leadership in 6 Steps

How to Use Content to Build Thought Leadership in 6 Steps

by Angie Sanders|on January 21, 2013 |in Content marketing, Just good business, Social Media |tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |Leave a comment

thought leader credit damiencummingsdotblogspotdotcomAt a Washington Network Group entrepreneurs roundtable event last Wednesday night, speaker Angelique Rewers, also known as The Corporate AgentTM used two terms during her talk that caused some audience members to look at her like she’d sprouted eight arms: Content marketing and thought leader.

She explained that content marketing involves creating and distributing relevant and valuable information to attract, acquire, and engage your target audience and lead them to a desired action. “You want to be a thought leader,” she said.

“But the challenge is how do you provide good content without giving away all your strategy, right?” asked an audience member.

You may remember that I wrote a blog post a while back that reassured you that you can afford to give away some of your ideas without fearing that a potential client will run with them and never give you or your business a second thought.

The keys to content marketing and framing yourself and others in your company as thought leaders are to: 1. Give your audience simple information that they can either act on right now or that answers pressing questions and 2. Plant a seed in the audience’s mind that you and your company are the leading authorities on this subject.

Face it. If your audience doesn’t get this information from you, then they’ll perform a Google search and find someone else who’ll give them the answer.

Business owners think that being a thought leader means that you have spout Confucius-like, life-changing tidbits that no one else is close to even thinking about. If you can do this, then congratulations. But there’s not much new under the sun. It just has to be new to your audience.

So here are six steps toward establishing yourself and your team members as thought leaders online.

  1. Think about the pillars on which you operate your business.
    What are your company’s top business offerings? Why do you offer these services? Why should your audience come to you for these services?
  2. Define who you’re serving with those pillars.
    This is an important one. Who is your audience? Who usually buys the services you offer? Be very specific with this description. What do these people do for a living? What do they look like? What do they read? Even better, identify actual points of contact at your client organizations and use them to create a detailed profile of your target audience for each of your services.
  3. Determine what questions your audience asks.
    When potential clients approach you, or your ears perk up after meeting a potential client, what is it that they’re seeking? What problems do they tend to come to your company to solve before they become a client? What are their pain-points?
  4. Consider how you can help your audience answer these questions quickly and the best ways to present the information.
    Now that you’re familiar with your audience’s common questions and pain-points, how can you address these in succinct and interesting ways? Should your company start a blog? Which team members should contribute? Perhaps you should begin shooting short videos? Is there information that could be presented in infographics? Do you have PowerPoint presentations that you can upload to Slideshare?
  5. Create an editorial calendar.
    This step is tricky, but helpful. Determine all the channels through which you’d like to share content (blogging, video, e-books, etc.). Then create a calendar that details when these items will go live and be available to share. For example, you may decide that your company will publish four blog posts and create four short videos per month, release one e-book per quarter, and curate content via social media on a daily basis. Your editorial calendar should provide a brief description of subject matter for each piece of content, estimate when each will be completed/posted, and how all content will be shared.
  6. Be consistent.
    I realize that we live in an instant-results kind of society, but this process takes time. Be consistent with your content creation. Monitor what kinds of content resonate best with your audience and keep giving them what they want.

Share with us: How do you define thought leadership? How are you using content to raise your/your company’s professional profile in your field?


Read 6 Myths Blocking Your Social Media Engagement, our special report that addresses misconceptions that are keeping your company from investing time into tools that will can help increase two-way communication with your customers—current and potential. Print this report. Read it on the train ride home. Highlight key points. Share it with your colleagues. And please, jump in the social media marketing game and get started. 

 

Permalink to 4 Ways Internal Social Media Teams Can Benefit from Outsourcing

4 Ways Internal Social Media Teams Can Benefit from Outsourcing

by Angie Sanders|on January 2, 2013 |in Social Media |tagged , , , , , , , |1 Comment

social team overload credit business2communitydotcomYour social media team is overextended. Yep. I said it.

You don’t believe me, do you? You’re thinking, “A four-person team should be able to adequately manage our social media presences, funnel content from necessary departments, write content when needed and track and measure the results of their work.”

If this same team worked for a small or mid-sized organization, then yes. But they serve the behemoth which is your organization. Not only is this team charged with maintaining your presences across numerous social platforms, but they’re responsible for a staggering number of accounts on these platforms. They must figure out an airtight content flow from millions of silos within the office, devise and enforce guidelines for a million more silos that insist on managing their own social media accounts, and even write original content from time to time.

But a small social media team like yours could benefit from outsourcing a portion of the workload to an outside team. I know. You’re thinking, “We hired a social media team so that these duties can be handled in-house.” True, but the social media space and your engagement goals are ever-changing and have probably expanded beyond your internal bandwidth.

There are four ways that a contract digital team can make your internal team’s workload more manageable and ensure that your social media strategy is executed more effectively. An outside team can:

Fine-tune your social media strategy.
Perhaps your team has been working from the same social media strategy since 2009. Although I applaud them for even devising a strategy and sticking to it, this strategy was probably written to be a working document. Unfortunately, your team may be too close to this document and the parameters it has set to make necessary changes. An outside team can provide a fresh perspective, reviewing it against your fluid communications strategy and making some much needed adjustments.

Assist with the execution of your social media strategy.
Social media may or may not be your team members’ only jobs. Perhaps other duties—most likely ones that are communications or marketing related—have fallen in their laps or were there from the beginning. Even if maintaining the organization’s social media presences is their only function, frequency of posting, response to customer inquiries, effective measurement or other duties may have waned. An outside social media team can help pick up the slack and perhaps make suggestions for how social media work can be better distributed among the team.

Distribute workflow across platforms.
Your organization may only be engaging audiences on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but each division within your office has its own account that it expects the social media team to maintain. And you know that your office is heavily siloed. Funneling relevant news and information from these divisions and posting to social platforms in a frequent and timely manner is a considerable challenge. An outside team can shed light on ways to improve the information flow.

Help manage multiple properties.
Revisit the above example. Your four-person team is responsible for managing multiple accounts for each platform on which your organization engages. Not to mention that there are at least three other social platforms in which divisions within your office have expressed interest in experimenting. Again, this is a considerable challenge for a small team. However, an outside team can assume the maintenance of at least one of these platforms and explore the viability of the new platforms that interest some in your office.

Share with us: Does your office have an internal social media team or does this team comprise employees from other departments? How are you handling the rapidly changing social media climate and the diverse needs of your organization?


Read 6 Myths Blocking Your Social Media Engagement, our special report that addresses misconceptions that are keeping your company from investing time into tools that will can help increase two-way communication with your customers—current and potential. Print this report. Read it on the train ride home. Highlight key points. Share it with your colleagues. And please, jump in the social media marketing game and get started. 

 

Permalink to Fast Company: A Social Media Executive’s Biggest Gripes about Working with Brands

Fast Company: A Social Media Executive’s Biggest Gripes about Working with Brands

by Angie Sanders|on October 15, 2012 |in Social Media |tagged , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments

For our past few blog posts, we’ve been pulling interesting tidbits from Fast Company’s “The Social Media Road Map,” featured in the magazine’s September 2012 issue. First, we discussed 13 key takeaways from the special section. Then we talked about why social media engagement responsibilities will always fall into the hands of a chosen few individuals inside or outside the company.

We’ll continue rocking with the Road Map today by discussing another short article from the section (Insiders’ Secret No. 5) titled, “You Hired the Wrong People.” In the article, an anonymous executive at a social media platform reveals some of his (I’m only assuming this person is a man) biggest gripes working with brands.

“Their CEOs now articulate their social media strategy,” he said. “They track how they’re doing against their rivals But by the time they come to someone like me, whose job is to actually put their plans into action, they have no idea to get what they want.”

The executive’s problem is one that we’ve been noticing lately with our potential clients, which is a huge gap between social media strategy and implementation. Consultants and even internal employees are getting a better grasp on social media and its capabilities. But when it comes to acting on those capabilities, setting reasonable goals and producing results based on those goals, these teams are clueless as to how to proceed.

However, the executive in this article is concerned with the lack of qualified counterparts to work with on the client side to execute strategy. “Companies haven’t empowered the right people, and they’re not hiring or training or converting the right people for these jobs. To be a good social media person at a brand, you have to have a background not just in digital or marketing but also in your product. There are so few people with that kind of blend of experience.”

To the client’s credit, if employees existed with this perfect blend of social, marketing and brand experience, then there’d be no need to contract with the social media executive. There may be employees on the client side with one or two of those characteristics, but it’s unrealistic to expect a counterpart with all three because social media is still just a toddler.

Companies won’t invest in hiring or training or converting the right employees until they can see value in social media overall. It’s the consultant’s job—in this case the griping executive—to show this value until the client decides to invest in internal staff or it continues to pay the consultant’s retainer.

On the other hand, this executive seems bothered by clients who shove social engagement responsibilities into one department. “People are always shoving social into marketing, or they’re shoving it into digital. It’s actually all this stuff: It’s marketing, it’s digital, it’s creative.”

We discussed in last week’s post why this shoving is to be expected, but just to reiterate: Social media will always be shoved into any department that serves an external communications function simply because these are the people within the organization who are deemed best equipped to handle it.

And we should look on the bright side. At least we’re slowly moving beyond leaving social media to the interns.

Share with us: How does your company handle its social media engagement? Is it the responsibility of the marketing communications department or a separate digital strategy team? Social media strategists: do you also struggle with the lack of a counterpart on the client side? How do you work around this?

This post is the third in a series of five posts discussing ideas presented in Fast Company’s “The Social Media Roadmap” section (September 2012 issue).

Permalink to Why a Chosen Few Will Always be Responsible for Company Social Media Engagement

Why a Chosen Few Will Always be Responsible for Company Social Media Engagement

by Angie Sanders|on October 10, 2012 |in Social Media |tagged , , , , , , , , , , , |2 Comments

In last Wednesday’s post, we gave you 13 key takeaways from Fast Company magazine’s “The Social Media Road Map,” that ran in their September 2012 issue. However, their Insiders’ Secret No. 3, an article titled “What Your Social Media Consultant Should Tell You,” warranted a post of its own.

Anjali Mullany, the magazine’s social media editor, says, “If social media consultants are doing their jobs, they should put themselves out of business. Your company will never be truly social if you silo social activity within a consultant or staff manager.”

Well, yes and no.

Saying that a company isn’t truly social if one person, small team or outside entity handles this function is like saying that that same company doesn’t really perform marketing or communications functions if everyone in the company isn’t doing it, too.

Shared responsibility for the actual act of engagement is a respectable goal, but it may be a bit lofty and impractical. Communications and marketing departments have a hard enough time getting buy-in from other departments to reach out to the company’s audiences outside of social media. Expecting all employees to participate in social may be a stretch.

Plus, by keeping responsibilities for social media engagement with a certain internal team or outside consultants keeps a good handle on messaging within the social space.

Because social media engagement is an external communications tactic, it will probably always remain in the hands of those who are already responsible for external communications—unless the company decides that developing a designated digital strategy team is warranted.

Now we’re not saying that the rest of the company should take a completely hands-off approach to social media because it shouldn’t be taking this approach to its overall marketing strategy. Whichever team(s) is responsible for both marketing communications and social media need support from the rest of the company in the form of free-flowing information.

The only way these teams can tell your company’s story to the audiences that live outside the four walls of your office is if you funnel the information to them that’s necessary to tell this story in a compelling way. This involves keeping these teams abreast of company milestones, achievement and impact.

If there’s a new product launch or breakthrough, new clients or partnerships, client or customer testimonials, video or photos from the field, or any other groundbreaking information affecting your current or potential clients, your marketing communications and social media teams need to know. The success of both these teams depends heavily on your ability to ensure that these teams get the compelling information they need to engage your audience and get them excited about your brand.

Share with us: How does your company funnel information through to your marketing communications and social media teams and out to your external audiences?

This post is the second in a series of five posts discussing ideas presented in Fast Company’s “The Social Media Roadmap” section (September 2012 issue).

Permalink to For Businesses, Social Media Means Nothing Without These 3 Things

For Businesses, Social Media Means Nothing Without These 3 Things

by Angie Sanders|on September 26, 2012 |in Just good business, Social Media |tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |6 Comments

When I tell people about aiellejai and the services we provide, they’re often surprised to see me sitting in the audience at some social media panel discussion sessions. I like to attend these sessions to understand why people come, what they’re hoping to learn and to hear the questions asked. This helps us keep gauge the pulse of our market and develop products and services to best serve them.

I find that people who attend these sessions fall into three camps:

Do I need to set up a Facebook page?
These are the individuals or business owners who are new to social networking and how to use it to their advantages.

Why am I on Facebook or Twitter?
These are the people who are looking for strategy for participating in the social media space.

How do I measure success and how do I ensure results?
These are the people who are already maintaining social media presences in some sort of strategic way and are looking for ways to evaluate the success of their time and effort.

Most of the people I meet fall between camps two and three. But as they ask their questions and get good answers that still leave them scratching their heads, I suspect that these answers would be clearer to them if they had the following three elements in place:

A clear business model: Some of us business owners—especially those with service-based businesses—aren’t totally clear about the services we provide or the value of these services to our clients or customers. For example, aiellejai usually takes the standard, hourly-rate approach to our service offerings. We recently had to take an objective look at our business offerings, what services were most popular and how to create other products that will best serve the needs of our existing and future customers.

A laser-focused description of their ideal client or customer:  When I ask potential clients who their ideal client or customer is, they often say things like, “small businesses,” or “nonprofits.” It’s especially tricky to identify specific demographic information about your ideal client or customer if you run a business-to-business company. However, when you’re marketing your services, most likely there’s one type of person or one point of contact who you’re trying to attract. Work on identifying who that person is, what they look like, what their challenges are and any other information you can think of that will help you see your clients as individual people instead of whole companies. Visualizing your potential clients/customers this way will help you market to them specifically.

An overarching communications/marketing strategy: Some business owners are having a hard time wrapping their brains around social networking because they aren’t clear on how to reach their audiences outside of the social media space. Once you establish clear communications and marketing strategies and goals you’ll then be able to understand how to use social media engagement—along with other tactics—to reach these goals.

Share with us: How does your company’s communications/marketing strategy influence your social media engagement? How do you define and measure success?

 

 

Permalink to Martin: 5 Ways Technology Dated our Beloved 90s Sitcom

Martin: 5 Ways Technology Dated our Beloved 90s Sitcom

by Angie Sanders|on July 27, 2012 |in Social Media, What's on TV |tagged , , , |3 Comments

My niece Jasmine watches Fox Network’s hit show Martin. That means one of two things: either the 90s was a cool decade or she views Martin the way my generation does Good Times or The Jeffersons.

While in vacation in Miami last month, I caught the I’ve Got Work to Do episode of the sitcom featuring comedian Martin Lawrence. Martin was forced to find a new job after losing his position as a radio disc jockey. Detroit’s employment office placed him on one jobsite after another, but Martin quit them all after only a few days. He was just too great to flip burgers and deliver mail.

What makes watching throwback shows like this fun—aside from the great comedic timing and remembering the jokes we often took to school with us the morning after—is seeing the outdated technology. What looks like an enormous cell phone to us must look like a telegraph machine to Jasmine.

Nineties technologies not only appear in this episode, but what’s also evident is how far we’ve come in streamlining our processes, like searching for employment. Here are a few things from this Martin episode that will make you appreciate pocket-sized smart phones, the internet and job-seeking in the new millennium:

Martin called information to get the number for the employment office—from a landline. I only know a handful of people today who actually have landlines in their homes. Most of us would perform a Google search on our smart phones for the number and simply touch the screen to dial.

He couldn’t use the internet or social media to look for another job. Martin was a disc jockey for a radio station in Detroit, a major market. If LinkedIn existed, then maybe it would have been easier for him to work his contacts to find a new job at another station.

Afraid that people would recognize him, Martin wore a disguise to the employment office. Unfortunately, no one knew who he was. Because he worked in the age before the internet was a mainstay, the radio station had no website with photos of the personalities. Martin was embarrassed because he thought of himself as a local star. But there was no way for him to search for a new job from a computer in the privacy of his own home.

There were pay phones at the employment office. While driving back to the Washington, DC area from Lynchburg, Virginia, I saw a man standing at a pay phone outside the Crossroad Store on Route 29 holding a roll of quarters. Odd? Yes. When was the last time you’ve seen someone use a pay phone? When was the last time you’ve even seen a pay phone?

While buffing the floor at his new position, Martin is listening to a portable CD player. CDs were hot in the 90s. But now, MP3 players and devices that stream music are the norm. I’ll bet Martin would’ve loved Spotify.

Permalink to 941 People Use “Link” as a Password (and Other Online Security Surprises)

941 People Use “Link” as a Password (and Other Online Security Surprises)

by Angie Sanders|on June 27, 2012 |in Social Media |tagged , , , |1 Comment

Earlier this month, Omari yelled to me from his desk on the other side of our office: “Did you change your LinkedIn password?”

There was a mad dash to switch up passwords as LinkedIn confirmed on June 6 that “some passwords were compromised” in a “major security breach.” PC World reported that a file with a whopping 6.5 million passwords popped up on a Russian online forum. As of the article’s publication, 200,000 of those passwords had been cracked.

According to a recent Mashable study, polling more than 700 active internet users between the ages of 26 and 54, people over the age of 55 (77%) and between 18-24 (62%) share a concern that their personal information could be compromised online. However, NPR told us on Monday that Baby Boomers tend to use stronger passwords than their kids, with people between the ages of 45-55 having the strongest passwords.

Many people use the same password for all online accounts, including banking and bill pay. What are some of the most used passwords? Words like “link”, “work”, “god” and even “12345” top the list.

But perhaps the fact that stolen social-network passwords don’t fetch as much money for criminals as banking passwords can make us feel a little better about large-scale security breaches like the one LinkedIn experienced. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that while banking passwords can be worth up to $850 each, social-network passwords only bring in $1. On the other hand, hackers could still score if they obtain login information for people who use this same information for multiple accounts.

An Illinois woman filed a $5 million lawsuit against LinkedIn Corp just two weeks after the security breach was confirmed. The woman claims LinkedIn broke its promise to its customers by “not having better security in place.”

Check out the full NPR story, “Prevent Your Password From Becoming Easy Pickings (Or PyPfbEp),” for helpful suggestions for randomizing your password to defeat potential attackers.