It’s Not About You

Here’s a short one for you…

it’s always about them.

Your customers. Your clients.

It’s their story they want to see.

They connect with you by seeing themselves in the stories that you tell. Yes…stories.

Your products and services are one thing…but when you connect with people on an emotional level,on a human level…that is when they identify with your brand.

They want to be part of a shared experience. They want to be part of a tribe that they identify with. A sense of belonging is such a basic human desire…so make them belong through the stories that you tell.

Give them a sense of ownership of the brand. Reward them for brand loyalty. More than anything…make them feel something.

Are people going to feel connected to some stats and figures that you share on a rambling social post? Highly doubtful .

But they will feel connected when they see someone that looks a lot like them and has the same worries and problems as them in your content.

Tell their story. Make it real.
Then they’ll connect with you in a meaningful way.

That’s brand.

Share Your Story With The World

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Since the dawn of time, humans have communicated with one another through storytelling. Whenever we meet someone new that was connect with with intuitively want to tell them our story to further that connection.

It's by these connecting threads that we find our "tribe"- those people that resonate with us most. The people we want to spend time with. Because we have shared likes and interests. We have common goals, shared experiences or maybe we just look at the world in the same way. However we connect, it is the stories we tell one another that influence other's behaviour towards us and how we are perceived by the world.


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And so it is with how we present ourselves and our businesses to the world. Everything that you say and do, all of the information that you share and all of your behaviour, tells us who you are, what you believe and what you are about. This is, in essence, your brand.

And so it is that our personal responses to these stories -that we come in contact with thousands of times a day-determine the brands that we align with and best represent an extension of ourselves. By choosing to shop in a particular clothing store and dress a certain way, you are sending out messages to those around you about how you want to be perceived.

Similarly, the content that we share on Social Media and how we behave on those channels gives the world a pretty good idea about who you are. This is your "personal branding".

But, this is where too many people miss the trick about Social Media. The clue is in the name. It is "Social", it is an exchange of information not just a new point of sale. Too many people just use it as a tool for selling without first developing those relationships. From those first connections, trust is built.When people trust you then they are more likely to buy from you. But,quite simply...nobody likes being sold to.

Instead, use the power of Social Media to "build your tribe", that group of people that you truly feel a kinship with.

Share your story. They will share theirs.

It's what makes us human.

In this digital world, our stories are how we truly connect.


Greg Friel

www.frielancemedia.co.uk

www.frielancemusic.co.uk

Richard Norman from Yatter-Tips For SMEs going online

Richard Norman from Yatter gives some tips on Social Media for SMEs and his 6 tips for going online. 

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SOCIAL MEDIA

  1. Validation -> people will validate you based on what they see on social media. It might be numbers, it might be quantity or quality of content or it might be activity.  Being active, if only occasionally is one of the biggest validation checks. You don’t want to look like you are shut.
     
  2. Variation -> pick up a newspaper and you see a varied array of different sizes, colours and images to catch your eye. The human brain hates monotony. Go to a social media feed you post on and scroll down it. If the content you post looks visually the same time and time again then you have an issue. It’s as much about varying the type (text, video, image, link) as it is about the underlying content meaning.

 

SMALL BUSINESS STARTUP ADVICE-6 TIPS TO REMEMBER

1.Register your business on Google Business
If you are a small business where customers visit your premises then this is essential as it puts you on Google Maps. You register on the site, they send out the card then you fill in the code. The Business Gateway or Google Digital Garage can help with this.

2. Tune up your website for performance -> GTMetix
Want to know how efficient your website is? Plug the URL into this website. It measures how efficient (not how fast) your online presence is. Google hates it when you waste users time and make them wait for no reason. Show them that you are competent and worthy of listing in their search engine. Yes, they are paying attention.

     3. Get your site crawled by Google with Google Search Console
Search Console (formerly Webmaster tools) is the way you talk to the search algorithm of Google. It’s quite technical but you can get feedback on errors that Google has with your site. Obviously you want to fix those errors. You can also initiate a crawl from here and also submit a sitemap (do both when a new site goes live).

4. Get reasonable hosting and encrypt your website traffic (SSL)
Your website should be encrypted to secure user information. You should host it on equipment capable of responding quickly. Your website should be responsive. Google requires that you do these things in order to be taken seriously.

5. Get your navigation right. 
When a user comes to your site they are looking for something. If you take them to that thing as quickly and painlessly as possible then they are more likely to buy it. Sometimes different types of users want different things and so we categorise stuff to make it easier for them to find. Understand what users want and how to clearly show them how to get it. In technical circles the name for this art is User Experience but it’s all rooted in thinking about your site navigation.

6. Setup your social media and make sure people can reach it from your site. Use Yatter to manage it.
Social media and websites are all an interlocked world. Some traffic will flow between. Always makes sure you have links prominently from your website to your social media. Likewise your social media should be constantly referencing your website to give users an obvious route to further enquiry. Yatter makes is easier to maintain that message while also keeping it fresh.

 

For more information on Yatter please check out:- 

https://yatter.social