Canadian Small Business Women

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When to follow technology trends in social media

Kelly Farrell - Teach Me Social -headshot (2)

There is a big difference between jumping on the bandwagon just because “everyone else is doing it” and adding a new tech trend as part of your overall digital marketing strategy. The rate of change in the world of technology, especially for business, is extremely fast-paced and keeping up with the new apps, website trends and social media features can be a very daunting task. Despite the challenges that come with keeping up, it can be very beneficial to be an early adopter of new technologies and digital shifts.

 

First come, first serve

The first users on many new platforms, websites or apps are usually privy to special offers and features. On social media, the early arrivals are almost always the first to develop a large following of other early arrivals, who also tend to be more engaged and loyal than new followers later on.

 

Work out the kinks

Getting on board with a new feature or platform also give you ample time to work out the kinks, a time when making mistakes are part of the game and adds authenticity to your brand. Part of social media is the allure of being able to see behind the curtain of a logo and glimpse the authentic personality driving the message. Working out the kinks and figuring out a new platform with other early adopters also sets you up as a leader and expert when the rest of the crowd follows you.

 

Staying Current

If your brand stands for ingenuity, creativity or innovation in any way, then getting on board and being part of the initial phase could play a huge role in setting your brand up as a leader in forward thinking. When your brand shares their enthusiasm by joining in on trending topics on social media, it shows your followers that you are current, relevant and engaged.

 

Beware of shiny things

All that being said, the biggest danger with new technologies is the “shiny things syndrome”! It’s happened to the best of us – like children, we are easily attracted to new things and can get sucked into spending hours playing with new features and testing out new toys.

 

To avoid getting sucked into new technologies that are not going to see an overall benefit for your small business, you can ask yourself these questions:

  • Will using this tool attract new customers to my business?
  • Is my target demographic already using this tool?
  • Will my business benefit from being part of a trending conversation online?
  • How much time can I afford to spend daily using a new technology tool?

 

If you weigh the pros and cons of each new tool, it becomes easier to identify trends that will have a positive impact on your business and ones that may not be worth your time investment. In most cases, it is always a good idea to get advice from an expert or other small business owners. Attending networking events and joining online communities (like Canadian Small Business Women) are great ways to know what other entrepreneurs are doing online and where they are focusing their energy.

Teach Me Social owner Kelly Farrell has been helping empower Canadian Small Business owners through social media for over four years. Teach Me Social now offers services ranging from training sessions for small business owners and their teams to full-service social media account management. Visit teachmesocial.ca to learn more about our service offerings or to book a no obligation consultation, including an audit of your existing social media channels.

If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead

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I recently attended a meetup at Ryerson University, in their Transmedia Zone.  It was a fantastic evening of discussion and debate about content, media, and how the platforms we are using to communicate – social media, Youtube, The Internet itself – are changing our ideas around production and consumption of content, and even ownership of media.

One idea that came up was the idea that media, or content (we were primarily discussing video but it could as easily have been a discussion of any kind of media), is no longer something that we just consume.  It is something that we produce and in fact, it is a way we communicate as much as anything else.

We express our identities, our thoughts, and our ideas in media, as media.  We speak “video”.  And for those who don’t create their own, from scratch, we share what others have produced, as a kind of shorthand for what we want to say.  When I share a captioned photo on Facebook, or content created by a brand like Coke or Red Bull, I am speaking volumes about who I am, what “tribe” I belong to.

Where does content marketing fit in?

I stared to think about what role content marketing plays in this content-sharing-as-communication ecosystem, and why it is so important for business.  To define what I mean by content marketing, have a read of this article, or download a handy infographic here.  Content Marketing is a system in which a business uses content, not advertising, to generate and nurture leads for their business, build trust with their customers, and get found online.

I encounter an objection again and again when I work with clients who are-shall we say-not digital natives, when we get around to a content marketing discussion.  The objection goes something like this: “I am a private person; I don’t want to put myself out there in social media, or by blogging…I’m sure no one wants to hear what I had for lunch.  Plus, I am not willing to give away all my secrets in a blog!  If people want to get my help, they’ll have to hire me!”

That is kind of like moving to France and refusing to speak French.   Digital Media is communication tool, and content is a language that, as a business, you can’t NOT speak.  The best way to get your brand out there is to use media – video, photography, blogging, graphics – to communicate with your customers, and in fact to use media that they will want to share.  To use what Henry Jenkins calls “spreadable media”.

Henry Jenkins: Spreadable Media

This video, titled Spreadable content makes the consumer king, is an episode from Pull: How Technology is Changing the Conversation.  IT was produced by TVO and Q Media and it is taken from  a discussion I had with Jenkins in 2013.

Spreadable media is the best reason I can think of to generate content marketing for your business.  It is how you leverage your existing customers and followers as marketers, giving them the media they need to spread your message for you.

Jenkins also speaks in this interview about the new digital divide, that he calls the participation gap.  He talks about kids in schools who may not have access to skills and opportunities, but it just as effectively applies to business people who don’t have the skills, the training or worse, the willingness to participate in this new language of identity and brands, the language of content.

As Jenkins says: if it doesn’t spread, its dead.  Creating high value, sharable content that your customers can use is the best way to close that participation gap.

Christine McGlade is a Business Analyst, Content Strategist, and Usability Consultant.  With over 25 years experience in the media business, Christine helps small business, social enterprise, and Not for Profits how to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their business.  Learn more about Christine at analyticalengine.ca

In Content Strategy, Your Customers are Users  

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In the second post in this series, I outlined why your governance model, or the “How do I do this?” part of your content strategy, is a good place to start planning. Over the next 4 weeks of this series, we’ll go through a full content strategy, and this week we’ll tackle the most important person in the content strategy room: your customer or as you will come to call him or her: Your User.

Content Strategy and User Experience Design

This week I attended a User Experience Design Conference, and I was struck by something that is important to consider as we embark on this month’s installment of your content strategy road map.  As the speakers at the conference described projects they had been working on and case studies of both successes and failures, I was struck by how there has been a real renaissance in the world of business over the last few years.  Now, so many businesses are taking a Design-Thinking approach to business planning and strategy.  And the lines between designing a business strategy, a content strategy, and a website are becoming very blurry.

Traditional business planning has often started with the product or the brand.  Now more and more businesses are taking a very customer-centric approach and taking pages from Design Thinking as they start their planning and strategy with the customer, or as we say in Design Thinking, with “Empathy for the User”.

Understanding the cares, context, capabilities and captivating factors of your User are the building blocks of a great business plan, and a great content strategy.

What is a “User”?

I am going to use the word “User” and not customer as I proceed to describe how we identify who they are, and create messages for them, in our content strategy.  Why do I use the word User and not customer?

It used to be that when we said “User” we meant only those customers who were going to your website.  But in his Book “Users Not Customers”, Aaron Shapiro makes the point that nowadays, every customer is a User, and thinking about them as Users allows us to always remember that they are coming to us for their own reasons, not ours:

“Users are defined as anyone who interacts with a company through digital media and technology.  There are lots of different types of users, and while they each have their own distinct interests and objectives, they all want digital tools to easily and quickly give them a leg up”, Shapiro says, “Today, a customer must be thought of in a new way: as one segment of users, one of the many types of people who interact with your company through the digital version of your organisation.  And they all want digital technologies to make their lives easier and better.”

Users aren’t just browsing, shopping, surfing.  Users are seeking value, utility, and help.  When we develop a content strategy based on empathy for that User, we need to understand who they are in a three dimensional portrait that we call a persona.

Personas: Not Just Demographics

Personas are detailed portraits of your users: usually you choose at most 3 or 4.  Personas are both an art and a science to create, because they are based both on facts or what your know about your Users AND they come from your imagination.  In order to create this three dimensional portrait of your User(s), you need to understand who they are across these 4 areas:

Care: What do they care about?  What are their pain points? What matters to them the most and what are the minimum expectations you’ll need to meet for them?

Context: In what context will they be when they find your website or social media?  This is not only a question of what device they might be using (for example, they might find you while using their smartphone on a crowded streetcar, or at their desktop computer in a cubicle at work) but also what time of day, what is their mood, their situation?

Capabilities: What are their technological capabilities? Are there any physical constraints they might have that will impact on how they are able to interact with you online (for example, are they older and therefore will very small text be hard to read, or might they have physical tremors that would make hitting very small buttons difficult?  Are they colour blind, as many men are?)

Captivate: This is the most elusive, but possible the most important area of focus.  What will really surprise and delight them? What are their secret desires that, if tapped into, will bring them un-matchable value and engage them in a real trust relationship with you?

How do I get to know my Users?

You can find out a lot about your users by looking at the analytics on your website, market research your company may have done, by speaking to your sales staff, or by examining competitor sites to “reverse engineer” who they are speaking to.

But to take a page from Design Thinking, the best way to get to know your Users is through observation: getting out there and meeting people, asking them questions and listening carefully to the questions that they ask you.

Can you observe your users using a competing product or even better your product?  Watching someone navigate your website is often a harrowing and eye opening experience.

And listen to what they say: jot down quotes and use their words, base your content strategy on their questions and their language.

Persona Templates

Having personas developed is not only critical for the development of your content strategy, you need them if you are going to have anyone else writing product pages or emails, blogging, or engaging in social media communications on behalf of your company.  Have them memorise the personas, and post the personas at their desk so they are always aware of who they are speaking to!

Here are a few sources for templates you can use to build your personas:

http://www.buyerpersona.com/buyer-persona-template

http://offers.hubspot.com/free-template-creating-buyer-personas

The Analytical Engine Persona Template

Your personas can be detailed or brief, but the main thing is that they are, for you, real: you want to have a clear picture in your head, and on paper, of who this person or these people are, because one of the biggest lessons to learn from the school of Design Thinking is: you are not your user!  You don’t want to design your content strategy for yourself, you want to design it for your users, to deliver value to them, to speak to them, to meet their needs at their level, and if you’re lucky and skilled, to surprise, delight, and captivate, and convert!

For more resources and information on Content Strategy and to download a detailed description of what content strategy entails, go to analyticalengine.ca/resources or download a Content Strategy Info graphic at http://bit.ly/1qY9tYp.

Christine McGlade is a Business Analyst, Content Strategist, and Usability Consultant.  With over 25 years experience in the media business, Christine helps small business, social enterprise, and Not for Profits how to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their business.  Learn more about Christine at analyticalengine.ca

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