Brian Basilico — July 6, 2018 — July 6, 2018
Once again, we’re digging deeper into our perfect marketing strategy for your business. This post is about social proof. What I’m really talking about is social media.
Part 1: What Is The Perfect Marketing Strategy For Your Business?
Part 2: What Is The Perfect Marketing Strategy For Your Business? – Part 2 – Mining Your Sales Data
Part 3: What Is The Perfect Marketing Strategy For Your Business? – Part 3 – Targeting New Customers
Part 5: What Is The Perfect Marketing Strategy For Your Business? Part 5 – Telling Your Story
It Starts At Home
You can have a story, but a story in a box does no good. Nobody sees it, nobody interacts with it, so having a story, a blog post, something on your website has to be seen in order to be effective. You’re hoping that you can drive traffic to it through email or whatever. A lot of the time, that’s a lot harder than we need it to be.
What if you had a story on steroids, or in the case of Buddy Guy, my dog, if you tuned in last week, a dog that’s taking steroids that we’re trying to wean off, and we’re slowly helping him out with this laser therapy jacket. It is the coolest thing.
Building A Brand
I’m trying to create a tribe around this company. I didn’t intend on doing it as a client-business relationship; I started doing it because I care about my dog. The response has been incredible, so much so that the company hired me to work on their social media and online marketing campaign because what I was doing was documenting my dog. He couldn’t walk at first and I took a video of him day two, day four, day six. This is 14 days into it and he is walking eight blocks, which he has not done in months.
That story is resonating with a lot of people who’ve ever had a pet decline in health. That’s what social media is about. The very first thing that you have to look at social media as is a relationship-building tool first. You’re online to build relationships. By me talking about my dog and the progress that he’s made, which frankly has been amazing, people are starting to pay attention. They’re starting to comment, “Where do I get one?” I actually got one for my back. That helps me feel better. People are saying, “Will it help with this?” All I can say is, “I put it on my dog. It’s helping him. I put it on my back. It’s helping me.” Social proof is in the videos in the fact that this stuff is making a difference. Building those relationships is key to getting people to pay attention.
Content Delivery
geralt / Pixabay
The second thing is the content delivery. Social media is a content-delivery platform. By creating these videos, by taking pictures, by posting things that are funny, I’m delivering this content on social media. I took a picture of me in my laser back wrap and the dog in his bed in his laser jacket, and I said, “Hey, we’re twins,” like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins. Oh, did I get a lot of comments on that. It was funny but it got the point across, so I’m delivering content to get that message across.
The third part is the sales. The funny thing about the sales with this particular technique that I’ve used is I don’t have to sell anything. People are saying, “Where do I get it? What’s the website? Is it working? How much is it?” They’re asking questions.
Granted, this is not a cheap thing. This is not a $ 50, 10-unit product you buy at Walgreens. This is a serious medical device with lasers, so it’s a little expensive. You can check it out and see if it makes sense for you and your dog. I mean, the bottom line with Buddy Guy is our vet wanted to do eight weeks of treatment, two treatments a week at $ 150 a pop, which is $ 2,400. I can tell you this much: this thing is about half the cost, and I don’t have to lift a 100 lb dog and put him into my car and drive him there and back spending two hours doing that. I can stay home and work on podcasts and blogs and stuff for my clients.
A) It saved me money. And B) It was a lot more convenient. It’s worth every penny. That’s the message I’m trying to get across: the benefits to me as a business owner, as a dog lover, are huge. Hopefully, people are seeing that.
Be Human First
Hopefully, you can see that the most important part about this is being human, to get your story out there. That doesn’t always work with widgets or houses or realtors or whatever, but it is all about those stories. We talked about that the last couple of episodes. We talked about building a website, creating your story and creating content and getting it out there. We want to deliver that content on social media.
Social Platforms
In order to do that, you have to think of each one of the social media platforms as an island unto itself. For example, images on the various different platforms are either tall, wide or square. You can do different kinds of images. You need to have a headline. Some platforms use hashtags, some don’t. The ultimate goal with all of this is you want to drive traffic back to your website, because that’s where the transactions happen, but not everything has to be a post that drives people back to sell something. In other words, don’t just sell all the time.
LoboStudioHamburg / Pixabay
I don’t know about you, but I just cannot stand the videos that people put up where they’re doing their selfie and they’re saying, “What color is blue? How is your attitude today? Talk to me and I’ll help you do this.” No, that’s not entertainment or infotainment. That’s selling. Don’t be that person. Be the person that is encouraging. Encourage interaction. Ask questions.
The other thing you have to do is avoid controversy. Do not put things out there that are going to start fights. Not a great idea.
Create Engagement
You want to create some engagement. The way I create engagement, which has nothing to do with selling, is by creating quotes of the day, putting up jokes, or doing my caption contest at night. That keeps people engaged with me, my story and my business on a regular basis.
Then from there, I have the opportunity to post additional information which could be sales related, like a blog post or an informational article or a video. It shouldn’t be in your face sales. What you want to try to do is drive people back to your website. That’s the place where they can read that whole thing and there can be a call to action on it.
Treat Each Platform Independently
Each one of the different platforms has its own ethos and idiosyncracies.
On Facebook, for example, images are important. The next most important thing is the headline that you put in there, or the caption that you put above or below that is important. Then, you create a link back to your website. You should not use hashtags on Facebook.
Twitter, you have an image and you can add a call-to-action. It’s usually a link back to the article, and you’re promoting with some hashtags.
LinkedIn is all about the image and headline, and maybe a little bit of text on top of that to describe what it’s about.
Pinterest is primarily an image that links back to your website. There isn’t a lot of text that goes along with it, but it can have the name of the article.
Google Plus is another great place to post content. Now, you’re not going to get a ton of interaction there, but Google will index the title of your post. That is uber important.
Then finally, Instagram. Instagram is all about fashion and images. You have to have a great image to get attention and it has to be square. You can put in some text below it but it doesn’t create a link to go back to your content. You can type the link in there, but people want to know more about what the context of the image is and maybe some hashtags.
Final Thoughts
Your goal with social media should be first to get people back to your website. When they get to your website do you have a call-to-action that’s going to promote sales? The most important thing you need to do is create engagement, because engagement gives you permission to post things that create this system.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas or questions about showing the concepts presented. Have you had to overcome any of the presented concepts? What worked and what did not live up to expectations? Do you have any ideas or advice you could share?
To learn more about this and other topics on Internet Marketing, visit our podcast website at http://www.baconpodcast.com/podcasts/
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