Gaining an Audience: The Role of People in Content Marketing and Social Media

By thought-horizon | Jun 24, 2020

Creating a social media presence for your business takes more than just time. It also takes empathy and connection. The process itself is simple: the latest social sharing tools make posting easy for busy sales and marketing professionals. Consistent social media posts are the fastest way to build an audience– but only when done correctly. Social media is the easiest way to stay up to date with current events and discuss those events. If we don’t use our platforms to talk about our products within the context of Covid-19, the context of the extraordinary times our customers experience every day, then we aren’t doing enough.

Studies consistently show that marketers are dissatisfied with their own content marketing.  The disconnect is that social media is inherently a tool about people, not brands. Businesses do not exist in an empty void in the universe; they exist in the pandemic-ridden, human-occupied world we inhabit every day.

So reorient your focus. Your sales team is paid to spread your messages and have a vested interest in distributing them to qualified buyers. But what about your marketing team? Instead of just advertising your product, how can they best connect to the human beings receiving these advertisements?

On top of that, you need to be sure that your entire marketing team is connecting not just to customers, but to each other. While working from home, not everyone can chat and gather together in the office. How can these teams be as effective as possible when they can’t even occupy the same space?

Here are some simple ways to activate these groups using their personal social media channels:

1) Give them all the content in one place to pick and choose from 

Busy sales and marketing teams don’t have time to scroll through your website to find content to share. They need everything laid out simply in categories they can skim through fast—this includes relevant third party content. This is not “the great American novel” and sales people know that. They know they need to consistently share new thought leadership. They don’t have a lot of time to search on Google and cut and paste URLs.

2) Make it easy for the teams to share your content 

A big “share” button goes a long way toward getting sales teams to share your content. Having a calendar that enables them to share in the future is even better. You are going to get better results by asking teams to devote a day a week to schedule content sharing. Asking them to log in every day to look for new things to share wouldn’t help.  Finally, offer up some suggestions on what to post. The idea is not to create a ‘canned’ message that everyone will post. You need to inspire the teams to personalize a pre-approved social post. Make the proposed social copy editable.

3) Finally, be sure that the teams know sharing content is only half of the equation.

Respond to your customers, and engage with them. Post about your company, but in relevant ways that address what’s going on in the world.  By using tools like Thought Horizon’s Ready For Social® tool or others on the market by companies such as Social Chorus, Everyone Social, Dynamic Signal or Sprinklr, a B2B employee can move the needle on your content marketing aspirations. But it’s not just about sharing, it’s about consistency.

Make sure that your entire team is on the same page. We’re heading toward a hyper-digital world, one where more and more people are working from home. Is your team ready to transition to an online world? Do you have a consistent social media presence when each team member is working from their own home?

Sales are about just that– selling. But social media is about connecting. Social selling is more than just ordinary selling; it’s selling with connection, with empathy. There’s a lot going on in the world right now. Let’s talk about it.