Social Media

Brad: Yeah, I mean, he says some real critical things I think in this video where he talks about each of us speak differently right. Your mind kind of drives your thoughts and your speech and how each one of us talk differently, even when we are talking about the same subject, you had it happen, we had it happen in our business discussions where somebody will say, “Well I think we are saying the same thing, you are just saying it in a different way.” He speaks to that but I think another critical piece that he speaks to is when he talks about even with companies you have these kind of silos, which we have talked before in a clarity clip or we talked about the silos of your business. And he talks about how research and development will be talking about a product different than marketing will, will be talking about differently than product development, etc. And how all these different little languages are out there and how we all have to kind of meet a common ground.

Speaker: Yeah, I think that one of the most interesting things when it comes to language, a lot of the companies that are embracing design thinking, they are doing that so they can share a common language. People just talk different so for example a product developer will talk different than a designer and they will talk different than a marketing person. All of those people are then speaking to an audience or to a customer, so having that shared experience, that common language kind of creates that first shared understanding and again…

Robert: So now Brian has talked about the importance of listening and wants all of the parts of your organization, you break down the silos and they are all speaking the same language, now it is about how do you talk to your customers.

Brad: Yeah and he is fixing to talk about another key piece, you know it is in our slogan right. Listen, think, speak for clarity, that is our little marketing piece and that is basically what he is going to say here in the next piece which is you have to listen first to your customer base and your audience, take it back, think about it and then create that common language that you can all move forward with when you are talking with your customer.

Brian: The first step to creating anything interesting or creative is to have empathy, is to listen to figure out what are those things that your customers are saying, taking that back and using a common language that will create the solutions for them so that everybody is all on the same page, they are using the same language, solving the right problem and using similar tools in order to do it.

Robert: So wrapping up what Brian has to say here is really what we talk about and we call audience speak, which is listen, think, speak so Brad is going to walk you through those steps.

Brad: Yeah what the critical piece here, the take home message that we always like to talk about in our clarity clips are, audience speak is knowing the language of your audience and being sure that you are speaking that language. You are not going to make connections, whether it is social media, a TV advertisement, a billboard, whatever your marketing piece is, whether it is online or not, you have to know the language of your audience, which is what Brian was saying is, create the common language but don’t you figure out what that language is. The marketing, you know our little slogan is your marketing for a particular product should come from your audience…

Robert: Yes, not your marketing department.

Brad: …not the marketing department. So listen first, that is the critical piece, what are they wanting, what are they needing, what is that touch point that you can hit them at. So once you figure that kind of listening part out, then you have to develop a plan, think about right and then you have to go out and actually speak it. That is the listen, think, speak that we preach so much here at clarity and what we always encourage our clients to do, it is about them, not you.

Robert: So Brian’s Big Design Conference is coming up this fall here in Dallas and we certainly encourage you to attend it, there are great speakers there and here is Brian’s contact info and that wraps this week’s Clarity Digital Marketing clip.

Brad: Have a good one guys.

Robert: Clear blue skies.

Brad: The only better place to be right now would probably be the Masters.

Robert: Oh definitely.

Brad: Definitely. But we are here in the backyard bringing you the Clairiti Clip of the week. And we wanted to talk a little bit about; you know we talk a lot about social media and what you need to be doing in social media. But one of the things people forget to think about is; prepare yourself for the effort its going to take to be successful in social media. Most people don’t understand the amount of work; including clients and people who have a staff. They really don’t appreciate the work that goes into it. And the best analogy to come up was think about that, when you first get back to the gym or you’re starting and exercise program and you’re running and those first few days, maybe even a week, you’re really sore and tight. You hurt, you’re tired, you don’t, the last thing you want to do is go do something else the next day when you’re sore. Keep doing it. Keep working. Keep trying new things. And one of the unique things that’s out there now, and has been out for a while, but people are really starting, you’re starting to see a lot more now, is the Facebook live. You know Periscope Meerkat on Twitter. But one of the things that’s really unique is that it brings live video right into your followers.

Robert: Anywhere, anytime, So how do you see us using this for clients.

Brad: Well, its amazing what you can do with it; and for example, we have some attorneys, we have a mortgage company, we even have a large university system, that could even answer student questions right there live. What do I need to prepare for to get admitted? What do my grades need to be? From an attorney standpoint you could give basic information; there’s some laws on what he could and could not say, but he could answer basic questions. From a mortgage standpoint you could go the gamut, man. What do you need to prepare for? The paperwork you need, your credit score needs, down payments. You could do that all live. Product questions, customer service questions. No longer do you have to worry about working an email system if you don’t want to, you can go directly to your fans, right there live on video feature.

Robert: Right.

Brad: And you recently saw one of your buddies, who’s your Amazon coach do it, and he had some really unique approach to it.

Robert: So, Chris Green yesterday; I look at his Facebook; and he is on live, he’s doing a two hour road trip. He’s got calls coming in on the speakerphone in the car.

Brad: Don’t text and drive.

Robert: Yeah.

Brad; Just Facebook Live.

Robert: Yeah. And he’s answering people’s questions, sharing information, he didn’t waste two hours. And Chris tells me that he just put up an alert a few minutes before.

Brad: Yeah, just a few minutes before.

Robert: And boom, he had more than 150 people watching and following him. Now the key there is Chris has already got an audience. So the big thing is, audience building.

Brad: Yeah, work through the soreness, keep building the audience first. Then you’re probably ready to go for some of these new features that are out there in social media. Keep working folks, have a great weekend and go out and enjoy the wonderful weather. Have a good one.

Brad: Well we always talk to our clients and hear out there from our clients and potential clients; when they start to go through their business plans or what they’ve been doing in social website; even on their content when they’re thinking about all of these problems. They’ve silo’d each one of their pieces of business. So you have a group over here working on social media, you have a group over here that maintains the website, you have a group over here that generates content. Some in marketing, some aren’t; and they’ve just segmented their business and not pulled it all together to work together.

Robert: So we’ve seen companies and organizations where the people doing Twitter were in literally a separate building.

Brad: A separate building.

Robert: And no communication. So talk about how that intercommunication is so important in getting it right.

Brad: Well you have to be working together so that you can maintain that message that you’re trying to portray. You can have different segments within the categories of your company. For example, the client we worked with that had separate entities in separate buildings; one was a recruiting part of the business, one was interaction with students and one was student activities. You can still all work together though and communicate. Learn how to share each other’s content or posts when it works together so that you’re all communicating the right messaging and driving that engagement out there. Not just for social, but for website, too.

Robert: Well and don’t build walls because people all become really turf conscious. Marketing can’t talk to PR in communications. And in the world of online that’s going to hurt you.

Brad: Well and the other thing that we see, too, is that everybody thinks they have their own message, right? ‘Well, I’m Student Recruiting, I have a different message than you do as Marketing’ or whatever. Or ‘you’re just trying to talk to these type of people.’ That’s not true, you’re all trying to talk to each other. What you’ll find is when you silo yourself like that, people will segment themselves out there in your social media audience or online audience as well. They’re not going to follow you in every thing, right? If you’re not giving them different content.

Robert: All right, so the lesson here today is that online marketing is a little bit like agriculture in that you’re harvesting crops, but don’t put them in a silo, otherwise you’re likely to fail.

Brad: Absolutely.

Robert: That’s the Clairiti Clip of the week. Thanks.