Everybody’s Selling Something
Look, it’s the great unspoken truth, the elephant in the room, the tiger in the corner: Everybody’s Selling Something. The question is, how talented am I at selling it to you in a way that you don’t actually notice?
In a recent #cmgrEMEA tweetchat hosted by the lovely Melissa Rae Brown, the topic of discussion focussed on which social channel is more appropriate for B2B vs. B2C. A great topic with, as you can imagine, lots of differing viewpoints.
During the chat, the participants agreed that important point was *not* the best channel choice for each type of content, but instead, being present at the place where your people are located. I mean, there's no point in trying to fish in an empty lake, right?
In my opinion, there are several key points that underline the real issue of preferred social channel location, which is you wanting to get noticed so that you can sell your stuff:
-
Use the channel which has collected a large following of the type of people you want to notice you. This can be a very simply choice (if you're a florist, perhaps Instagram; if you're a cloud based enterprise company, perhaps Twitter) or a much harder one. If you're not sure where your target audience is gathering, do your research. Find them. Look up #tags, visit social channels, look at your competitors.
-
Look at your content. Do you have the right type of content to publish on that identified channel? If you only have written descriptions of your floral arrangements but it turns out your best potential audience is visual posts on Instagram, you need to create the content to feed the machine.
-
Dropping a nuclear bomb is not a good way to meet people. Don't just show up, post and retreat. In fact, don't post at all until you've listened for a while. See what people are saying, identify the top influencers, like/comment/share/react to what they're saying, publish great content that has real value, and actually care about the people within that group. I've seen countless retail brands pay influencers to notice their products. Yes, you can go that route to get noticed, but you'll just be a flash in the pan. If you want real brand depth and longevity, make yourself a valuable part of this community of people you're trying to get to notice you.
Channel choice is really 
immaterial; Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, email, telephone. They're all the same. Each tool is just that, a tool for you to use to attract attention.
But don't expect it to be quick, and don't expect it to be easy. Because why should it be, when at the end of the day, you're selling, and they're buying. I think Kelly Hungerford summed it up for me best in the chat, when she said:
Simple, right? Now go out there and get noticed!
Original Article