Great influencer review! “Influencer marketing is worth at least $1 billion, and it has grown up a lot this year, with more sophisticated data and tighter media contracts. Here are five things we learned about influencer marketing in 2017.”
Top 5 Influencer Research Tools for Social Media Marketing
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Tue, 11/14/2017 – 09:47
Do you know that 61% of consumers skip ads and 48% install ad blockers!
Customers are more likely to buy when they get recommendations from a person they trust.
It is true that 49% of consumers seek guidance from social media influencers before making a buying decision.
Many marketers have realized that ads is not the best way to market their products. The rise of ad blocks is giving way for influencer marketing.
What is Influencer Marketing?
We all have seen celebrities like Justin Bieber promoting Calvin Klein underwear or Selena Gomez promoting Adidas Neo.
They are not the expert fashion designers or have any involvement in the products, yet their promotions have a mass appeal. This is celebrity marketing has been there ever since the evolution of marketing.
Influencer marketing is a latest trend that has emerged due to the growth on online marketing.
Influencer marketing is a way of promoting products with the help of influencers in the domain who are experts in the products that they promote.
For example, beauty bloggers like @MichellePhan promote beauty products and fashion bloggers like @AIMEESONG ?promotes a new fashion line. In this case, the promotions are trusted much higher by the consumers since they see promotions from the experts.
Importance of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing can work wonders for your brand. Many marketers are replacing celebrities with YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat influencers. These online stars are providing unfiltered feedback on products, and consumers love it.
Influencer inspire engagement with their audience by making it a two way communication. Influencer have built a fan following through social media and their reach usually focuses on a specific niche audience.
For example, an influential gamer would endorse gaming and tech products. People look up to these influencers for advice, tips, and recommendations in regards to consumer products.
Now that you know the importance of influencers, it is time to find and research influencers in your domain so that you can engage with them for your product promotion activities.
But finding influencers can be a task by itself. This is the first step towards your influencer campaign and needs to be perfect. There are quite a few impressive tools that will help you in researching influencers in your niche.
Here are Top 5 tools to search Influencers.
#1 Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is one for the most popular tool to research influencers. Search Buzzsumo with a keyword relevant to your industry and it will throw up results of the top influencers in your niche.
Buzzsumo shows the page authority and domain authority. It also provides useful insights into the number of twitter followers, their retweet ratio, reply ratio and average retweets.
These statistics help the marketer to know the reach and engagement of the influencers, based on which they can choose the right influencer for their promotion activities.
#2 Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a powerful tool that helps marketers to discover social media influencers by monitoring the conversations that relate to your industry. This tool helps you to get answers to some of your questions such as:
- With whom is your target audience engaging with on social media?
- Whose content is your target audience sharing?
When you get the answer to these questions, you have got the set of people who can help to expand the reach for your brand.
#3 Traackr
Traackr is a tool that offers solution for those markets who are interested in reaching out to influencers with an aim to build strong relationships. It is an efficient tool to manage your global influencer network.
Traackr helps to track conversations and also validates real influencers. It saves a lot of time of the marketers by identifying the right influencers as per the profiles that a marketer is looking for.
Traackr scores each influencer based on reach and relevance, which provides a clear starting point for the marketers. It offers features such as tracking conversations, import existing contacts and a lot filtering options.
#4 BuzzStream
BuzzStream is another useful influencer outreach tool to help manage your efforts of finding and managing influencers. BuzzStream is capable of automatically researching influencers. This tool can be used to discover the contact details and social profiles of influencers in your niche. It also helps to you track communications with influencers.
Once you have the list of URLs, BuzzStream will take over and complete the rest of your work. It will automatically search each website and identify contact information, social metrics and traffic statistics.
#5 Pitchbox
Pitchbox is yet another useful tool that helps you to find influencers in your niche. With Pitchbox you can focus on creating connections and discussing partnerships with the top influencers in your space. It is a wonderful tool to find contact information, website URL, social media profiles and much more.
Pitchbox allows a marketer to set up emails which will reach out to opportunity contacts up to three times. When you receive a response from the contact, you can view and respond to it within Pitchbox’s interface, removing the need to use multiple programs or browser windows.
Conclusion
81% of people trust the advice they receive from influencers.
It’s time to leverage the power of influencers in your space. Influencer marketing drives sales to a great extent. With the right tools you can find influencers who really matter to your business.
Have you tried any of the tools to find more influencers? Would you add any other tools to this list? Please share your list in the comments section below.
The Key: Social Team Formation, Training, Coaching and Willingness to PLAY!
The Challenge: Help us fill our event in three weeks!
So many of you saw the previous Blog post on the Informs IMPAC 2017 show here in Chicago. Well, the INFORMS people came to us about three weeks before the show and said they needed a short, low-cost campaign to fill their event with paying event attendees at the Notre Dame Chicago Campus. We viewed this as the ultimate Social Influencer challenge: with a small budget and very little time, could we use our core network to make this event pop and possibly put some butts in seats? We took a close look at our network and talked briefly among our team; then we decided to take on the challenge and thought we would give it a shot with our Social Influencer Event System. Spoiler alert: it was a dramatic success! I have outlined the highlights of our steps below.
Strategy: Look at the impact and influence of the network
We faced the challenge of two networks coming together. FinTech Analytics and Sports Analytics are two different groups, with two entirely different networks. Keep in mind we look at every event like a sporting event, so we assemble networks and sub-networks like “Social Teams”, where there are levels of talent and groupings based on each levels’ commitment to the organization and desire for it to succeed, i.e., corporate championship. So, our typical method is to run what we call our “Inside Out” analysis. It might be easiest to follow along with the diagram below:
Prep work: We make sure first and foremost that we connect all of our teams and brands to the teams associated with the event. We also score all Team Players on the diagram above, both professionals and brands, so we know who the strongest players are – and consequently the ones most likely to participate. As much as you’d like for everyone to participate, we find we mostly get a 50% participation rate; however, some groups surprise us with a higher level of play.
Get the Teams Ready for Play
1. Core Team (Level One) – these were the Board Members. We were able to get agreement ahead of time for willingness to play. This is critical; without this buy-in, it does not work. So, a big shout out to the Board Members listed below who allowed us to start this machine rolling. A special shout out to Andrea Leiter who was our initial content and spark to get the troops assembled and have them agree to play with us.
They agreed to allow us to train them on how to play on social media and how to interact with our content. Our Social Jack™ Influencer Team Training purposely keeps it simple and easy for busy people to play the game with us and it’s proven to be highly effective. Board Members also agreed to connect us to the next level of the network, the Speaker Team.
2. Speaker Team (Level Two) – The Speakers were all connected to the Board Members (Team One), so we worked to have them reach out and ask the Speakers to play with our content. We then also provide weekly online coaching sessions for all clients and subscribers so they have a place to go. Don’t forget to also include the Speakers’ brands as part of the game! On our Social Jack™ Platform, we also record all training and coaching sessions for review. We then reach out to all Speakers and invite them to participate. When we have more time, we offer our training and coaching program for Speakers; unfortunately, for this run we could not organize our training for all Speakers.
3. Sponsor Team (Level Three) – Sponsors typically are invested; however, many do not know how to play socially. We had the Board Members with the best relationships personally contact the Sponsors and ask them to participate; some even sent email blasts in addition to social posting and engagement. Most are typically invested as they too want the eyeballs on their brand — or they would not be Sponsors. We watched and helped the Sponsors boost their message as part of the process. Reciprocity is part of the success recipe here!
4. Connected Influencer Team (Level Four) – This is our “secret sauce”: so, we find the Influencer Players in our network, depending on the type of event, audience, etc. Sometimes we have more and sometimes less. In this case we reached out to everyone — from media contacts related to sports and everyone we knew in FINTECH. We wound up with a team of about 35 people of which about 20 played nicely. There was a great variety of participation, ranging from emails to social media placement of banner ads to attendance. Too many to mention here, suffice it to say however that we could not have done it without these players in this process.
Time to Play
Once we have team connections and agreements in place, it’s really time to play! As soon as we had the board trained, we then mapped out our messaging with emails, social media and advertising. We had to move fast since we had a super short promotion window, with very little time for testing. We had to lead out with our best guestimates for the message and tweak on the fly as needed.
We created content calendars and sent those out to all the team players that were trained and those that had agreed to play with us online. As always, some jumped in right away and some needed a little nudge and still others did not show up. No-shows are a hard fact, but in this case, most showed up to play with us online and some even went the extra mile with sending extra emails and even posted their own supply of social media. The most important thing is for all team members to understand what and when you will be posting so they can interact with you, so the best bet is to have your content done in advance, let speakers and sponsors know when they will be featured and where, and then communicate like crazy on approach.
Ongoing Coaching Support
In our weekly Social Jack™ coaching sessions, we provide unlimited support for all clients and students. This means if they want to understand LinkedIn more, we teach that; if they want to play more on Twitter, we teach that. Whatever they need we are there to help them. This way they never feel alone in the game, and for many this is a new game for them. We understand that many of these people are new to this game and we want them to succeed just by being part of the event.
That Extra Reach
To continue this thought, think about if you have a speaker that only has 50 followers on Twitter, then you show them how to get another 20, then how to attach to their brand and other influencers in their world. You are now changing the game one person, one network at a time. We literally received many inquiries and orders just from this method alone.
In this case we had:
8 Board Members
7 Sponsors
13 Speakers
20 Connected Influencers
The total estimated “targeted” social reach ended up being over 75 million connections, and that is a very conservative estimate.
The Outcome: 85 attendees for a paid event within 20 days!
One More Thing
Always think of the “one more thing”: what is one more tweet, post, share or like that can be done and where. We went into LinkedIn Groups, Alumni Groups and other areas, and in the home stretch that also helped. So, remember when doing this, stick to the plan and — like you do at the gym — always go for one more thing!
There were many more things that we did behind the scenes as part of our process, but I hope this brings you ideas and thoughts of how you can bring more people to your events through Influencer Marketing. We are all Influencers and have a powerful network once it is activated, it’s just that some of us are new and just starting out. Remember that the largest Influencers started with just a few followers at some point and built up to what you now know. The cool thing is that it is never too late to start.
For many of you this seems way out there, it is new, it is growing, it is changing all the time. If you want to know more or want to get a walk-through of our system, I encourage you to visit our website or our Coaching and Training Platform.
Oh — one more thing, remember as you start your journey, you are never alone as long as you follow the Social Teaming methodology described earlier in this blog post. Please let us know how you do as you grow your brand and yourself as an influencer, we would love to feature you or maybe refer to you during one of our upcoming events. After all, our event clients are always looking for the next up-and-coming influencer!
We will see you online…. Influencing!
With all the hype of the newest features on LinkedIn — video, active status and other cool new features – that were released in the last few weeks, an old popular feature, one that was taken away with the last major release, now returns!
At the Social Jack™ Academy, we had a cool feature called “Network Diving;” this is the simple process of searching your connections’ networks. Well, this feature is now back, and better than ever because now it incorporates the new filtered search system.
We’ll illustrate how it works with an example: let’s say you are going to have a meeting with one of your connections and are going for named referrals, and you would like to have the option to filter ideal connections. With the previous release you would get a list, with no way to search like you used to. Fortunately, now this has changed back to the way it was, where when you click on someone’s connections, it now jumps you to the filtered search like it used to! This is an amazing switch. We caution here that there are a few exceptions, so read on.
You can search within the connections using all the filter options shown below.
The main exceptions here are the following:
1. If the connection you are “Network Diving” on, i.e. exploring their connections, has their network access turned off, you will not be able to dive unless you have Sales Navigator.
2. Those of you on Basic (Free) LinkedIn will be able to enjoy only a few selections in the search, then you will be blocked from seeing the rest unless you have Premium LinkedIn. But in my mind, this feature alone is the worth the price!
We are showing this account version chart provided from our friends at Integrated Alliances, thanks Mike O’Neil!
We hope you love this new feature and if you want to learn more of what we call “Power Moves”, please connect with us at our Social Jack™ website. If you are reading this before September 5th, then jump into our next Social Selling class at: https://socialjack.com/linkedin-complete-social-selling-course/ – this is our complete course with On Demand classes, Instructor-Led Coaching Sessions. You will learn more cool fun things like in this article.
Please let us know how this ‘old new’ feature works for you.
We will see you online Network Diving!
7 Steps to Promote Your Podcast Interview – Increase Your Influencerness [yes, I made up this word!]
So you have been asked to be a guest on a podcast…Great! In the spirit of Influencer Marketing, we hope it receives plenty of traction and social reach. In our previous blog, How to be a Social Influencer, we spoke of being a “Thought Leader” and turning on the “Content Machine”. Fortunately for you, podcasting is a great way to do just that. People get to hear your voice, know your personality, gain insights and knowledge from you, and even better, you can attach the podcast to blogs like this and to social media. In fact, my previous blog references a podcast I was on — speaking about this very topic. Once you follow the steps I describe below, your podcast will also support your efforts in Personal Branding, described in another one of our blogs, Personal Branding – A Great Start to your Social Selling Journey!
With so many of you getting interviewed, we thought we should tell you what to do before, during and after the podcast. For Social Jack™, we have a promotion process for each and every production, whether it be a podcast or webcast, so the best thing to do is understand some critical information about the podcast you are working with. Examples include what is their promotion cycle, what is their timing, etc. We reference this in the following list of steps.
7 Steps to promote your podcast interview
1. Promote on social media and other outlets 2 weeks before, if the podcast producers have a show schedule that references you. There is typically a website they have for the blog that will mention upcoming shows. You should sync the timing of this “xx” with any posting of your show. If they don’t have one, you can choose to promote a couple of weeks before, no further out than that. Once you’ve done this, you can tag and link back to that show, discussing how you are looking forward to the podcast.
2. Notify your Team! Remember Social Teaming, it is the essence of teamwork: you’re not doing this this all alone! Tell them you are on this podcast, ask them to watch for social media, ask them to listen and provide feedback and get in the game with you! It’s collaborative, and it’s fun. You will also pick up more podcasts and speaking gigs this way too, it’s proven.
3. Ahead of schedule, plan to blog about it, then you can have a link to the show from the blog post. This will provide good traffic between your site and theirs (and remember to use ample keywords). Also consider shooting a video talking about the upcoming podcast, or plan one for the release date of the podcast.
4. Promote the podcast on social media the day of the show recording; some podcast producers promote as well, but others do not because it locks them into a production release schedule.
5. Once the podcast is published, it’s time for you to go gonzo, tag your show and host, also remember all your channels. Once published, go ahead and cut lose with the blog or update the blog if done ahead of time.
6. 30 and 90 days after: (if relevant to your current business you can thank them and repost) – don’t forget use of #hashtags and @tags!
7. Forever after…. Keep using the podcast in your content cycle as long as it is relevant!
Now, go do the next podcast interview and keep following this protocol to put yourself out there to support your influencerness (yes, I made up this word just for you!) ?
PRO TIP: Remember to always listen to your blog interview and think about what you could have done better or said better to improve your position as a thought leader. Also, listen to your competitors and colleague’s podcasts as well. You should always be looking for those nuggets to be better.
TOP RESOURCE: We recently did a full course on podcasting with top Podcaster Scott Kitun, from Technori, one of the top-rated media podcasts featured on WGN Radio, here in Chicago. Below is access to the slides; if you would like access to the full class we did, simply go to Social Jack™ and join for a 90-day free trial and you will have access to this class and over 200 others for that period — and weekly coaching, too. This is our gift to you for being part of our community.
To learn more about Podcasting, check out Podcasting 101 Marketing on SlideShare
In closing, let us know when your podcast airs and the team at Social Jack™ will gladly listen and promote your efforts. Remember, we are on your Social Team and we are all in this together!
See you online!
Notice I titled this ‘Social Influencer’, not ‘Social Media Influencer’. In our Social Influencer Marketing programs, we believe that it is our job to have our clients become Influencers in their world, and Social Media is one vehicle for making that happen. Let’s see if you agree or disagree with me after this article…!
First, a definition: an influencer is, simply put, someone who carries influence over others. An influencer on social media wields influence through social media. You probably know that word-of-mouth is one of the valuable forms of marketing; in our digital age, word of mouth goes way beyond what friends and family recommend to you, and that’s where influencers come in. No matter who you are, if you’re a thought leader in your network, people think of you and come to you first.
Becoming a thought leader in your network is a process, and our standard plan for our clients has about 20 steps, but here, I want to give you the top five things that could give you a head start down this path, something to think about and gain some traction. Even if you do nothing more than this, you will be further ahead than when you started.
Even if you’re not aiming to be a solution provider, becoming a social influencer can help you advance your career; we actually teach this as part of our career advance program in universities. On a corporate level, showcasing a company’s culture on social media can build the company’s reputation. Even more, employees can become corporate advocates – you can empower staff members to share their own insights about their work on their own social media feeds!
#1 – Pick your niche or focus
To be an influencer people need to really be able to easily digest what you can and will do for them — how you will serve them and solve their problems. You are most likely a solution provider of some sort. If you can clearly address a need that your target audience has, and match the skills you have to what you can provide, then you’re well on your way. Make sure your solution speaks directly to their need so that you are addressing the lowest common denominator of the problem at hand.
Example:
Say you’re an accountant. There are thousands of accountants, what makes you different, what is your niche in this very crowded world? I have a friend who over the years has forged his reputation in property tax savings. He completed his law degree and represents his clients from both an accounting and legal perspective. While he has enough knowledge to do your taxes and many other services, he decided over 20 years ago to pick a specialty and maintain that position. He is now one of the most recognized property tax attorneys in Chicago and has a limitless flow of referrals. We are now looking at how to add the social media component to take him to the next level. You might be this same position. Once you know your focus, you’re ready to move to the next step.
#2 – Subscribe and Monitor The Competition
While you may not think there is any, there is always competition. How to find them? Simply Google search either by need or solution discussed previously, then look for blogs, webcasts, podcasts, and other sources of information. This will give you a perspective on how to either refine your message or, if nothing else, what to do better or what not do. This will only make you better. You can also set up Google Alerts with those words of ‘need’ or ‘solution’ as mentioned earlier, names of competitors, even your own name(s).
To setup a Google Alert you will need a gmail account and be logged into google, then simply go to: https://www.google.com/alerts , add as many words or phrases as mentioned above, define the frequency, and you’ll be alerted when this news hits the Internet.
Once you do find competitors or colleagues, make sure you subscribe to them and block out regular time to review the information you glean. This will only make you better.
#3 – Define Your Social Channels
You will never master all channels, so you need to really think of where your ideal target spends the most of their time, and decide what you can manage. We manage channels for many clients who want to be influencers and don’t have the time to make that happen, so you can consider that as well – hire and pay for assistance or find a volunteer help to build and manage. You can also reference our slide deck listed below.
Remember when doing this: one tip is to simply ask your clients where they spend their time on social media. This will give you a great start to making that choice.
#4 – Look like a thought leader (a.k.a. Social Influencer)
Please reference one of my last blog posts on Personal Branding, this is the critical next step. Google yourself and see how your digital footprint represents your position in the market place. Most likely, social media sites like LinkedIn, videos and personal websites with your name will be at the top. You’ll want to make sure the first two pages identify that ‘solution’ niche you selected in step one. Be sure to update all your profiles and remove or rename any content that is not relevant. Your past will catch you up here, so be sure to search, scan and clean it up! Mark your calendars at the first of the month as a reminder to yourself to do this on a regular basis; we create more social profiles by accident than we know!
#5 – Turn on your content machine – remember your focus!
Okay, don’t get overwhelmed here, but you’ll need to schedule and start posting relevant content about your niche, your focus. This can consist of videos, blog posts, podcasts, interviews, slide decks (like we have done above), photos, articles you write or are featured in, and anything else that can live on the internet. Remember, when you are posting any content, tie it back to your social media sites and websites, and always make sure you include client’s need and the solution you provide. One of the simplest tips here is that you can add videos, slides or articles to your LinkedIn profile. If you author something, make sure to claim it, add it to your profiles, websites, and then post about it on your social media channels. And if you do work with a partner like us, make sure you communicate to your partners and trusted allies that you are posting and want their support to jump into the conversion online with you.
In Summary – you are an influencer – time for the next level!
You are all influencers; sometimes, as we develop and migrate, we get lost in the shuffle of our business or lives, and we need to regroup, focus, reclaim our position, and tell the world. The great news is that Social Media allows us to do this faster and more efficiently than ever before. There are also millions of other people trying the same thing. The important thought to remember is to not get overwhelmed, start with these simple steps, and if you need help, ask those around you for support. If you would like to have a conversion with us, just email me and let’s set something up, you might be closer than you think.
To hear more on this subject, you can listen to a recent podcast where I was interviewed on Influencer Marketing: “Turn Attendees Into Super Fans Using Influencer Marketing with Dean DeLisle”
Social Jack™ is also a proud sponsor of the Virtual Event: Best Practices in Influencer Marketing, which will be taking place on Tuesday, August 1st, 2017.
Can’t wait to see you looking good as a social influencer online soon! – Dean
Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, the video streaming world has been opened to everyone. While it’s been out for a little while now, Facebook Live’s popularity shows no signs of slowing down. This is all by design, of course; Zuckerberg figured that if he could get everyone streaming from Facebook, then he could beat out Googleat their YouTube game and dominate video streaming, both live and recorded. He is so invested in this that his team built an algorithm: once you commit to a Facebook Live broadcast, Facebook will immediately start to gather an audience for you. Now this works better from a personal page than a business page, but below we will show you three easy steps — or as we like to call them, “Power Moves” — to help you prep either way.
Power Move #1 – Plan Your Production
Typically, no more than one day ahead is required for this, because these streams are meant to be short and entertaining. For us, our business is Influencer Marketing, so we make sure we add a little bit of education and inspiration to the formula, but this all depends on your brand and image you want to portray. For clarification, please see our previous articles on Personal Branding and Storytelling.
So one day ahead, plot your topic. Keep it easy to digest and engaging. Next, determine your target audience; if you have hundreds or even thousands of followers, determine who you want to attract and then tailor your message to that person or that audience This will make it seem personal, and your audience will better relate to it if your message speaks to them. Also think hashtags and tagging, no shame in using a couple of hashtags; even though it’s Facebook, it can still play a role in helping your video get found once it’s posted. We also recommend tagging others who might be in the video or mentioned in the video. It’s always best to get permission before you tag someone, especially in video; always remember that this business is all about the relationships. Don’t be a tag spammer (tagging a ton of people without permission). This is a huge turn off. Another consideration is that time is valuable, and it may be difficult at first to figure out who will take the time to do this, but ask your audience for feedback as well.
Once you have this process set and in place, tell your social network in advance what and when you are doing your subsequent production. This will allow them to plan to tune in, once Facebook notifies them.
Power Move #2 – Talk to Your Audience
The best thing we can tell you here is to make sure to remember this is a conversation with your audience, so acknowledge those who are tuning in, mention those who comment, and create a level of engagement so that others will be encouraged to chime in. Once they join, Facebook will notify their network that they are on the live stream with you and this will allow your audience to grow even more. This is wonderfully simple – and beautifully effective.
Power Move #3 – C.T.A. – Call to Action
Now that you have an audience, make sure you know where you are taking them next. Are you using this process to build community, take them to the next broadcast, have them download something, go to a landing page or website, call your office, you name it, it’s yours for the asking, just remember to ask.
Summary
Remember: thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, you are now in the live broadcast business, so use this to your advantage. Even when we do our large Influencer Marketing Broadcast Events, we do a few Facebook Live feeds to help drive engagement. Whether you are doing small production work or big production work like us, there is always a place to insert Facebook Live!
Remember the three easy steps:
1. Plan
2. Engage
3. Call to Action
I hope you found this helpful and we look forward to seeing your next online broadcast!
Here is the Power Point from one of our Flash Classes on this topic:
Those of you who know me know what my team and I do for a living: we train and coach thousands of people globally on Social Selling through LinkedIn with our Social Jack Academy. We enjoy training enthusiastic professionals from Fortune 500 companies, small businesses and anything in between. What you may not know is that we also teach about Social Selling using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snap Chat and others! We create and share what we call “Power Moves” which generate appointments or referrals — not just activity, and this is key.
Social Selling is not platform-dependent; sure, our friends at LinkedIn made it famous, and we love it in the B2B space, but remember we see your Social Team as people connected to you, not only on LinkedIn. So let’s cover three quick easy power moves, and if you want more we will happily oblige!
- Home page scan – or as we love to call it, UNE (Ultimate Network Event).
What does this mean? When you log into any Social Network, we tell you “think of it like you’re at an event” Pretty easy, right? Facebook is a gathering of people who are talking, networking, doing business, sharing personal info, but this is a gathering just the same. When you log in you might see some people you want to talk to and some you don’t; remember, you only need to talk to those you want. If you see a lot of people who annoy you, you chose not to connect to them. You can easily optimize this by either unfriending them (don’t worry, they do not get notified) or quieting them, unfollowing them (you will stay connected, but not their posts), or hiding the post. For me, that’s too much work; I either unfriend or unfollow. And this is just an example, I am not unfollowing my cousin!
Let’s do the Home Page Scan, it’s super easy. Scan your page for an ideal contact, and then simply “Like” or “Comment”; remember, it makes them feel good and counts as a contact with that person. Their network will also see the relationship, so if there are other targets in that network, they will see you, too. Then, if you decide to share with your network, they’ll love you even more. You know this because you know how it makes you feel. The key here is that if you are really working the relationship, then make sure you have the intent to get an appointment after the exchange. We recommend having two social media exchanges and then taking the conversation off-line (call, text, message, etc.). Which takes us to our next cool power move!
2. The Chat Hook – With NEW Facebook AI personal assistant
The ‘chat’ function is on the right side; on Facebook they call it “Messenger”. We like “Chat” because the intent is to be more casual and social, less business-like. The cool thing is that even if the person is not online, they will get notified when they are. What’s more, if they have notifications on their phone turned on, they’ll see it on the phone. You can also use the new messenger AI personal assistant to set reminders for each other; this is a NEW feature to remind people to connect every few days or weeks, for example. Then you both get a reminder to catch up and connect, which has a much more social feel. So remember the ultimate goal is the get the appointment, so jump on it when you have can, keep it casual and social like below.
For more cool power moves like this, remember to head to Social Jack, it’s free at the point of this article, however that will end August 1st, so jump on quick.
Remember if you are new in sales or an expert, there are people on the other side of the click, not bots or icons, these are people, just talk to them and decide when to connect for that meeting, build relationship and jump to the referrals (in our training we show more detail on this). Watch for more blogs on power moves, and of course we have over 200 videos in our Social Jack Resource Center. You can access our Resource Center by signing up for our Basic Social Jack Account, which can be found under the pricing tab on the Social Jack Homepage.
See you online very soon!
As you begin to delve into social selling, know that it grows over time, so it’s not an instant process. In fact, in our training course, we go into 4 hours of building your brand. However, we know people are anxious to get started, and there are some quick steps to move into what we call the “personal branding of you” that we use in our Social Jack Social Selling Course. It’s a perfect framework to get started, and we think you’ll find these suggestions useful!
1. Know or define your authentic self (your story)
2. Know your ideal target
3. Identify relevant keywords
4. Update all online profiles and websites
5. Engage in relevant online conversations
Know or Define Your Authentic Self (Your Story)
Knowing your story is critical, and it is perfectly okay to start with a draft and adjust it along the way. Some people wait years to even start; the key is to pick a point and simply begin. Find some trusted allies that will provide feedback and even some subject matter experts to help you as well. People are very willing to help. You might also have some colleagues you work with that might have gone before you. Ask yourself this question: “What do you want to be known for?” Craft a short narrative, typically 300-500 words, this will help you stay on point. Catch yourself, you will want to tack things on as you go, make sure they are relevant. Stay targeted.
Identify Relevant Keywords that will represent you
When writing and building profiles and bios, we look at the story, we analyze the target audience, then we determine which words people would use to find you on the internet, how you want to be found. Sometimes the words are not always what you would choose; however, they are what people would use to find you. We have a whole course you can reference, for free, in our Basic Social Jack Account to go deeper into this topic. Keywords and phrases are typically made up of 1 to 3 words. The ideal profile has 10 keyword phrases, but it is okay to start with 5 if needed to get out of the gate. Once you have them, weave them into your story. We ask you do this after you draft your story so you can flow with your ideas before worrying about keywords.
Know Your Ideal Target
Think about your ideal audience, the people you want to attract and who you ideally want to do business with. This should be at the level of knowing industry, title, type of company, geographic locations, size of organization, years in business, whatever matters most to you. This can be tough for many of us as we sometime want to keep adding to our story; however, the tighter we make this, the better our story will be, and it will take less effort to generate new business or advance your career.
Update All Online Profiles and Websites
First and foremost, even if you do no go into social selling or career advancement, you should do this next step at least once a month for your own protection. First, google your name and any variations. This could look like your name + your company name, etc. When you google your name, you are looking for things that you are NOT aware of and making sure that all social profiles, websites and content are in alignment with your new brand (story). Look over at least the first two pages of your search results. The first things that should appear are any social network accounts, websites and high-traction videos. Once you have these, simply replace your old profiles with your newest profile. You might want to delete any old invalid profiles.
Next, set up Google alerts with your name, brand names, company names, etc. Have Google alert you at the frequency you desire, we recommend daily; this little free tool will alert you when your name shows up on the internet. I do this for my entire family. You will need a Gmail account to set this up, that is also free.
Engage In Relevant Online Conversations
Anywhere online — blogs, video, pod casts, social media sites, online news articles — make sure you get your name and your brand attached to the content that’s most relevant to your story and that fits the keywords you want to be known for. This will take some practice. You can also engage (like, comment, share, retweet, etc.) with the content of others. This will give you reach and visibility into their social network. This can only be good for you. See the 7 likes and 3 comments below; on average, this will reach thousands of views in news feeds as people keep engaging. Keep playing with this and have fun, it’s networking right from your smartphone.
In Summary
Remember you can start this easily now with these first few steps; it only takes a few hours to get out of the gate. If you don’t like where you start, you can make simple adjustments as you grow, just remember your other profiles. Also, remember to do this with others; you are not alone and nor should you be. If you need further resources, check our Free Resource Center at Social Jack. You can access our Free Resource Center by signing up for a Basic Social Jack Account; there are worksheets and classes available currently or contact us for a promotion code depending on the date you’re reading this.
We will see you and your story online!
Growing your company from in the inside out might be one of the easiest things you could do for your company. In today’s world of employee advocacy, social media, leadership and transparency, companies are beginning to change the way that they act and feel in front of their clients. This is also changing the way we do business.
One of the most important shifts that we see is a new commitment by companies that have been talking about becoming a social business. We’ve seen this take on many different meanings.
But what does all of this have to do with culture? In order for us to be social, and in order for our clients to feel connected, we have to be connected internally first. The way we look at it, is that this is where the application of our Social Jack system and social teaming come into play. When we go into an organization, whether it’s from marketing, sales or culture side, we look to see how the company is connected together, before we start connecting them externally.
This allows them to begin to work together as a team but also be transparent together. This works best when there is a top down initiative, and the leadership is bought into the fact that the company will not operate in this fashion.
The great news about this is that you can be any size company, what matters is that you operate as a cohesive team internally, working together so that clients are connecting to you but also the brand. We also see this as a marketing incentive that we call “humanizing the brand.” All of a sudden, we’re bringing the brand alive with people from within the organization. So this does promote a couple of great things as we begin to take this shift and make this happen.
- It builds a stronger internal trust between the team members and the culture.
- It allows us to connect to each other’s networks for resources and visibility.
- It helps support employee retention, recruiting, and career development.
- And ultimately it helps marketing the brand through the people to the rest of the world.
So when we look at building a social culture from the inside out it has a lot of benefits although it has to start with training the core employees making sure the brand and the people operate in concert with each other as they begin to communicate externally. This we see as culture changing for any size business. Here are seven tips to build the social culture within your own compa435ny.
- Top Down Initiative-leadership buy-off: Without support from leaders within a company, social culture cannot strive in the business atmosphere. To make this work, you must be enlightened and a reformist CEO. Another way is to make the business care internally by reverse engineering out of the company’s business goals. By doing this, you are showing how social practices can help achieve social culture.
- Corporate Mission-: Quit overlooking the pages of the annual reports, today mission statements must be influential and inspire employees at work. Does this support the effort?
- Policy-: Remember to educate your employees on what can and cannot be said on behalf of the company. What type of rules do you have in place at your business? A known social media policy is also important, remember what goes on the Internet, stays on the Internet.
- Roles: Within a social business, roles become an important dynamic between how the employees help the business operate. Social media isn’t just for the younger employees, today it is key for all employees to utilize social media. Get online, get to tweeting, posting and snapchating away! Who are your internal champions?
- Rewards and celebrations: Employees are the root of expanding the brand and the story your company tells, remember to recognize and reward employees on their efforts. It is important to create a culture of socially sharp employees.
- Contribution: When employees show extra effort in volunteering to make the company thrive forward, it shows customer’s that the brand displays an authentic commitment.
- Measurement: Every marketing company knows that they have to measure levels of engagement among posts. What are the metrics that your company is using? Which KPI’s (key performance indicators) work best and how do they tie back to business? A productive business will help employees become hard working brand ambassadors.
So no matter where you are in the journey, start changing your culture today so that you can reach more business from the inside out. Let us know if you need any support around getting started, we would love to help!