Perhaps one of the hardest concepts for most businesses to understand is the vast difference between sales and marketing. Most businesses understand why selling their product is important, but what many don’t understand is when it is and is not the right time to try and sell a product.
Imagine someone shows up at the funeral of a close family member and tries to sell you a product. Not only are you unlikely to buy their product, there is a good chance you will sever ties with them completely. Now imagine that same person showed up for the funeral, brought food and checked in on you periodically. 6 months later, they asked if they could tell you about their product. The likelihood is, you will not only listen but possibly even purchase something you may not even need. Why? Because before this person tried to sell you something, they built a relationship with you. That is marketing.
While you may not be able to build that kind of personal relationship with all of your clients or consumers, that doesn’t mean relationship building isn’t important. Social media, by its very nature, presents a unique opportunity to do this. One of the very best ways is by using it to tell your story. Stories are what help us connect, they help us relate and relating is what builds relationships. Here are 3 great ways of using social media to tell your story.
1. Post Personal “Business Family” Photos
One of the best ways to understand how best to use (and not use) social media pages for your business is to look at how people use social media. Keep in mind that your brand is a personality and your business is a group of people banding together to offer a specific product or service.
While you can have some slick marketing agency create a personality for your business, the truth is the most authentic personality of your business is something of an amalgam of the real life people that actually built, created, run and operate your business. Are you all dog lovers that bring your dogs to work? Post pictures of that. Are you largely Sci-Fi geeks that have interesting or unusual desk collections of Star Wars memorabilia? Post pictures of that. If an employee took a stunning photo of the skyline of your city or the view from your office, post it.
2. Tell Employee Stories
Just like the personality of your business, the story of your business is also a tapestry weaved together by all of the many individual stories of your employees. Their stories are all the many bits and pieces of your company story. Posting a weekly or monthly spotlight of one of your employees can go a long way towards creating connection with your brand – and the people that made it what it is.
Too often, however, employee spotlights tend to be a “just the facts, ma’am” type of affair. Don’t just have employees fill out rote questionnaires for you to post on social media. Ask more in-depth questions about their experiences with your company. What you are looking for is not just a detailed list of facts such as how long they have been with the company or what their job title is, but their experience of working there.
Here are some great questions to ask.
- Describe your best day yet with the company.
- What was your very best experience yet with a customer and why?
- What is your favorite thing to do every day and why?
- What is the most challenging aspect of your job and why?
- What is your favorite thing about working here?
- What did you want to be when you grew up?
- Why did you decide to work here?
3. Ask Customers to Tell Their Stories
Most businesses understand the importance of customer reviews, but telling your customer’s stories can blow plain old customer reviews out of the water. In addition to your employees, your customers are also a part of your story and in some cases may actually have a profound impact on your company culture. Many customers have stories about how an employee genuinely and honestly made a difference in their lives. From finding something valuable and returning it to going above and beyond to help them resolve critical issues to even helping them deal with other companies. These are the stories you want your customers to tell other people.
One of the best ways to tell these stories is in video. While a written review can certainly be powerful, it will just never be a match for the powerful image of a customer’s face lighting up when they talk about your product, service or an employee that went above and beyond for them. The next time you get a rave review from a customer, ask them if they would be willing to share their story in a video. If they say yes, spare no expense hiring a professional video company to capture the moment for you and post it to social media. It may well be the best money you ever spent.
Wrapping Up
While your business is not technically a person, people don’t actually connect to businesses, they connect to people. These days businesses don’t just simply have clients or consumers, they have followers. Social media platforms may well be the most critical future outlet for marketing your business. Make sure and use it well.
BIO: Jasmine Williams covers the good and the bad of today’s business and marketing. When she’s not being all serious and busy, she’s usually hunched over a book or dancing in the kitchen, trying hard to maintain rhythm, and delivering some fine cooking (her family says so). Tweet her @JazzyWilliams88.
