The ConFuzed Show focusses on why marketing B2B (business to business) services is so confusing, how to deal with constant change, future growth and staying relevant.
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Transcript:
In this episode of ConFuzed🎧 Mona and Julian talk about what to share on social media? In the past weeks we discussed #marketing and #brand.
The world has moved rapidly from print, radio, television to social media.
How can professional firms that have existed for over 20, 30, 40 years in business become relevant on social media. What content should they share?
How can an external consultant help you to build a solid foundation that will help your brand grow.
Below is a transcript of this episode.
Hello and welcome to the third episode of ConFuzed with Julian from Leaf Logic and Mona from 108Marketiser.
Julian: We've been talking the past weeks about marketing and brand, now this week what I think might be useful is, if we talk about why social media?
Advertising used to be in print then television was invented and radio and now we're in social media.
So can you first take us through evolution from print where I guess it kind of started through to social media?
Mona: Sure. So it all happened really quickly. Didn't it? If you look at the last ten years and that's when everything's kind of caught up. I was just reading an article where it says the first iPad was introduced in this last decade and you're like, Oh wow! we use those iPads as the the always existed.
Julian: Hold on… there was life before iPad? (laughter)
Mona: So if you look at these things and that's where it's kind of, there is no more a line between your personal lives and how you do business.
For people technology is not just something that they're using at home or they're not using it only at home, but they're using it also at work. It’s actually social media technology or digital is kind of being used seamlessly throughout our day, whether we're at work, whether we are commuting or whether we are at home or whether we are interacting.
So this concept of change we all have embraced it regardless of whether we were running a business in 2000 or we started 100 years ago or we started 50 years ago or if there's an established firm that started 50 years ago or whatever.
We all embrace technology and social media. Now the question then comes when we are all embracing it in our daily lives to do so many other things, why don't we apply the same thinking in our businesses?
Why does it then come back when you're running a business or you're thinking about a strategy, why can we not focus on that aspect and look at it and give the attention that it needs?
Previously, print was there. So either it was an agency that used to get involved with these professional firms and they used to outsource their marketing to them and say print so many copies of some brochure or an annual report or whatever and that was good, because I think, conversation was very one-sided and companies or businesses used to talk and spray all that print material out.
And then people who were listening or customers who are listening, businesses didn't have that information about them. So, they were kind of just printing in bulk or marketing in bulk and hoping and fingers crossed that it reaches the right audience and business was going on. Word-of-mouth was there obviously and you had these, if you have the bigger budgets the bigger marketing agencies, the bigger outputs, the bigger printing production quantities.
In last 10 years social social media came in. Everybody started absorbing in the social media side of things and then from that one-to-many situation, communication-wise you suddenly went 1 to 1.
So, if I had a company, I could actually talk to my clients, one-to-one. They can ask me questions about what I do, who do I listen to, who's my mentor? Where do I get my inspiration from? and what's happening in my business, what's going on?
So, suddenly this aspect of one-to-one communication came in and businesses were still thinking print and other forms of communication. They actually the kind of just stopped there and started applying that knowledge or that way of doing things, print processes to social media and that's it.
Julian: It's kind of as well something that other people do, I mean as you say you were lucky enough in the past to outsource it and now this stuff is coming directly to you.
And as people have said you now have to manage your own and you have to look after your own online presence as an individual and as a business social media now combines print and television and radio into one.
So, here we are doing a very own podcast show. My specialism is producing videos for people, which has changed, it is brought the change in technology as well that the internet has brought on, the mobile phones and everything else has now moved you from needing a print press a full production, a studio and a radio station. You can now all, do all of that on your desk in your office or at home !! Which certainly made all of this stuff affordable and flexible.
But the scary part is is now, right?
Well, you now have, there's no reason not to do it and increasingly, it's what's expected, is that you will engage with your customers in those formats.
Mona: Absolutely, and I think what also happened with this is “transparency”.
So, if you are on social media, no longer, is there a wall, whether that time difference
or the difference between what you produce and then it's printed and sent out in the market a month or two later.
There's no longer that kind of a time gap that we're looking at. Information is available at your fingertips. Really, literally logging on and having a look at what's going on.
So these firms have to have transparency? These firms or that individuals who are leading these firms… they are not only leading these but they are actually responsible
for their brands. They really have to be aware of it, at any given point in time. When they're interacting whether that be on social media or at an event or or in the boardroom.
Julian: Yeah. They are responsible for that brand.
Mona: So it's not just how you look good on paper and you print out a really glossy and annual report or magazine once a quarter. It's no longer that your impression or your business profession, reputation is not based just on what you produce.
It's actually who you are, what you do how you go about doing that business
and what change, what value do you bring to your clients? So that individual and that business is responsible for that brand. It's no longer say outsourcing it and saying,
you know take care of this, we're doing for four print sessions a year that's good. Tick box done.
Julian: What information now should you be putting out?
Because by all accounts, on social media people are quite resistant to advertising an advertorial.
Mona: Yeah, and advertorial is the first is the first thing to go out the door, in social media.
There's just no space left for advertising or just print adverts.
So, in 2020, if you are running a business and you are still using the print and TV mindset to run your marketing campaigns,
That's a big No-No!!
There's something seriously wrong and as a business you need to change and rethink.
Julian: What should you be doing as a modern business?
Mona: One thing we have to see and before anybody starts thinking about it, social media comes with its own set of rules. So if you want to be successful on social media as a business, or as a professional firm, you really need to play the game with the new set of rules. So now we look at what's changed?
The question is what should you be sharing, if it's no longer that quarterly magazine, what do you share ?
The first thing starts with looking at the goal and the vision of your business, of your brand? Why do you exist and surprisingly the larger the firm, the more confusion there is between the vision and the strategy. Even though that vision and strategy or mission will be pasted everywhere on their website. on their walls, in books and meetings and team sessions. Nobody has a clear understanding within the organisation of what that vision and mission means.
It's important to understand that vision and mission. Not only internally, but what is it means for your customers? We can have all the great words in there, but what are we solving?
Julian: I love mission statements, they are one of my favourites! Because nobody, you're quite right, nobody understands what they actually mean, but they're great and everyone
says how important they are and they still don't know what it means.
And even if you ask the people that came up with it, they still unclear as to what it actually means.
Mona: Yeah, exactly! so that's where the first step comes is if you have a vision
and mission in your company or any other professional firm have a good look at it, understand what it means.
Once you've understood it, please share that understanding within your team and let everyone understand it too regardless whether they are in IT, or they are in business development or they run events or they are your marketers or your business partners or stakeholders, who ever.
Make sure they all understand what that vision and mission means and if there is any kind of confusion, just work on it until the whole professional firm comes on board to an understanding.
This is who we are and this is what we stand for. Once you have that understanding really clear, then you move on to understanding the strength within your business. Business and the different departments that you've got. So you need to share that information really well.
What kind of content on social media, first thing on social media is what you say is what you do and who you are. You cannot just say something else on social media and try and run your business in a different way behind closed doors and then pretend to be something else, in that social profile.
So all three things have to be aligned.
And for that to be realigned, you need to be actually aligned not only from top to bottom
but even seamlessly throughout your teams.
And that's when sharing information comes.
Julian: Okay, so you're back to information, but what do you mean by so when you mean align, do you mean that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and they all understand the same message,
But do you do think though that because of the that sort of traditional ways there's a lot of silos in businesses. Where you know, this is my job, this is what I do. Do you think there needs to be a change in you know, we've talked before how marketing is in a different room and you never cross the threshold of marketing because that's a dark art and you don't know what they do. You don't want to find out. So sort of approach it from a distance. You prod them a bit every so often, then what happens is if you're not careful,
they come out and ask you for something within this new paradigm of marketing on social media.
Mona: Basically, the underlying message is well you cannot treat it as separate any longer. Everybody in an organisation has to be aware of social media.
What what are you doing? How are you broadcasting what you're doing for the business and for yourself? And so you presumably have to think 24/7. What am I doing? How does this help promote the business?
It's a change in mindset. It is and that's why those silos have to kind of dissolve into this whole organisation thinking and that whole organisation thinking happens when everybody is clear about what the service is, not only what the service is but what role do they play whether they are in HR, whether they're in customer service, whether they are the front face answering calls or whatever that is. Each department each individual needs to be really clear in the role that they play within the marketing or within the brand, promoting the brand as a whole.
So once that is there, that flow of information is where I've seen most professional firms struggle with. Because you add the complexities of day-to-day tasks and activities.
Everybody is kind of running on deadlines and making sure that projects are getting done and completed.
From that, once the projects are completed, how do you actually translate what you've achieved in that project and send it to your marketing or give it to your marketing person, if the marketing person is not aware of the project.
It is not only just the name and the location of the project or what it actually meant. Why did we do that project? How did it change? what value did it bring to the overall business? What was the initial talk or brief about? how did both the businesses benefit out of working together?
If that information, that essence is not drawn or talked about in a boardroom or in a meeting room, that information is just gone because we're running on to the next project now.
Marketing and brand relies heavily on this kind of information and that's not very easy.
Sometimes people within the business are so used to looking at it the same way
because they have been especially within that field of expertise doing the business in that way.
They are not able to step back and look at it and say oh, why did we do this project? How did it benefit? How did it change? So, for example in property how did it change the landscape of a city or what did it add to the urban landscape? There's just no time to think about it.
And that's why, to complete this strategy about social media, about content and what you promote, you sometimes have to take a step back at your business and what you're doing and look at it - at the difference your work is making in the world out there.
Yeah, and that’s the content. That’s not advertising.
Julian: Indeed and it's very often like getting blood out of a stone sometimes with professionals because what they do with his intangibles very often and I've asked my clients.
Okay guys, well, how much money did that save the client?
Mmm. No, we don't know what they did with it.
Well, okay, what would you look at and think well they could do so and so with it and what benefit would that bring them all… well, you know probably say some half million dollars, right?
Okay. Well if you've just potentially save them half a million dollars you've potentially save them half million dollars.
Yeah. Oh, yes, and that's where thinking differently about it comes.
So you can actually say that. You know I said to them, it is far more interesting
if you say to your clients, we've just potentially saved you half million dollars.
Then here is the report now, you don't have to shove that down somebody's throat,
but it is actually worth bringing it to their attention that you've saved them half million dollars.
It's just a difference in mindset because again when it gets be mentioned before when you are asking people from to pay your invoice, you have to explain to people what value you brought to them.
You know, and the professions don't do that. They just think you should know and yet it's the most obvious thing.
I'm happy to pay 50,000.
If you've saved me half a million, you know, here's my money. The difficulty is they go.
can I have 50,000? Okay. What for?
I think it's so interesting.
Mona: I've seen this with clients many times when I kind of walk in there, that information is already there. They all have it. So when I go in there, it's about asking the different set of questions. It's not about just looking at it from the way those business partners have looked at the business for so long.
It's just going in having that external mindset and I've never had an issue with getting that information. It was just they were asking the same questions over and over again. So it's not about advertising on social media. It's about why do you do this? the answer to the question ”why” gets them thinking?
Oh, why did we do this ? And it's a process, something that they understand if they do it
once or twice. They're able to kind of get on with the goal of understanding that
this is how we need to look at our own business, in a new way.
It's about asking questions that have never been asked before but asking questions that bring out the value and that content becomes the new information that can then be shared on social media because suddenly you're making a difference.
Mona: And another thing to add here is, you cannot expect just IT because previously used to outsource it to a marketing agency or external marketing team. Now professional firms do that very common mistake of giving that responsibility solely to IT
because it's got technology as an under platform, IT has responsibility to look at that.
That's the biggest mistake, because IT is the tool, technology is the tool to get you there on social media, but that doesn't mean it's solely the responsibility just of one department or that specialty.
Social media needs to be looked at holistically rather than just keep handing it over to one department and say can you please run our social media because it runs on the web.
That's not the way to do it. No.
And also a word of warning, it also really depends on how well established your marketing team is within your business, and who is leading it. Do they have that right skillset and if they do, that's when they are more closer to the clients and the needs of your clients.
But if that's not the case, then the business leaders and partners really need to think and understand whether they need external experts to come in and have a look at it and help them set up that foundation.
That thinking and that mindset of asking the right questions is really important
and always with each of my clients I have found that they find it really helpful having someone externally come into the business and look at it from a distance. You don't change your work, you change how you think about your work.
Yes, you are still producing the same outputs, you are still doing the same work,
but you're changing how you present it and how think about it and what value it is bringing out and that's when the change happens.
Julian: Absolutely! Okay brilliant! Thank you very much again Mona.
That's the end of this podcast. Listen in to the next one, the next thrilling episode of ConFuzed.