How Future Proof Your Social Media with Megan McMullin

Transcript for How Future Proof Your Social Media with Megan McMullin:

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00:00 I’m so excited. kind of a little back history of how Megan ended up here. I’ve been a MeetEdgar user now for years, a customer of theirs, and I knew social media is an important topic. If you are not using social media to build your business you’re missing out, right? But I didn’t want the typical, “Here’s how you Tweet. Here’s how you use Facebook,” the stuff that everybody seems to talk about. I really wanted a different twist on it. So as a customer I literally reached out, I don’t know if you know this story, I reached out to their customer support. I’m like, “This is kind of a random question. I don’t need support but would you guys want to speak at my event?”

00:37 If you don’t know what MeetEdgar is, it is basically a service where you line up your content and library and set it out at certain times. It really helps you with the automation perspective. But you can’t just automate and walk away because if people are talking to you are going to miss it. But you also can’t just plan on being there for social media all the time because then you won’t be able to run a business and you won’t get anything done because you are just going to be on social media.

01:05 When I talked to them I said, “Can we please put something together where you figure this fine line out?” How can you automate so you can be seen all the time, but you are still engaging with your customers so you are not just running your business and people are responding to you and you are walking away. Luckily, Customer Support answered me and they brought Megan out here to be part of this event and I couldn’t be more excited. So, if you could, this is going to be an amazing presentation. Thank you so much for coming, from Colorado, right? Yes. So Megan, if we can give here a big round of applause, we have Megan McMullin from MeetEdgar.

01:40 Thanks so much, Sarah.

01:46 Hey guys, I am Megan McMullin and as she said I work for this little octopus guy. He is my boss, Edgar. what Edgar is really great for is making sure that the time you are spending on social media is time well spent.

02:01 Let’s talk about why you guys are here. You guys are entrepreneurs. You guys are looking for ways to really drive traffic in meaningful ways to your website. So whether it’s your e-commerce site, your product site or whether you guys are a SAS company, social media is going to be so important in order to get those leads in meaningful ways in order for them to self-select into your business and know that they are right for you.

02:24 You guys want to increase your impact on social media but the thing is, there is so much time in your day that is being pulled to these other areas of your business. You have to handle the finances, you have to put out fires in other marketing places. Social media is sometimes lost a little bit in that. What we are going to talk about a little bit today is this world, some of these brands are producing really huge amounts of noise and garnering so much attention on social media, what they do and how small businesses, solopreneur, smaller companies can also achieve this using things like an automation tool. Some of the reasons that automation tools like Edgar exist is because life gets in the way. If you guys are not planning your social media strategy out, it goes tried and true with that saying that you are going to plan to fail in this way. There are so many other competing businesses that you are not going to take that time when you are out and about to post that blog post that just got released or to post that photo you took. Having a place that you are able to upload this content to a library, set a weekly, consistent weekly posting schedule will make sure that the social media is not something that is not just left willy-nilly, but you are able to strategize with it, learn about your followers and create feedback loops that are creating meaningful experiences for people on social.

03:46 You guys are not alone. In survey after survey, the number one thing that people say is so hard for them is finding and posting content on social media. Rather than just interacting with this soulless, faceless platform of Twitter and Facebook and just kind of logging in and posting things, we want Edgar to be able to take care of that for you so that you guys, when you are utilizing your time on social media can talk to your customers, can actually make sure that you are engaging with them to create that person-to-person experience which is going to bring them into your brand, is going to make them advocates of your brand and is really going to bring them into a part of your marketing team.

04:24 What I kind of want you guys to think about here is you are, regardless of what your business is, in this talk you are a media company. You are a content creating machine and that is what we kind of want you to filter this talk through as we kind of get going here.

04:41 After Edgar takes care of posting things for you, what we also want to make sure is that engagement piece that we are going into is not getting lost either. We don’t want you to have to turn off the comments on your Facebook post. We don’t want you to have to just let all of these DMs on Twitter go unanswered because you don’t have time for them. And we know that customer support these days is not only something that is done through email or through automation chat systems but people are reaching out online, on Facebook and Twitter, to either compliment your brand or complain about your brand and this can be seen as a time suck sometimes if you are spending so much time on social media already posting your links.

05:19 But I want you to shift that mindset, that if people are reaching out for support on social media this is such a good thing. This is your opportunity to get them to the first win with your product, to get them over that hump so, again, they can champion your brand. This idea of customer support on social media can be really frustrating for small businesses too, when people are reaching out and complaining in a public space, but also shift your mindset to think that when people are doing that and you have the time and go in and flip them around, to create that raving fan, that content lives on social media for other people to see and they are able to say, “Wow, this company has a human behind it that are actually coming on, responding, nurturing them.” It’s going to bring other followers who are going to your page to get that kind of social proof going on and really, again, make sure that you are humanizing your brand and putting that personality into it and not just spending all your time on social media posting and ignoring your followers.

06:16 Imagine this, as we are going throughout this, again, you guys are media people right now and what we are going to talk about is saying goodbye to that social media wasteland and really turning it into a major profit center and a brand-awareness machine. We are going to cover a few of the things that some of the top leaders in your industry do, but I also want to make sure you guys are taking risks on social media. There’s so much noise out there on the Internet today and we want to make sure that you are experimenting and learning from what’s going on on your own channels to really make sure your followers are getting the content that they crave and if you are listening to them, you are showing them that respect and you are able to create more content and you are able to say, “Hey, these people are following us because we are adding value to their day.”

07:01 So, focusing on this a little more, this idea of how you add value to someone’s day is making sure that every post you are putting out there, you are looking at which people are actually engaging with it. What is your demographic actually latching on to and really wanting to learn more about? This can be accomplished with so many different insights in Facebook and Twitter and we’ll go over a little bit of that as we go about here too.

07:28 I don’t want to lose any of you now to thinking that social media is this nurturing, kind of willy-nilly thing. MeetEdgar was actually before developed into a SAS product for companies, an educational system. Our founder Laura Roeder ran a social media education business and she essentially had this problem herself, that she was spending so much time marketing it and trying to find customers that she couldn’t create the courses and the content that she wanted to. She developed MeetEdgar to be able to go ahead and handle that social media automation side so she could develop more and more content. Then it came that she was telling people about this and other small businesses had this problem too.

08:10 MeetEdgar got itself off the ground on social media alone. We’ve estimated that we’ve attracted $600,000 from social media itself, so this stuff is really, really important for business to be a part of and it’s only going to get harder to get a piece of this revenue. You know, when some of the other bigger kind of media sources like TV commercials and stuff like that do start to realize that, “Hey, no one is watching my commercial on TV, when that comes on they are going to their phone scrolling through social media.” Facebook and Twitter are going to get smart to that too soon also and start to raise the prices of the ads you are able to produce there. They are going to make it a little bit harder and there’s going to be more noise when some of the bigger brands get on social media. I want you guys to really make sure you are jumping in there now when it is a free market space for you guys to get a piece of. Let’s start first. Language matters when we are thinking about social media. This matters internally too. I want you guys to think about what you are calling your social media team. Do you call them something sterile like a Social Media Manager, where they are thinking they are just managing the content you are putting out there? Or are you really making sure that people feel that need and feel that engagement that they want to build a community on social media?

09:27 For example, at MeetEdgar we call our marketing person a “Marketing Advocate.” This really makes sure that they are not only advocating for what’s best for our business, but what’s best for our customers, too. If our customers are getting what’s best for them, those returns are going to become so, so huge and so visible on social media. So whether it’s just you and you are a solopreneur, make sure you are thinking of yourself more as a community manager, or excuse me, a community engagement sort of vibe rather than someone who is just a marketer out there on social media.

10:01 So, getting that internal language, making sure your whole team is buying into it, is going to be huge on social media. And when I say your whole team, if you work with multiple people as well, utilize your team in this. Make sure they are warm leads who are able to do things like share the content your brand is posting on social media, really signaling to that algorithm that, “Hey, this is content that’s really great to see.” So, making sure your whole company really buys into is really going to be the first step there. Every single social media post then has the opportunity not only to get traffic to your website, grow your followers, making sure you are attracting the right customers to your brand, but we also want to make sure it is inspiring you to buy.

10:45 Now, notice that last word there, that inspire word. What we want this to really communicate to you guys is that it is no longer about B2B. It’s not a business-to-business connection. We want you to think of this as a human-to-human connection. You know, people really buy from people not businesses. They want to see your personality in your posts and that is how you are really going to get that trust. Think about things when you are just walking by, when you are walking by and thinking about these bigger brands like Apple. What do they do to humanize it? They tell that story of starting in a garage. They bring in all of that sort of behind the scenes content that you get to know the person and the personality behind it and that is going to build so much trust with your audience and really make sure that it is going along with this human connection and not just a sterile business that is much easier to forget for your followers.

11:40 So going along with this, I’ve been talking about trust a lot here. So I’m sure some of you have read a lot of social media blogs, you’ve heard this term, “Know, Like and Trust.” So this is what we also want the lens for you to filter every social media update you are adding through, is that it is this ability to get people to know your brand first and foremost. Of course they have to know you in order to purchase from you.

12:01 Second it’s going to be for them to like your brand. So they have to like your personality, they have to think of you in an emotional way. Think about it, guys. We as humans buy things on an emotional appeal more than anything. You want to get happy and buy something. You might be sad and buy something. Every social media update you put out there should also have this emotional appeal behind it.

12:22 It’s said that it takes about 5 touch points in order for someone to really make that decision to purchase something and social media is the best place to get those 5 different touch points because you are not going to be harping on the same thing over and over again. It’s not just going to be promotion, a logical reason why you should buy this. It is going to be you putting things out there. That is making someone smile every morning when you show with that motivational post. Making someone laugh, making someone nostalgic for the good old days. These emotions are going to move people to purchase so much more than logic. When they then think of this funny quote and your brand is associated with that humor that you posted on social media, your brand then becomes a happy memory in their mindset. So it’s all about creating these emotional experiences to really make sure you are increasing this “Know, Like and Trust” factor so that you stay on the top of your mind of your followers.

13:17 I just want you to think of this word influence. I know we all hear it all the time, “Influence in marketing is where it’s at.” But every follower you have is actually going to be an influencer for you. It is there for you to be able to give them content that they want to share with their community, again becoming a brand advocate for you, championing your brand and really they are going to be the people who their network trusts more than anything. Learn about your community through Facebook Insights, through Twitter Analytics. If you guys haven’t checked it out yet, it is insane how much data is in there. You can figure out not only things like the medium income of your community, you can figure out what their favorite TV shows are from Twitter Analytics demographics, and this can also help to really inform and grow that “Know, Like and Trust” factor.

14:06 Say you go on to your Twitter Analytics and you are saying, “Hey, it looks like the majority of my followers like comedy and not sports.” Maybe you should start to add a lot more humor into your updates and become a really uplifting brand in that way. Or maybe they like sports and not as much comedy TV. Utilize these things that you might not think are directly related to your business, but again are going to increase that “Know, Like and Trust” factor and make sure you are relating to your community in a really cool way.

14:37 Social media, again we want to make sure you that you are paying attention to both words in this and that is social and media. So make sure you are being social and talk with people. Behind the scenes content and showing up for your followers is some of the strongest stuff that you have to give on social media marketing.

14:55 What this is is showing behind the scenes content makes people feel like they are part of a group and they are getting something that maybe the general public isn’t necessarily getting. They get into that tribe mentality, that they really want to make sure they are bringing in the people they care about it their lives.

15:11 Show up for the followers you have and stop paying attention to some of these vanity metrics of, “Oh my gosh, I need to get ten thousand followers in order to get my Instagram unlocked, my Instagram page unlocked, or my YouTube analytics unlocked” and stuff like that. We definitely want to make sure that you are showing up for the followers you have and trust that they are going to bring along the people who matter and that smaller audience whose really going to engage with your brand is going to be so much more important that just gaining all of these followers and again all of these likes that are way more meaningless.

15:47 Cool. So next, relatability is the future of marketing. What I like to say here is that relating to someone is going to get that human-to-human connection the most. This can be kind of tricky to achieve on social media sometimes. Questions you can ask yourself when you are trying to think of updates to put out there that are going to relate to people is something even as simple as, “Hey, what’s the nerdiest thing that I like?” Or, “What’s the funniest thing that I saw today?”

16:13 If you can craft a social media update around that, you have no idea who in your audience is also thinking that same thing and they want to jump in and they want to talk to you about that. Again, that engagement, those comments, those shares, that is what the algorithms are looking for these days.

16:31 You know whether it’s Twitter’s Terms of Service change that just happened, or the Facebook apocalypse that happened a few months ago with what they are doing on decreasing your organic reach, everything, every change that is going on is the social media network telling you, “You need to have engagement and not just create noise here.” So relatability is really where it’s all at.

16:56 Cool. So, going along with this idea is that you really want to make sure that you are not only being relatable to your followers but you are also adding value to your followers to earn the right to promote. Kind of something I like to think about this is if you listen to any sort of radio, like NPR or any sort of podcast that does advertising, they create so much value for you during your day that they earn the right to have that fundraising week, or they earn the right to interrupt that podcast in order to go ahead and get that sponsor content out there. This is really going to be helpful on social media too. What this is is say you have 4 updates going out to your Facebook page every day. What you want is those first 3 updates to add so much value that you earn the right to then ask for that sale or then to promote your product to them. This can be anything from, again, that inspirational post that gives someone that warm feeling associated with your brand. It can be asking a question to get to know your audience a little bit better. Bonus, you get to create that feedback loop into your product and make sure you are creating it for the space that they want. It can be a blog post.

18:07 You know, this term of infotainment, so making sure that everything you are putting out there is going to provide information, but also entertainment to people. People are on social media to escape their day, to connect with friends and family and the language that you use for these updates should really go along with this too. Make it conversational, make it something that’s really going to look into the person and make them relate to it and make them really, really connect with your brand. If you get those first 3 updates out that had so much value to their day, you’ve then earned the right to ask for that sale and to promote your brand a little bit.

18:48 Cool. So along with this idea, I’ve been saying you are asking for the sale and not just selling it. So social media, what it is really great for is it is making this elegant sale and it’s making people self-select. So if you are educating people on social media, if you are showing them the inside of your product…

19:00 … If you’re educating people on social media, if you’re showing them the inside of your product, you’re showing them the behind the scenes, the values that your company holds even, all of these things can go into making someone say, “Hey, this brand seems really great. This brand is something that I respect and I follow.” And people are then able to self-select in and say, “Yes, this product would be right for my business.” or, “No, this product doesn’t exactly seem right.” And that’s okay too. So don’t be afraid to put out there who you are for and who you are not for, because no one really wants, again, these meaningless followers with their brand. You want followers who are bought in 100%.

19:37 One of the most elegant sales ways that we like to do at Meet Edgar is asking people when their ideal time to start. We work with a ton of small businesses, a ton of startups, and we’re not going to be pushing and saying, “You need this right away.” We’re going to tell you why, and we’re going to add value to you. We have a ton of content writers, we have a ton of people who are diversifying our content and telling people how we run our business, being transparent in that way. And asking people, “When’s the ideal time for you to start to get into this social media automation?” And remember, also, I know it can be so hard, especially if you are a solopreneur to feel like you have that right to promote things. But remember, if you have a solution to someone’s problem, if you’re presenting someone’s problem to them in a way that they’re like, “Yeah, that is my problem. Yes, you do seem like a good solution.” It is almost your responsibility to give that to them. Don’t be shy about letting people know why you matter and why they should care about your product and really like you.

20:40 Along with this is that you really want to make sure that you are speaking right into your clients’ story. Humans latch onto stories more than anything. So, social media is a great way to create that story. What we like to kind of think of here is creating a hero’s journey narrative on social media. What this sometimes can get tricky about is making sure that this hero’s journey isn’t speaking about your product being the hero, it’s speaking about the customer being a hero of their own journey. So if you have something like a social media automation tool here, I’m not going to say, “Hey, Edgar is going to be the hero and save you all this time and make sure that you no longer have to kind of engage on social media in this way.”

21:26 I’m going to say, “Hey, you guys should be the hero and champion all of this hard work that you’re doing and get it out there and put yourself in there, so that people can really see themselves in the story.” It’s almost like they’re starting to try the product on, and you’re able to kind of get them over their objections and get them through that friction that they might be playing around in their own head. So, try to think of ways that you can really create a story on how your brand or how your business or product can really help their business succeed in the long run.

21:59 This last point here that there’s riches in the niches. What I like to really talk about with this is that every social media update doesn’t have to speak directly to each one of your followers. So, don’t be afraid to get a little bit more specific in the updates that you’re sending out. Think about the things that are going along in your industry right now, and think about what’s missing in your industry. What voice is missing? What sort of spin can you put on it that’s different? Go out there and look at your competitors and see what they’re talking about, and see how your opinion differs from it.

22:33 Don’t be afraid to kind of get super specific. Say one social media update really sparked some 10 of your followers and they share that. Again, they’re now part of your brand, they’re now part of your marketing strategy, and they’ve shared that out to their networks, bringing all of their networks in line making sure they know about your brand. And it’s okay if you miss the other 200 followers that you have. Your next few updates will be able to speak to them directly. So, think about how you can get really specific with your updates in order to really compel people to share that content.

23:09 Cool. Next thing on social media is marketing experiences. I’m sure you’ve all heard the term the experience economy. It is a buzzword right now, especially among millennials, but it is so true. People want to buy experiences, they don’t want to buy the process or the product. An example of that I think is really easy to relate to this is the idea of like a travel service like Orbits or like Kayak. It’s something that what you’re doing there is you’re buying a ticket. But what they want to market is the experience of that vacation. So, try to take it a little bit further and really make sure that you’re thinking about the experience people are going to have before, during and after you’re actually putting the product in there.

23:56 Orbits doesn’t want to market to you, “Hey, you’re logging online and searching through flights to find the cheapest one, then you’re taking a taxi to the airport and giving someone your ticket.” They want to market towards, “They, this is your vacation laying on the beach. This is your vacation connecting with your family.” Again, getting to that emotional appeal and really making sure that people are able to see themselves in the experience rather than just what they’re responsible for, which is your plane ticket.

24:24 Cool. So we want you to also think about relationships first and business second. You have to open up and give your followers a reason to care about you. We all want our community to engage with us more on social media. But a lot of the time, we’re not doing things like asking simple questions. Some ways that we like to do it Edgar is you want to ask simple questions that are going to be easy and not time consuming for people to answer. This could be something as easy as thinking about like a Would you rather question. Or saying, “What’s your favorite online newsletter to follow?”

25:01 People love to talk about themselves, they love to open up. So give them that opportunity to. It not only allows your posts to be seen by more people, because the algorithm’s going to favor that, but it also allows you to get to know your followers. Again, glean that information and not having to sort of spend the time on the analytic side if you’re asking those questions. And is your story strong enough to make people care about the story themselves? If you are not opening up on social media about your wins, about your failures, about everything that’s happening, you’re not going to get your followers to open up either, so you guys have to do it first.

25:38 We are really lucky at Meet Edgar to have our little octopus as our little mascot, because we’re able to personify him. If you’re afraid to kind of put your face out there and to humanize it in that way, if there’s a way that you can get something like a little Meet Edgar onto your brand, it’s going to be a huge way that you’re able to connect with your members and make sure that people are having fun with your social media at the same time.

26:04 We, of course, want to make sure that everything we’re doing, especially utilizing a automation tool is going to be scalable. Again, we know we’re all so busy being a small business and having a ton of different things stealing our attention throughout the day. But we also want you to make sure you’re doing unscalable things. And that means again, engaging with your followers, replying to comments, and this really goes along to tell them that you care about them, and they can then expect that from you throughout their entire customer journey.

26:33 As you’re sort of making these things, I want you to think about that first slide and how we were talking about future proofing your social media. This is going to be the best way to do that. The market is going to change constantly. Who knows is Facebook and Twitter are going to change things hugely for business pages? All of this stuff is not up to you. It’s not in our control a lot of the time. What is in our control, and something that is never going to change is that human connection. Is those relationships that you’re building. And it is so hard to build that through normal marketing with your email funnels and stuff. But it is so easy and so available for you to do on social media.

27:12 This, again, is really the easiest way. And the main point that I want you guys to kind of take home from this is that if you’re showing your followers you care about them, and you’re building those human connections and relationships, your social media strategy, no matter what the networks do, no matter which new network comes up, your followers will follow you to that network if you’ve cared about them, and created that bond.

27:36 Cool. Going along with this caring and creating that bond, let’s not just kind of make all of that hard work that you’ve done here go to waste. Let’s actually get some of that back from your followers too. What this goes on is, excuse me, is getting testimonial. So, social proof for your social media. People again, are going to buy from people they trust. And if they’re seeing that other people have written great reviews and have really kind of gotten your brand in their heart space and really kind of shared it with others, this is going to be huge for you to be able to gain new followers’ trust easily.

28:14 What we want you to kind of think about here is when you’re asking your customers for reviews and testimonials in order to turn into social media updates, is you want this to go along with how it makes people feel more than anything. They can also go along with this idea of storytelling that we are talking about. We want you to say, “Hey, how did you feel before you purchased this product?” That’s going to speak to your leads who are following you on social media who might not be ready to buy yet. And if they can relate to that and say, “Oh, wow, this other person who now used this product felt the same way,” that’s going to build a really great bond. What did it feel like when you pulled out your credit card to buy that or just sign up for this service?

28:55 Again, that emotional appeal, what did it feel like when you did that? Maybe they were a little bit nervous it wasn’t going to work out for them, creating that relatable experience and creating that, “Oh, okay, we’re all in this together vibe. And then what did it feel like once that product was in your life?” And this is where it’s going to be that great, great punch of saying, “Hey, this is what my life is like now, there’s that storyline,” and really make sure that those are going out on your social media channels and not just getting lost. When people are telling you good things, make sure that you’re getting their permission and adding this into your social media strategy. It’s an awesome, awesome way to make sure that your followers feel like they’re part of your brand as well.

29:37 Cool. So, all of this is also going to be kind of hard for you to manage across all the social media platforms. We want to make sure that the time you’re spending is where your followers are. The great thing about automation with Meet Edgar is that you’re able to send these updates out to Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn all at the same time. And you don’t have to log in to all three of those networks in order to post it. Again, it’s just this idea that task switching is so hard in a small business. It takes about 12 minutes to on board and off board into tasks.

30:10 Say you’re kind of sitting there doing a financial plan and you’re like, “Oh, wait, I’ve got this social media update I need to get out there.” It’s going to take you about 12 minutes to get in that headspace of writing that update, sharing that link, then going back to your financial plan and getting back onboarded with that task. So, having an automation tool just to do this for you can not only save you a ton of time, it can also make sure that you’re really experimenting on all three networks. For example here, another reason why it’s so hard for people to kind of take the time and really realize that social media is so important are statistics like this.

30:49 The majority of your Twitter users don’t even log in once per day. So, this can be frustrating when you’re like, “Oh, I’m spending all this time logging in and no one’s reading my updates.” And it gets even worse. Most people won’t even see your tweet, because over 500 million tweets are sent every single day. If you break that math down, it’s over 5000 tweets a second. So again, there’s so much noise on social media. And sometimes it can be a little bit frustrating thinking, “Hey, is this channel even where my followers are?” So, utilizing automation can help give you that experimental mindset of saying, “Okay, let’s try this. Let’s try sending this update to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and seeing the engagement we get on each of them.” So then you can fine-tune and hone in on who should be seeing those updates, where you should be spending your time, and where your audience really is.

31:39 Let’s stay on Twitter a little bit more here. So Twitter, if you guys aren’t on it, very often, it is a place that is really community bonding. Twitter’s Terms of Service did just change actually, that they are no longer allowing the same tweet to be sent to the same Twitter account more than once, or the same tweet to be sent to multiple Twitter accounts at the same time. What is that telling us? That is telling us that Twitter wants people to engage and be authentic on social media. Make sure that you’re going on to social media and Twitter and listening to what’s going on in the space. And not just posting links without any status along with it, and not just kind of being there to be there. But be there to listen to community and really add to the vibe that’s going on.

32:26 Partnerships on Twitter are huge. Retweeting as a way that you can not only get noticed by other brands, but also a way that you can kind of get your followers to figure out about what’s going on in your industry and really be seen as an expert there. And adding value. Again, it all goes back to adding value. You want to make sure that you’re answering questions, sharing information, and again, really being a force for good in that community to create those human to human connections.

32:54 Twitter’s other challenge is that it’s really going to make sure that the algorithm is favoring live updates. So, you need to post regularly on Twitter, especially when your audiences online. Again, utilized your Twitter analytics to see when your audience is online to inform when you add in those time slots in your automation tool, so that you don’t have to post when you’re online. Rather, the automation tool is posting when your followers are online, making it more likely your status updates will show up in their feed.

33:26 Along with this though, we don’t want you just to post 15 times a day on Twitter just to get that quantity out there, make sure you’re staying relevant. The algorithm is also going to really, really look at who your followers are, what posts your followers are engaging with. And if they engage with your brand more, Twitter will show them more of your brand. So, make sure it’s not only timely when your followers are online, but it’s also something that’s going to provide relevance to them.

33:54 This retweet thing that we talked about on the last slide as well. We want to make sure that you’re also compelling people to retweet. This can be something as simple as, again, getting something relatable. Like, “Hey, I like pancakes. Retweet if you like pancakes.” Maybe someone’s just kind of in between a meeting. Maybe someone’s walking around and they’re like, “Yeah, I like pancakes.” And they hit that Retweet. It’s a simple thing that you can ask for. But if you’re not asking for it, it’s not going to be likely to pop into their head. So, make sure you’re utilizing retweets asking people for what you want on social media.

34:29 Twitter’s other challenge is that it is 280 characters. If that’s too short to kind of get that inspirational content out there, think of creative ways to engage with your community and get that authenticity out there. Video is one of the strongest ways to do that. This is me Eggers founder Laura, actually, and what she does is we create blog posts and she’ll make a video kind of outlining some of the main points of those blog posts. This is going to help not only create more content from one blog post, but also it’s the only and best way we can think of to get that behind the scenes content and that eye connection to really make sure that you’re creating that authentic experience. It is so hard to hide who your company is if you’re in front of the camera. So, make sure you guys are getting someone who’s comfortable in front of the camera and really creating that content where maybe some people don’t have time to click through that blog post, but they do have time to watch a quick video.

35:25 And guys, if you’re not thinking that, “Hey, I don’t have a lot of blog post content. I don’t know what I would do on social media with video.” Think about your support team tickets you get, or your phone calls you get, or any comments you get. Answer those on a video to really show people how you care about them. Feature request updates. Anything like that really shows you listen if you’re updating people what you’re working on. For example, Meet Edgar works with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter right now, but we’re adding an Instagram and Pinterest in the next couple of months. And we go live all the time on face Facebook and on Twitter in order to really ask our community, “What are your biggest struggles with these networks now, how can a tool help with that?” It really lets our community know how much we care about them. And again, helps them really feel like they have a piece in our company, and like they’re going to want to champion our brand.

36:20 Cool. If you guys are still just starting out, another great source of content that you can think about is other people’s content. If you’re sharing other people’s content on social media, it creates the space that’s kind of a really not only positioning you as an expert in your industry, but also provides value because your followers can then know, “Hey, I don’t have to go out in Google all of the what’s going on in my industry. I’m following the Meet Edgar Twitter account, and they’re going to share everything that’s really relevant to what I need to know for social media marketing.”

36:52 This goes two-fold as well. This is one of our updates here and we share things from like ProBlogger and Copy Hackers all the time, because we know it will provide value to our followers. It’s not our original content and we might be champion another brand, but this will come back to us as well when ProBlogger and Copy Hackers are going to be thinking, doing the same thing. And if they’ve seen us do it, it creates that partnership with us. And it creates that goodwill that then they’ll be more likely to share a blog post that will help their community out in the future.

37:22 So, really think about what other brands in your industry, what other articles are out there that you can then add into your social media strategy to make sure people are saying, “Hey, this is the account to follow so that I can really make sure I’m staying up to date with everything that’s going on.”

37:41 So, Facebook next here. So, suppose that sparked conversation and meaningful interactions between people, posts that you might want to share and react to and posts from friends and family. These three sentences are from Facebook’s most recent algorithm update on what they’re going to favor and what they’re going to show to your audience. And it’s not only going to be the content there, it’s also going to make sure that the interaction and-

38:00 Be content there. It’s also going to make sure that the interaction between people is going to be favoring longer comments, so you guys really need to make sure that you’re sparking conversation and asking people questions in your updates in order for them to really reach out and talk to you there. I don’t know if you guys are super familiar with her, but Mari Smith is actually a Facebook expert and she has this saying that content is king, but engagement is queen and she rules the house. This is really so true on social media. This content that you’re putting out there. No one is going to follow your brand if that content isn’t adding value to them, but no network is going to actually show that value added content unless it’s getting engagement.

38:41 First and foremost make sure that your content is adding value and second that those updates you’re attaching with your content is going to spark engagement. Here’s an example from our own Facebook here. This was one of our more popular posts recently and it says “There are five types of engagement bait that’ll hurt your reach on Facebook if you post them.” We broke down each one. How many do you recognize? Here, we’re really asking our community to reach out to us? But, this update also does something cool that it sparks curiosity in people saying “Hey, how many of these do I know?” It creates that kind of fun interaction. This post got 120 shares and over 50 comments when it was posted right away.

39:28 Another thing you can do with posts that this happens to is think about how the automation of this organic post went out to social media and you said “Well, this is something that my audience values.” Next thing for you to do is maybe to go in and think about boosting this post. If this post received a ton of engagement, but it didn’t reach a lot of people, this is where you’re going to want to then think about that pay to play space. When I say that, it is not a lot of money. You can put as little as $5 behind your Facebook posts here that are doing well and reach a whole new network of look-alike audiences of the people who have already responded here and really get a ton of value out of this post as advertising as well.

40:12 Another example here for asking questions is Facebook is making a lot of changes to the newsfeed in 2018, what are your thoughts on what’s new? Do you think it’ll impact your post? Looking at this post not only again as sparking conversation and really reaching out to our community saying “Hey, we want to hear from you.” But, also look at the language here. It’s conversational. It’s going to fit in with the status updates that they’re seeing from their friends and family on social media, so your brand isn’t intruding on their experience of social media connecting with friends and family. It’s fitting in with that. When you’re crafting these updates, really make sure that the language you’re using is going to be in that conversational tone.

40:53 Cool. Going along here, one of the best ways to feed your social media machine is with existing content that you have like your blog posts, your videos, and stuff like that. How can you do this easily? This is a concept that we like to call upcycling. Say you have a blog post, that blog post has so, so much value in it that you can turn it into 10 different social media updates. What we like to think of when you’re talking to your content team is telling that every piece of content they’re writing should be evergreen content. It should provide value no matter what time of year it is sent out at. This is going to not only allow you to share those status updates over and over again, but it’s going to also allow you to make sure that when people are searching for your content online that it’s always valuable for them.

41:41 How a tool like MeetEdgar can help with your evergreen content is this first graph here is typically what happens when you release a blog post and you post it on social media. It’ll go out once. People will read it. You’ll have that great spike to your website and then it’ll kind of go down from there. MeetEdgar’s difference is you’re able to load this into your library and set that schedule. We have a tool that works on a repeating basis. Once Edgar works through all of your status updates in your library, he’s then going to start from the top again resurfacing that content not only to your new followers, but also to those who might not have seen it the first time. The second graph is the real graph that we’ve seen happen with some of our blog posts that have resurfaced.

42:22 You’ll see this big spike when it’s first posted. It’ll go down a little bit. When it’s resurfaced again and Edgar is recycling content, you’re going to get that big spike again leading people to your site and driving more and more traffic. This idea of repeating your evergreen blog post is going to be huge, huge value to saving not only time, but to make sure that all your followers are able to see that content. Some other things you can start to think about when you’re like I don’t know what evergreen content I can write about in my industry is what’s something you guys do differently from other people in your industry? What’s a big change that happened recently? People love to know about different things that are going on.

43:04 What’s a recent experience you learned something from? This not only goes on the behind the scends content, but it also lets people learn from your successes and failures so they don’t have to spend the time of actually going through that. They will thank you for that, so they can learn from it a little bit more. Lastly here, what advice do you have the reader? Advice is something that people are seeking out for mentor programs, for stuff like that. You can provide that to them directly on social media with your blog posts and with status updates. Once you get these blog posts written or once you get this content created, what else you’re going to do is start to ask so what when you’re turning these into social media updates.

43:48 Why should your audience actually care about this content? For example, we actually have our own style guide that answers this so what question and I would really encourage you to create one as well. Not only so that you’re consistent across your tone and your voice and your brand awareness on social media, but also so that you can make sure if you have a virtual assistant doing this that she is right on point with your brand, she is talking right into your audience’s story and making them that hero. Think about that so what. Who is this speaking to? Why should they care about it? Again, a lot of things go into this blog post and we started talking about it before, but it’s this idea of upcycling your content. This blog post here is showing you-you’ve got words, you’ve pictures, you’ve got subheadings, you’ve got links. All of this can be pulled out from this one blog post to make maybe 10 or 15 social media updates from it. Maybe try posting this link with a photo, posting this link with a question, pulling out some tips from as just text only to really learn what type of content your social media followers really want to see. Cool. The next time when you’re starting to think about sharing content on social media is the headline. At MeetEdgar, we actually generate 20 headlines for every blog post that we write and every piece content that we have. This is because social media is so fast paced that we know not everyone is going to click through, but they’re going to share content based on that headline still.

45:18 So many people just click that share button because they like what that headline says. I don’t want you to think that this is a waste of time to create 20 different headlines because these can also be used as status updates in the future, so really encourage your team to start to think what other words, what other things can really not only spark curiosity so people want to click through, but can also prevent that information in a way that compels people to share it out to their networks. Here is some of our content mix that we do at MeetEdgar. Everyone’s audience is different, so definitely experiment, learn about your audience, but we wanted to share a little bit about what’s working for us these days.

45:57 20% of the time, we post evergreen blog posts so that information value-added posts. 20% of the time, we share links to reviews. Again, that’s social proof that you’d want to get from other people talking about your company in a positive light. Job opening announcements, 20% of the time, we would go ahead and post that. A lot of people want to make sure they’re showing up and being helpful for their community. What this means is if you’re sharing a blog or if you’re sharing a job opportunity and they know someone is perfect for that job opportunity, they’ll share that post. This is great share-worthy content as well. 12% of the time we get that promotional post. Again going along with that post value, value, value, and earn the right to ask for that promotion.

46:41 Inspirational and tips are 10% of the time. Other people’s content, 2% of the time, but still getting that awesome curation for people to know that you’re providing them with that value. Questions for engagement, so questions are a really great way again to get people to actually talk back to your brand. Lastly, opt in to our newsletter 2% of the time. This here is a spreadsheet of doom as we like to call it and this is how if you’re not using an automation service like MeetEdgar, you can still automate and systemize your social media to get the great benefits of it. Make sure you’re keeping track of these status updates so that you can utilize them in the future. If you do have the means or if you’re interested in trying out Edgar, this spreadsheet can actually be turned into what we have here in our library. Our library over here on the left are going to be all the categories you can create in MeetEdgar. Then, the library is your status update here. What this is awesome for is not only creating a place where all of your hard work on your status updates are able to live and be repurposed, but it’s also showing you if you need to create more content in each category so you’re able to really distribute your team’s time a little bit more and say it looks like we’re a little low on blog posts or it looks like we’re a little low on quotes and really keep it in a systemized way there. This categorized base system of posting is also so important because you can do things like hit someone every Monday morning with a motivational quote and know that you’re consistently showing up for them when they need you.

48:13 You can hit someone with that behind the scenes content on a Throwback Thursday quote and know that you’re joining in that conversation and you’re showing up in the space that’s already been proven as something that works. Think about categories that already exist or categories that your followers like to see and their consumption habits are able to be seen on a consistent basis when you’re putting content out there and really making sure you’re connecting with them where they need to be. This is a kind of inside look at the MeetEdgar schedule and this goes along with the fact that you can send out different categories to different social networks throughout the day again allowing you to really test and allowing you to really optimize where and when your content is doing best.

48:58 It’s a weekly schedule, but that schedule repeats over and over again, so you do only have to set it up once and Edgar will kind of get that set it and forget it post going allowing to then go out and engage a little bit more on social media. A little bit more about categorization here. When you categorize, I also want you to think about that idea we talked about upcycling your content, where we’re able to gain more and more out of that one blog post. When you’re doing this, you can put them into the categories in Edgar and know they won’t all go out back to back to back, but they’re then able to be rotated through and you’re able to get a robust posting schedule where you’re getting a quote, a blog post, an infographic, and that promotional post all going out throughout the day and changing those categories at different times of the day.

49:45 People’s consumption habits are so different. Some people are going to check it in the morning. Others are going to check it after work. If you’re able to get categories going out at different times during the week, you’re then able to make sure your updates are showing up for people who might be online at different times. If you guys are running into some trouble thinking about what categories might work for your business, these top six ones are actually what Edgar started out with. If you do have an account, they come predetermined. You can always change them to match your brand a little bit better, but these six seem to work well for most businesses. Again, that inspirational and emotional posts, promotional tips, blog posts, questions, and other people’s blog posts.

50:26 Thinking about this is if you add 10 updates to each of these categories, you’ve got about a fresh month’s worth of content. If you send out two updates from these categories every day, think about how much simpler this is. If you’re able to sit down and add 10 updates to each of these categories every month, you’ve got fresh content and you’re not just kind of running around being haphazard about your social media and it really allows you again to kind of time box out and get in that creative head space, so all your status updates are matching your brand style guideline and really having that emotional connection with your community. This kind of idea I’ve been talking about of Edgar recycling your content and getting it out there.

51:13 I know there’s a lot of objection sometimes saying “I don’t want people to see the same thing over and over again.” But, I also want you guys to think about if you have a three months block of content in there, that is only re-sharing a status update four times a year. Who remembers a status update they saw three months ago? Not very many people. If someone sees that same status update more than once, it’s really not a big deal. Maybe, they weren’t in the head space to read it the first time and they are now. Getting behind this idea that repeating your content and resurfacing it really is going to add value to your followers. Thinking about brands who do this really well too, like you’re Buzzfeed.

51:52 They repeat content all the time and you’re probably never really that upset when you see the same thing go out. Or thinking about people actually go and seek out re-watching commercials from the Super Bowl on YouTube and this kind of idea that people want to hear from you and if you’re showing up, it’s really going to create that appeal that they know that you care about them and your social media strategy is there to support them. Cool. To end up here, we want to go over this idea of automating for engagement. I know again that automation word is a little bit scary and it kind of goes along with spam a lot of the time in social media. The more systemized you are, the more you’re going to really be able to create a natural experience for your followers on social media and have that conversation that actually matters and humanize your brand and have your personality show up a little bit more.

52:49 Our goal here at Edgar is to make sure that you guys are able to create what we call raving fans who are going to stick with you no matter what. Going back to this idea of what I said Laura’s story was. She started out as an educational business and moved into a software as a service business and she gained so many followers going with her because she shared her personal story about what she was going through and other people saw the need for this product as well. Not only are we at mercy to the Facebook algorithms and Twitter terms of service changing, but also your product might change over time and social media is really the best place to fall in love with your customers, create that human to human experience and emotional appeal and really make sure that you’re engaging with the right people for your brand.

53:32 That wraps it up. Thanks for coming today, guys. Cool. It appears we have time for one question.

53:50 Do you find that there’s a certain number of times that you should or should not post over post or under post?

54:01 Yeah. Okay. Cool. The question was do we find there is kind of that perfect number of postings per day or per week. You would say you don’t want to over post or under post. First thing’s first, everyone’s networks and everyone’s audience is different. Go into your Facebook insights and your Twitter analytics to kind of figure this stuff out. Some guidelines that we like to start out with when we’re working with clients is four times a day on Facebook is really good and that goes along with this value, value, value, sell proposition there. If you are kind of showing up too much in people’s feeds, it’s definitely something that they’re going to get annoyed with, of course.

54:38 On Twitter, again that fast-paced moving network we post about 15 times a day on Twitter to make sure we’re showing up for our followers when they’re online. Then on LinkedIn, we post about once a day. It is going to be a little bit more of a direct business to business. People actually seeking you out in your industry and we find that it is going to be kind of that blog post that works best on LinkedIn. But, if you’re creating those experiences and those value-added posts for your followers, a lot of the time the networks are going to not be showing them every update you’re posting. You may feel like you’re posting a little too much sometimes, but it’s really about going into your insights and seeing are my followers liking pictures, are they liking links, what’s going on here to see how many updates are best for your business.

55:24 I’d say four on Facebook, 10 to 15 on Twitter, and one on LinkedIn is probably a good place to start and then maybe every few months going into those insights and seeing if your audience is changing and liking that.

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