As peer influence becomes increasingly important in B2B buying decisions, empowering employee brand ambassadors will benefit your bottom line.
I recently attended a dinner party where I met a new acquaintance. We talked about our families, our hobbies and, of course, our jobs. She recently started working for a small business about which she was tangibly passionate. After listening to her talk, I went home, immediately started following the company on social media, and purchased some products.
Some companies are overlooking their greatest marketing tool: their employees. That woman made a big impression on me and actually influenced a sale. The experience reflects a trend that’s also growing in the B2B space: the impact of peer influence on buying decisions. In fact, 68% of B2B buyers say they give credence to peer reviews in the purchase process.
Imagine the number of people you could reach through each employee’s peer network. It’s a massive opportunity.
I’ve written lately about the rise of influencer marketing. It’s a strategy B2B businesses are starting to understand and use to their advantage. But you don’t need a Kardashian or even an important industry professional to get started. Employees are your most natural, ready-made influencers.
Here are 3 reasons to invest in making your employees brand ambassadors.
3 benefits of employee brand ambassadors
1. Increased social media reach
According to a study conducted by the MSL Group, employee advocates are connected to 10X as many people as their brand on social media, and can increase the reach of brand content by 561%. If your employees are posting about your company on social media, they’re reaching a much wider audience than your company page is.
When it comes to increasing brand engagement, there is no better place to start than with your own employees. Peer influence is a natural extension of employees who believe in your company and its mission.
While your employees are advocating for your company, they will also benefit from their new role as brand ambassadors. They will be more engaged and invested in their jobs. And the additional responsibility will foster a sense of pride and professional growth.
Successfully reframing your employees as brand ambassadors requires creating a culture that empowers and incentivizes employee participation. Offer them the appropriate training or knowledge. Ask them to complete specific tasks (e.g., sharing company content), and give them room to be creative in their ambassadorship as well. Make sure you regularly engage them and thank them for their help.
Keep in mind: Employees are much more likely to participate if what you’re asking them to do is seen as complementary, not supplementary, to their workload. Make sure you are appropriately compensating them for any activity outside of normal working hours to avoid resentment. And, most importantly, keep the dialogue open. You never know how impactful your employee brand ambassadors can be.
Here’s a rundown of paid digital advertising options, including display ads, AdWords, and sponsored social media posts.
We are strong believers in content marketing. Build it, and they will come — or, in content marketing speak, publish quality content, and customers will come to you. But, as I often write about, content marketing takes time to bear fruit. There’s not much you can do about that.lick
Except paid digital advertising.
By investing in paid digital advertising, you can boost the reach of your posts, display ads and videos. Pair quality content with a comprehensive digital advertising strategy, and you will be in a position to drive more traffic, create more brand visibility, and close more deals.
Your peers understand this. Within the first quarter of 2017, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Pinterest saw a 61.5% increase in paid media spend. And that’s only going to increase through 2018.
So where do you start? Here are four ways to get started in using paid digital advertising to help take your content marketing strategy to the next level.
3 paid digital advertising platforms for beginners
Display ads
Display ads are the paid advertisements that appear in front of users on website pages in the form of graphics. Unlike text-based ads, display advertising relies on elements such as images, audio and video to communicate an advertising message. Display ads are commonly referred to as banner ads, but they don’t always take exact banner form. They can come in all shapes and sizes and can appear anywhere on a webpage.
Benefits: Because digital ads are visual, they can be customized with your logo, message, or even an offer to help increase brand awareness. You have the ability to use graphics, video, audio, and your company’s branding to really stand out and attract their attention. Display ads also allow users the ability to target a specific audience. You control which sites they appear on, which geographic area they appear in, and which demographic or niche market they appear to.
Sponsored social media posts
Social media is a natural place to begin if you’re looking to get into paid digital advertising. A good starting point is Facebook. The social media giant’s social ad revenue was more than $9.16 billion in Q2 2017 alone. And it doesn’t stop there. Twitter brought in $548 million in social media advertising revenue in the same period, and Snapchat is expected to reach over $895.5 million in ad revenue in 2017.
Benefits: Running paid social ads allows you to reach a large audience at a low cost. You pay based on the type of ad you’re running. For example if you’re looking to drive brand awareness, you’ll incur a CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions). And not only are the ads relatively inexpensive to run, they’re not expensive to create. You get all of this plus the ability to target your specific audience, reaching people that are interested in learning about what you do.
Google AdWords
Google AdWords places your website as one of the top results on a search engine results page (SERP) when a user searches for certain keywords of your choice. When a user clicks the AdWords link or calls your business using that link, you incur a charge. Otherwise, impressions are free.
Google’s most recent update involves changes to the so-called “3-pack,” or the listing of three related local businesses on a search results page. Many consumers rely on the 3-pack to discover businesses in their area that offer the products and services they are seeking. And businesses get the benefit of many additional leads and customers when they appear in the 3-pack. This can be particularly significant for small businesses.
Benefits: The biggest benefit of Google AdWords is its speed. You appear in a top spot in a user’s search results, meaning you are one of the first things a user sees when searching for a specific product or service. That’s another good point: Google AdWords allows you to focus on people who are searching for what you have to offer, so you don’t pay for a bunch of wasted impressions. AdWords also gives you real-time reports to track your ad’s success. A dashboard shows information related to each campaign, such as the ads clicked, keywords entered by website visitors, cost of clicks and much more.
Research: Quora offers amazing insight into what thought leaders in the supply chain and logistics industries are focused on. Just by tuning into the conversation, you can gain extremely valuable knowledge.
Connections: This social media platform gives you a perfect space to connect with peers in your industry and with potential buyers, as well.
Reputation building: Quora is one of the best tools out there for reputation building. It allows you to participate in and contribute to conversations that can shape the future of your industry. Using this platform effectively gives you the opportunity to become a resource for others in your industry and for your target buyers — and there’s no better reputation builder than that.
Plenty of business are already using Quora extremely effectively, seeing ROI and more. But supply chain and logistics companies have yet to jump on this untapped opportunity. Let’s take a look at a few success stories.
2 B2B companies successfully using Quora
Kiip
This mobile advertising network has a unique business model that “redefines how brands connect with consumers.” Back in 2014, the marketing team did a series of experiments — one of which was answering questions on Quora — to figure out which growth strategies would be most beneficial for the business model. Read about Kiip’s Quora experiment here.
Kevin Fishner, Kiip’s director of growth, said that his goal in answering Quora questions was to “build our brand presence in the mobile advertising space while driving quality leads to our site.” He offers the important insight that there is a fine line between offering valuable answers and blatantly pitching your product.
“If the question directly pertained to Kiip,” Fishner says, “I’d drop a link at the bottom of my answer. If it was a more generic mobile advertising question, I’d use insights from our campaigns at Kiip and leave it at that.”
Fishner points out that answering questions thoughtfully takes a significant time investment. But in the end, this investment is worth it for your business in all kinds of ways.
As you join the Quora conversation, keep Fishner’s insights in mind. Promoting your brand isn’t always about pitching your product. Becoming a thought leader can be just beneficial, if not more so, for your brand and, ultimately, for your bottom line.
IMPACT
Impact is an inbound marketing agency based out of Connecticut. Earlier this year, IMPACT blogger Carolyn Edgecomb wrote about how the company used Quora marketing to build brand awareness. Like Fishner, she points to following core advice for using this platform: “Hustling or selling is exactly what you shouldn’t be doing on Quora. Instead, aim to spread knowledge.”
Based on IMPACT’s experience on the site, she suggest that “by regularly engaging with other members, you’re able to gain key insights from leading experts, target your audience, and even repurpose your content while answering and asking questions.”
For IMPACT, Quora was less about generating ROI and more about “increasing brand awareness and establishing thought leadership.”
Supply chain and logistics companies can take inspiration and insight from these two Quora marketing success stories. The field is largely open. Start looking for questions you can answer, become a part of the conversation, and aim to become a thought leader.
I repurposed some of our popular content into a video using Lumen 5, a video automation tool.
Have you heard of Lumen 5? It’s a cool website that turns your blog posts into videos in a matter of minutes. You simply enter a URL of an existing post, and it automatically selects text and creates slides with relevant photos. You can edit the text as necessary and swap out photos from a vast library, then select music to go along with the slideshow. And you can even swap colors and add your logo for a little bit of branding.
Super user friendly. Really quick. Did I mention that the most basic functionalities are free?
Video and automation: Two of my favorite words!
I’m always looking for ways to repurpose some of our best content or just present it in a new way. So when my colleague came across Lumen 5 the other day (true story, they are not paying me for this plug), it seemed like an easy tool for doing so.
If you read this blog regularly, you know that I believe all businesses — even supply chain and logistics businesses — should be considering video as a part of their content marketing strategies. Most don’t have the time or budget to do something professional. So automation tools like Lumen 5 offer an interesting opportunity to delve into video without a big investment.
Something else we’re big on at Fronetics? Automation. It’s tricky with marketing because marketing requires a lot of strategic thinking, analysis, and creativity, which really can’t be automated. So any tools that do help automate any part of your creative or editorial processes are a good find.
All this being said, I did do quite a bit of editing and perfecting of the video below. But I was pretty impressed with the original video that Lumen 5 created from my post before I started working on it, too. Features like the text select and image suggestions speed up the editing process, so all in all, I probably spent 20-30 minutes making a video. Not bad!
Video: How Often to Post on Social Media
For our inaugural Lumen 5 video, I decided to use one of our most popular posts, This Is How Often B2B Companies Should Post on Social Media. It’s a question that we get all the time, and I felt the content worked in both the more robust blog post format and the hyper-shortened (about 1 minute) Lumen 5 video format.
Here it is:
What do you think? Do you use any video tools that are free/cheap and fast?
Also in September 2017’s social media news: YouTube gets a new look, and LinkedIn adds a native advertising network.
With fall officially in swing, social media platforms have turned up the heat. During the month of September, Facebook has launched its original video content tab and begged music executives for the ability to download songs. YouTube reworked its mobile app and came out with a fresh, new design. LinkedIn introduced us to its new Audience Network. And Instagram just got easier to troll at work. Here’s this month’s social media news.
Facebook Watch Makes Its Appearance on Profiles
Facebook has officially rolled out its new Watch tab, which allows users to subscribe to original video content. The tab was available to a test audience in August, but is now open to all users in the U.S. on mobile, desktop and Facebook’s TV apps. Facebook is hoping to boost ad sales through the new content and create one more reason for people to continually check back in on their newsfeeds for content they can’t get anywhere else.
YouTube Unveils New Logo and Features on Mobile App
YouTube continues to evolve with its growing popularity. Recently, the video site came out with a sleek new design. The new logo and icon are cleaner, more flexible, and better designed for a multiscreen world. YouTube has also added speed up and slow down features to playback and the ability to browse new videos while viewing video content. YouTube is hoping these changes will continue to increase user engagement and usability.
LinkedIn has launched its new LinkedIn Audience Network, “a native advertising network that enables you to reach even more professionals with your ads by placing your Sponsored Content on high-quality, third-party publishers across mobile and desktop.” The new network was created to help businesses increase their marketing footprint, cut budgets, and expand their content’s reach. LinkedIn assures marketers that it has “taken measures to ensure brand safety within [its] recently launched LinkedIn Audience Network,” such as vetting partner publishers to verify that they meet its advertising guidelines and regularly monitoring campaign activity on the network.
Twitter Adds Team Managements Feature
Now your colleagues can keep their Twitter passwords to themselves. The social media app just launched a new team management feature, called TweetDeck Teams, which allows multiple people to login to the same account without sharing passwords. The new feature divides users into three categories: owner, administrator, and contributor, and gives various levels of functionality to each category.
Facebook Artificial Intelligence Training Bots to Mimic Emotions
Facebook’s AI researchers are working to introduce the first robots that can replicate human emotion through subtle facial expressions. In newly released papers, the researchers discuss their overall success with their efforts and the affects this could have on videos in the future. These researchers are hoping the bots will one day improve the avatars in virtual reality.
Facebook Offers Hundreds of Millions for Music Rights
Use the first months to lay a solid foundation for your content marketing program so it can begin generating leads and sales.
So you decided it was time to jump into the content marketing game. You’ve been crafting the perfect content. You’re posting on a regular basis. You’ve identified your target audience and have been researching keywords. You’ve even learned a thing or two about SEO.
But you have no leads or sales to speak of. And your boss is breathing down your neck for results, FAST. Is it time to throw in the towel? Absolutely not!
Content marketing is a long-term solution that helps businesses build brand awareness, grow their audience, and generate new leads and sales. But, like any good relationship, it takes time and effort to achieve results. You shouldn’t give up before the seeds you sow have time to bear fruit.
To understand the time table for content marketing, let’s look at some markers for the first six months.
Month one
Learn about your target audience and understand their needs.
In order to get the ball rolling in content marketing, you have to understand who you are trying to reach. It’s important to think holistically when considering who you are trying to reach at a potential prospects’ company. Typically, your target audience falls into two categories: Primary (decision makers) and Secondary (influencers of the decision maker). Going one step further, you need to identify your target audience’s needs and pain points so that you can direct your content marketing strategy at creating awareness around those needs.
Document a content marketing strategy.
You would never operate your business without 1) creating a strategy, 2) documenting it, and 3) following the strategy. A content marketing strategy outlines the methods by which you will target, reach, and engage your audience. Research and execution of these tasks can be quite complex. Writing out a plan and assigning appropriate resources can offer clarity and guidance to your organization throughout the course of your program.
When you are creating and curating content for your business, focus on original content that stands out to current and prospective customers. Valuable and relevant content is not a sales pitch. Rather, it is content that communicates valuable information to customers and prospects so that they have the knowledge to make more informed decisions. Moreover, it is content that establishes your business as a reliable source of knowledge — as the thought leader within the industry.
Promote content on multiple channels.
Understanding your target audience and which social media platforms they’re using is invaluable information. If you want to reach potential and current customers, you need to be where they are. You need to make it easy for them to find you and to engage with your business. And if your competitors are already active on social media, start by finding out where. If these platforms align with your ideal customer, don’t be afraid to kick start your social media presence alongside them.
Month six
Analyze your performance.
Track and analyze your metrics on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. Take a look at what is working and what is not. By tracking and analyzing your metrics you can see, for example, what type of content is most effective and which distribution channels are helping you achieve your goals. You’ll also be able to find opportunities for improvement. Look at the feedback you are getting through your engagement with customers and prospects, and make adjustments to your strategy as needed.
Expand your content creation.
If you’re focused on growing your business or creating awareness through the creation of engaging content, then you need to be ready to try new things. Have you been successful with blogging and Facebook posts? Then it’s time to try making videos and joining Twitter. And don’t be afraid to pull from other worthy sources. Content curation will serve to establish your business as a trusted resource and increase your brand visibility, all without over-promoting yourself.
Remember that when it comes to content marketing, it is important to think: marathon not sprint. An effective content strategy requires patience and determination. Many companies make the mistake of giving up on a content strategy too early. Give your relationship with content marketing time to play out, and don’t be afraid to adjust your strategy along the way if you find some things are working better than others.
