Hello. This is Eamonn O'Brien and you're so welcome to my expert series.
And coming up today we're going to talk about what it takes to create content
that is more likely to be valued in an era where people are reading less and
less online. And I am joined today by one of my great pals all the way from
sometimes sunny Hertfordshire.
it is Amanda Brown who is the person who heads up Alterra Consulting and she is
really, really, a specialist when it comes to online communication and creating
content that people might care about. Amanda
hi Amanda, how are you? It's not so sunny in Hertofordshire this morning, but we
have some lovely weather. Yes we're here in just north of London helping clients
with effective online communication. Well good. Well that's exactly what I want to
talk about today. So, you and I have talked many times in the past - and I will
just kind of talk about it now to you folks who are watching this - about
the challenges that are faced by people who are creating content. What are the
things that are stopping people from being seen and heard today Amanda. Well,
as we all know, there are so many channels that you can spread your
content on -- So, you've got Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Instagram whatsapp
snapchat. There's so much choice that I think actually a lot of marketers and
business owners find it very difficult to decide exactly which channel they
should choose so that tends to freeze them into inaction so it's not just
about the creation of the content it's oh where do I share this where do I
build my community and my advice to people is to start with one
do it very well once you've done that very well you can then move on to the
next one I in particular - I'm in the business to
business space - and so my natural home is LinkedIn. And obviously we're seeing a
lot of content being repurposed on LinkedIn in the form of what was called
LinkedIn pulse and is now called LinkedIn articles yes absolutely so tell
me when when you're looking at content that tends to be valued and content that
tends to be shared on LinkedIn and we're talk also maybe a little bit about Twitter
and to a lesser extent about Facebook - as those tend to be the most common
channels used. What are you seeing in terms of content that is most commonly
viewed and consumed? What changes are you seeing? On LinkedIn, in particular, because
now LinkedIn is moving with the times and is becoming more of a facebook for
business, if you like, we're definitely seeing the use of images and video
gaining much more traction in terms of likes comments and shares it's still a
very difficult to get engagement on certainly if you're moving towards video
in particular you are to encourage people to interact with your content I
particularly like the fact that you can embed video into your articles so if you
have a youtube channel or a Vimeo stream that can be embedded into your long-form
posts yeah absolutely that and it's quite
clear I've been noticing in particular over maybe the last year or so on
LinkedIn that video and those posts that have video embedded in them that I am
noticing these much more than I am are other content definitely and I think
that businesses who are in the two are selling to other businesses struggle
with creating content because they or video content because they feel that it
has to be so-called professional though they're not very relaxed when it comes
to just pulling out a smartphone or even recording themselves on a desktop
they're not that they're not very confident but that is portraying their
business accurately I mean even now we're seeing lots of companies
struggling even to suggest that they put a photograph of themselves on their
website so making that leap of faith into putting a video on on LinkedIn is
actually asking an awful lot so it's a question of you know educating them in
the best ways of doing this yeah and I think that's exactly right and actually
and it was but also interesting I suppose about that is that I like when
you talk about professionalism versus you know being more down-home that would
you say that conversational pieces tend to get the most traction or professional
is there a reason why people gravitate towards professional what is what are
they afraid of I think they're afraid of that mismatch in their in their branding
most you know companies of any size especially a lot of money on their their
branding and therefore their their image is almost everything and if you're
breaking out into a new media you've got no benchmark because you're your agency
hasn't told you and exactly how to create this video I have one particular
client actually who has had a YouTube channel for a while and fortunately they
are on a river and have chosen to do quite a lot of their videos with the
backdrop of a river and some buildings and actually that is very much more
relaxed in this era where we are in in a virtually
zero growth economy people have a lot of choice when it comes to employing their
accountant or a solicitor or financial adviser so people are buying not a name
they are buying from another person even when it comes to and you know quite
complex and IT services you know that person does a great job but if you don't
like that person and you can't relate to that person you're not going to buy the
services however great they are so actually showing your personality
because that's the only differentiator if you like it is really important and I
think it's a question of people like you teaching us I'm confident when it comes
to appearing on video I mean I I'm as bad as the rest of them I'm not
particularly keen on appearing on screen so this puts me well out of my comfort
zone oh well good well we aim to please so
what you said actually is absolutely right because it is about people knowing
and liking and trusting you and actually sharing if you like your personality
which is a perfect segue actually to the whole aspect of something you know
you're huge on which is also if you like creating a platform for community what
if for people who want if you like to create greater online presence and
community what one or two piece of advice would you give people okay first
of all I think that there is no doubt that trying to use things like social
media or email marketing in isolation from getting out and meeting people
face-to-face it's joining the dots when it comes to marketing hiding away behind
a screen and pretending that you know we can all build great online businesses is
actually for most people a fallacy so I do believe that it is about continuing
to go networking continuing to meet your local businesses because after all
they're the easiest people to build relationships with you've got an awful
lot of common common ground in the first place you're not having to try and
relate to somebody who may be in a different country with a different
culture so I think there's no substitute for going out and talking face-to-face
with other businesses so take your online relationships offline make sure
that you know you have those maybe those Skype calls and then meet in person
obviously that's not possible if you're in an e-commerce store you're not going
to do that that's not your that's not your forte you're you're basically
selling on price whereas in the b2b space you're selling on quality of
service and your your expertise so I would not I would say that building a
community can start from that that that networking meeting you attended or
around here we have a thing called jelly jelly jelly you say yeah okay tell me
what a jelly is gone okay a jelly it's um it comes from the state and a jelly
is a co-working opportunity because I think it came from the fact that um they
used to put jelly beans on the table I live alone so we have a jelly in our
local pub once a month we get together this has grown from maybe two or three
years ago being a few of us like two or three of the front lines we plan up so
now there are 24 25 people I have to say not much co-working gets done but an
awful lot of networking gets is undertaken and you know people actually
get business from that so community I do believe is offline community joined with
online community yeah the other place people build communities is on places
like Facebook groups which are extremely successful and I can say a little bit
about you know the contrast between a Facebook group of the community your
forum or a LinkedIn group so there are places that you can build communities
where you have control over those communities and they have a very
different feel about them and Facebook groups have been extremely successful
but maintaining engagement even on a Facebook group requires that you hold
events the archives exactly the only way you can engender a reaction from other
people so think about joining up your your Facebook group with inviting people
to two offline event or maybe inviting people to webinar because that is an
event in itself and then you will be able to engage with them in a deeper way
so Facebook groups are great but also beware you cannot build your whole
business on what we call rented land to be very careful about about using
something like a Facebook group where by Facebook could change the rules and say
oh well now you've got to pay mr. marketer or we're not going to have
facebook groups anymore with the side edge you know they're just they just get
in the way we're just going to have Facebook pages now so a very careful
that you know you join up your thinking about how you engage with people and so
some people don't have a Facebook group they have a forum a traditional forum
yeah no I know you don't know as I was listening to you because you're a
fountain of knowledge on this three things came came to mind they're number
one you talked about the importance of connecting the dots and that also though
that you need to think about you like the deepening of relationship where you
can put a face to the name so that if you like there is a more of an
connection and also with the this notion of don't be a once once is enough
merchants you need to be there on a regular basis connecting with people to
make things happen which a wonderful note on which to end and I
knew that this would be a great conversation we're only touching the tip
of the iceberg but wonderful wonderful tips and can I thank you Amanda for
stepping in today. You're welcome. Delighted. And folks if you enjoyed that,
please let us know. And if you have any thoughts, any questions, please drop a line and until
the next time here's to awesome speaking
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