In late April LinkedIn announced the launch of new LinkedIn Contacts, designed to bring your contacts together in one place.
It’s a relatively slow roll-out and, at this stage, you still have to request it. To register go to contacts.linkedin.com (n.b. you may be put on a wait list).
Here’s an overview of this great new mini-CRM system.
What do you think of LinkedIn Contacts?
It’s essential to keep an open mind, and to be willing–better yet, eager–to try new things - Michael Abrash
In the last week I’ve seen three examples of professionals and professional / financial services firms doing things differently. Not simply to be different, but because they’ve come up with a smart idea.
Example 1: 140#ukemplaw tips in 140 characters
David Morgan at Burness Paull in Scotland has been tweeting employment law tips since 16 June 2011.
Burness Paull’s employment law marketing strategy is ‘first to market with legal developments’ and to communicate these in an easily digestible, need to know way.
David decided, in an attempt to engage others, to put out his own tweets using a new hashtag #EmploymentLawTip and to combine this with the well-used #ukemplaw hashtag. He set about tweeting numbered employment law tips. He tweeted his 100th tip in May 2012.
He put together a publication 100 #ukemplawtips in 140 characters shortly thereafter.
The original publication struck a chord with many HR practitioners and employment lawyers alike. As a result David’s continued to post tips on Twitter and has just released the second edition of his book.
This contains some great tips that would prompt HR managers to take action and seek further info if needed. It also demonstrates David’s understanding of social media – I imagine that’s important for an HR lawyer – and gives readers a flavour of who he is. He comes across as approachable, and slightly self-effacing, someone you could easily pick up the phone to if you had an employment law issue.
This is a great way of adapting your offering to social media and of re-purposing tweets.
Example 2: Ray White social platform site: by the people, for the people
Thanks to Joel Barolsky for alerting me to this one...
Ray White, the real estate company, has set up a platform in Australia designed to be the ultimate site for property hunters. It lets people choose the community they want to live in based on the feedback and experience of others. Content is generated by those who live/work or have lived/worked in a suburb. It’s designed to make the house-hunting process easier and more streamlined.
This feature, called Ray White Neighbourhood Knowhow’ is on the company’s website, under the ‘Community’ tab.
According to an article on marketingmag.com.au:
“users can also rate, review and rank their community much in the same manner of a tripadvisor.com type set up. And it’s no surprise, because The Ray White Group has signed an Australian partnership with streetadvisor.com to create the social platform.
“…the new features will give users a sense of community-orientated feel with “Unedited commentary help [ing] you choose your ultimate community based on the experience of others.”
A quick look at the platform revealed lots of information about suburbs and streets (which have been rated) to answers to ‘the best pizzas in a suburb’ to the ‘best coffee in Melbourne.’ It’s local nature and helpful info means people are likely to return. And that’s got to be good for the Ray White brand.
Here’s hoping they roll it out in New Zealand!
Example 3: Interactive infographics: travel guides by HCC Medical Insurance Services
Thanks to Tony Vidler for sharing this one…
HCC Medical Insurance Services have created a series of interactive travel guides designed to answer travellers common questions and to have a bit of fun.
They range from:
Having fairly recently set up a LinkedIn group I realised there’s not a lot out there to help those who are looking to do the same. As a result I’m currently putting together a resource for those of you who run, or who would like to set up, a group that members will value.
But what exactly is that?
In order to find out, I asked the question ‘What makes a LinkedIn group valuable?’ in a group I run ‘Social Media for Lead Generation in Professional Services firms’ as well as the ‘Marketing the Law Firm’ group on LinkedIn. You can view verbatim responses there but…
it essentially comes down to 5 things:
1. A proactive group owner – who moves posts that are self-promotion to the promotions category and who doesn’t tolerate spam, including off-topic posts. The group owner needs to be active, regularly posting interesting discussions and trying to encourage group members to feel comfortable commenting/voicing their own opinions.
2. A high signal-to-noise ratio – successful groups minimise the noise and maximise the number of relevant, thoughtful and insightful contributions (thanks to Gihan Perera for this term).
3. Good interaction/engagement amongst members – a good ratio of comments to discussions is important (although I do acknowledge that if you’re targeting certain groups such as legal counsel the vast majority will never comment). Many group members want to have conversations with others in order to learn and grow so exchanging views is something successful groups encourage. Simply posting links with no attempt to engage others in a conversation just doesn’t cut it and results in too much noise.
4. Regular posts – it’s important that there’s regularly fresh content in order to encourage group members to keep revisiting the group.
5. A discussion moderator who stays active in the thread – the person who initiates a discussion needs to stay involved in the thread. Their role includes monitoring the thread, responding to others’ comments (where appropriate), keeping the discussion on track and/or summarising it at the end.
There was clear agreement about what people don’t like – much of which can be categorised as spam:
While spam means different things to different people it generally includes
If you run or moderate a LinkedIn group or Google+ community it’s important that you set clear group rules and ensure the integrity of the group. You will need to either moderate discussions before they’re posted or to quickly remove those that won’t add value to your group members.
You’ll also need to drive the group, particularly in the early days, by regularly asking questions and sharing content and insights that the members will value and that will spark discussion.
You’ll need to invest time and energy if you want to build a thriving group. But it’s well worth it – both for you and your group members.
What else do you think makes a LinkedIn group or Google+ community valuable?
What behaviour/things annoy you in LinkedIn groups?
What other tips or advice would you share with group owners/managers or those looking to set up groups?
Thinking of setting up a LinkedIn group and want help? Please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.
Living Ratings recently published its League Tables about accountancy and law firms’ use of social media. While this includes a good overview of Deloitte and Evershed’s activity (as the top scoring accounting and law firm respectively) do these league tables really mean anything?
I have to admit, I’m sceptical.
The introduction does say the tables are looking at the maturity of social media output but that doesn’t appear to be the only thing being measured according to the measurement categories. Sure, you can look at the types of content firms are sharing but that’s not the sole purpose of social media.
I also wouldn’t be so quick to jump to the conclusion that your own ‘branded content’ is better than curating third party content. In reality, both have a role to play. Both (provided the content is good, timely and relevant) help to position you as someone/a firm who’s up with the issues and an added advantage of sharing others’ content is the ability to build relationships with those people.
It’s really hard to measure how well any firm is doing without understanding their objectives (likely to be multiple) and the extent to which their activity has helped them achieve these. Measures should be tied to objectives and will be different for different firms (and parts of a firm).
Looking at it from a BD perspective, my questions would be:
While there are certainly things that firms can (and should) do at a firm level, such as graduate recruitment, the vast majority of things from a BD and marketing perspective should be tailored to each audience.
That means more will be done at a practice group, key client and industry sector level.
And at an individual level.
While the rankings do (sort of) take into account activity at a practice group and industry sector level they pay no attention to what individuals within firms are doing.
I say ‘sort of’ because the ratings do look at such things as how many Twitter accounts a firm has but they then rely on the firm’s Kred score to evaluate performance.
Unfortunately, a firm’s outreach score increases if they RT other firm accounts within their main one (which some of the firms do and it’s good that they’re coordinating things but it’s hardly a measure of how effectively they’re engaging with others).
The league tables also look at the number of social media channels a firm is using in order to assess brand presence. I’d hope that, unless there was a clear rationale for using all 10 platforms mentioned, firms would use fewer platforms well, rather than trying to do everything…
and that they’d focus on being present in the same places as their target audience(s). I do accept that different parts of the firm will be looking to do different things but that’s another reason why I don’t think you can bundle activity together in one league table – surely there should be one for graduate recruitment, one for BD etc if you want to go down that route.
Measuring activity at an individual level is hard given the thousands of employees in large firms. However, it’s in this last area that I believe firms need to focus their efforts if they are to find, connect with, and help prospects and ultimately generate leads and new business meetings.
Social media is about networking. It’s about building relationships one by one and that can only really be done at an individual level. It’s your people who need to be active and who need to be acting as a firm’s ‘social sellers.’
That’s how you can focus on helping others.
That’s how you’ll uncover opportunities.
That’s how you’ll generate leads.
And, that’s how you’ll set up new business meetings.
So, while league tables are nice to see (and it’s good to see the examples of what firms are doing) do they really show how well a firm’s social media efforts are working?
I don’t believe so.
How about you?
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at Freedigitalphotos.net
It’s very easy to waste time on social networks.
Firstly you need to be clear about WHY you are on a particular platform and how you are going to use it.
And secondly, you’ve got to be focused and disciplined in your use of it. It’s frighteningly easy for 15 minutes to turn into half an hour and for little to show for it at the end of a session.
I’m certainly guilty of spending more time than I’ve allocated on social networks now and again and of not being particularly productive so I was excited when Justine Parsons, my brilliant virtual assistant, posted to a LinkedIn group saying that she adheres to a list of daily tasks to ensure she uses her time spent on social networks wisely.
I asked her to share why she did this, what she does and how this has helped her.
Here are her responses:
What are your social media objectives?
There are a few. Obviously, I want to drive traffic to my website and raise my profile but one of my biggest objectives is to make connections, not necessarily clients. Being a VA means that, other than catch-ups with clients, I am often isolated because I work from my home office. Social media is my lunch-room in a way: a way to engage one-on-one, ask others’ opinions, learn from them and assist them.
Why did you decide to set up daily actions?
I was spending too much time online and was unfocused. It’s extremely easy to spend a couple of hours reading content and discussions with nothing tangible to show at the end of that time. Daily actions keep me focused and help me to achieve more in a limited time.
It’s not an ideal world and, when I’m busy meeting deadlines, my social media activity is one of the first things to be relegated down my ‘to do’ list. Having a daily task list means I can tick things off as I complete them and move on to the next task when I next have time. This ensures I meet all of my social media requirements.
What do you do?
I spend half an hour every morning going through feeds and scheduling some of that content using Hootsuite (this activity does occasionally slip when I’m really busy – I’m only human!) I use email subscriptions, Google reader, Prismatic and Netvibes to find content. I find doing this invaluable from an educational perspective.
I’ve assigned one of my contractors the task of spending an hour each week going through my LinkedIn groups and identifying discussions which meet set criteria. This means I can open her report, click through to the discussion and comment in 5 minutes rather than having to trawl through groups myself. This was an area in which I previously used to lose focus and it ate into the time I should have been spending on client work.
I blog once a week and share my post on G+, LinkedIn (via both my company page and my personal profile), Twitter (I schedule a tweet about a particular post to go out once per month for three months – so each post is tweeted about three times by me), Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, StumbleUpon and some small business communities.
On Facebook I schedule posts once a week using a pre-determined list of status update styles.
I then spend up to an hour each night working through the other items on my task list.
Possibly the most important of these is my monthly newsletter. 95% of readers are my clients. The remaining 5% have subscribed either via my website or Facebook. I use my newsletter to promote clients of interest to a small business demographic, give some insight into my month and share content of interest. I rarely promote myself but a newsletter will always generate work from ‘quieter’ clients.
What’s worked well?
Time spent on LinkedIn. For me this is the ideal network and, to be honest, I learn as much from group discussions as I gain value in terms of connections and clients generated. Time spent on LinkedIn equals results whereas the other networks tend to be more indirect for me personally.
Participating in group discussions, offering advice and opinion has resulted in some of my best clients. LinkedIn generated clients have tended to refer others, use more of my services and are tech-savvy.
What hasn’t worked so well?
A lack of consistency. Being so busy has meant there are times when I can’t afford to take on new work so I back off with my social media engagement. I wouldn’t recommend this to any of my clients and find that you do lose traction after a period of poor engagement and content marketing. [I totally agree with Justine and have noticed the same thing].
What have you achieved as a result of implementing and following your social media task list?
I make much better use of the time I do have. I use my contractors as much as possible but believe engagement should be undertaken personally. By following a task list I feel better, knowing I have covered all the basics and, as mentioned, on days when time does run out I can complete tasks not carried out later in the day. Being a list person, having this document also keeps my brain clear and focused on the task at hand, rather than veering off on a tangent.
What tips would you give to others looking to best utilise their time online?
If I didn’t offer social media as a service, I would only be active on LinkedIn. It’s here that I find value and I would do a better job with less to do.
My advice is to be realistic about what you can achieve. Write yourself a list of tasks to keep you focused and accountable and keep in mind that social media is primarily about people.
Outsource some of the tasks if this helps you to spend more time engaging and building connections. Content sharing, connections, profile maintenance, competitions and events can all be delegated. Engagement cannot.
So there you have it – some great tips about how to maximise the time you do spend online. I’ll definitely be putting together a weekly task list. How about you?
What other tips would you share to help others use their time on social networks wisely?
Related articles:
Justine Parsons: Social media marketing when you’re just too busy
Image courtesy of DigitalArt@freedigitalphotos.net
Last week Greentarget, Zeughauser Group and Inside Counsel launched their 2013 in-house counsel new media engagement survey. It’s great to see a survey focused on in-house counsel’s use of social media because it helps inform lawyers in private practice about where they should invest their efforts.
There are some encouraging stats, which you can view in the survey itself or in one of the great summaries put together by legal marketers in the US (see end of this post for links to these).
However, one particular paragraph really interested me:
“Our 2013 survey data affirms that a growing number of in-house lawyers
are consumers of professional content rather than contributors to it. They
generally read blogs rather than write blogs, and they read others’ LinkedIn
posts much more than they broadcast their own thoughts, analyses, or job
notes. This approach, likely, is because in-house lawyers, unlike their law firm peers, aren’t looking to promote themselves, so there is little upside for them to post information.”
I don’t doubt that’s part of the reason, BUT when I spoke to over 40 general counsel in New Zealand last year what they made clear time and time again is that they’re too incredibly busy.
As the Greentarget survey states:
“…specific sites and networks are used to accomplish tasks and reach goals.”
That’s a key point.
General Counsel are only going to go looking for information if it will help them get something done so that they can get on with their day.
They want to be able to access relevant information and analysis quickly.
And that’s why many of those I spoke to in New Zealand still prefer email, particularly when content is aggregated.
“It’s the push rather than the pull. I find that a lot of social media requires me to go out and mine through it to find what’s good. Whereas email makes information accessible. You can scan it and it doesn’t feel like you have to spend so much time.”
Some in-house lawyers in New Zealand acknowledged that Twitter makes it easy to access information on the go – which is attractive for the growing numbers using mobile phones and tablets for work purposes. The Greentarget survey (379 respondents) found:
It will be interesting to see if Twitter becomes more popular amongst in-house lawyers going forward as only 14% of respondents had accessed it either in the last 24 hours or the past week and only a handful of those in New Zealand used it frequently.
Those in New Zealand felt that LinkedIn could be useful PROVIDED their connections post relevant content. In other words, it’s a catch 22 situation. If lawyers in private practice posted more good content, in-house counsel would spend more time on the social network. Interestingly, in the Greentarget survey 40% of respondents had used LinkedIn in the past 24 hours and 27% in the last week. Of these, 61% used it for news and info (which possibly suggests those in their networks are more active than connections of in-house lawyers in New Zealand). The main reasons cited for using LinkedIn by respondents to the Greentarget survey were connecting with in-house colleagues (70%), connecting with business and industry leaders (66%), accessing news and information, and connecting with outside counsel with whom they work (60%).
One of the verbatim comments in the Greentarget survey: “Value is currently limited by the over-abundance of “noise,” but the greatest value is in news and the too few thoughtful opinions” also supported sentiment from in-house lawyers in New Zealand who feel there’s a lot of over-simplified content:
“[law firms] seem to think if they’re firing something out it’s worthwhile but actually it’s not particularly useful.”
How else do you think lawyers in private practice could help their in-house colleagues?
Good summaries of the Greentarget research:
Nancy Myrland – Summarized: The 2013 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey
Lindsay Griffiths – It’s here! A look at the 2013 In-house counsel new media engagement survey
Adrian Dayton – Social Media Use by In-House Counsel at All-Time High
Image courtesy freedigitalphotos.net
If you asked a law firm marketer (and probably a number of managing partners) the things they’d really like to achieve within their firms, I bet the following would appear on their lists:
I haven’t worked in a law firm that hasn’t been doing something in at least one of these areas. But are they using internal social media tools such as Yammer and IBM Connections to help them? Certainly some do use these tools but I wonder whether they’re harnessing them to their full potential?
The likes of PwC have used collaboration tools for years. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining why they are one of the most successful professional services firms around. So, why aren’t more firms fully embracing the technology to enable them to build stronger, more efficient and more profitable businesses?
Vaughan Rivett is a social business consultant. Prior to this he was a social business, portals and collaboration specialist at IBM in New Zealand. While there he witnessed the power of the social enterprise, and is now an authority on how to make social technology work within an organisation. I spoke to him about ‘social businesses’ to find out what they are and how becoming one could benefit a law firm.
It’s essentially a people business. A business that looks at ways of better utilising the expertise within the organisation using social tools to collaborate.
Three traits characterise a social business:
The answer is almost any. The more people you have, the quicker these tools will be useful to you. Social tools are particularly good for:
[Sounds perfect for law firms to me! ]
It’s important to create a culture of sharing from the top so that this feeds down. As Peter Drucker said “culture eats strategy for breakfast” so if your culture doesn’t support this way of working, it’ll be a hard slog. Executive sponsorship is crucial.
It’s then about enabling people to make use of social platforms and making it easy for them to do the right thing. If the leadership team leads by example, e.g. putting minutes and files onto the social platform, others will follow.
Linking the firm’s reward and recognition system to this also speeds up adoption. It’s important, within social businesses, that employees are recognised for their expertise. The more they share, the more they build their profile internally, and the more others’ understand their skills and experience and when they might be a good person to talk to about a specific issue or topic.
IBM awarded “social badges” to increase employee adoption rates of its social platform. Initially staff were rewarded for really simple tasks such as setting up a Twitter account, Tweeting something, or having a conversation on Twitter. They could then advance to gaining badges for things such as solving a business problem. For example, if someone has put out a message saying “I need help with this sale because of X, Y and Z” then those responding would get a badge.
There are a multitude of benefits:
1. People are able to do the same work in less time. McKinsey’s “Reaping the Rewards of Enterprise Social” report, released in July 2012 ”estimates that social technologies could enable an interaction worker to boost his or her productivity in performing communication tasks by 25 to 35 per cent.”
McKinsey studied four sectors in detail (one of which was professional services) and ”estimate that the equivalent of $900 to $1,300bn in total annual value can be unlocked through the use of social technologies. Two thirds of that value would arise from improved collaboration and communication within organisations.”
That’s pretty compelling.
Vaughan explained that, when he first started at IBM he was getting up to 300 emails per day. By the time he left he was only getting 6. He’d spend the equivalent time on their internal social platform but got more done and got better information from colleagues.
2. The firm is creating reusable assets. Posts are permanent and can be referred to years down the line. This helps new joiners get up to speed quickly and prevents know-how walking out the door when someone leaves.This is a massive challenge for New Zealand businesses.
As the babyboomers retire, they take masses of knowledge with them. Social technology enables firms to plan for succession and get information out of people’s heads and into the organisation.
Firms can, if they wish, create a community for a client to ensure everything relating to the client is in one place and that historical information is not lost. This would make the job of client relationship managers’ so much easier as they would know who who’s talked to who and what their discussions were.
3. Employees have access to one source for the truth. Because information sharing is encouraged, everyone knows what is going on. They can quickly and easily access the facts, which prevents Chinese whispers.
4. Firms are able to pull in experts from around the organisation for a particular project/matter and unlock hidden opportunities to communicate or collaborate. They’re also able to keep any external resource they’re using on a project up-to-speed.
5. There’s increased innovation. Firms can crowdsource ideas employees would like to see implemented. Others can then develop these ideas so that, if management decides it’s something to pursue, it’s simply a question of rolling it out. A good example of this is mystarbucksidea.com (where Starbucks customers can submit ideas for consideration by the company.)
6. There’s a better work experience and increased employee engagement which, in turn leads to better client engagement.
According to Sandy Carter, Vice President Social Evangelism and Sales at IBM ”social and collaboration tools really allow employees to connect with their peers, create communities, and crowdsource to find the best answer to problems and challenges together.” She cited a report which found that 70% of prospective employees ask ‘will you let me use social tools if I come and work for you?’ If the answer is no then almost 80% of these people would take a lower paying job elsewhere.
The external evidence is compelling. This way of working can help organisations to build a competitive advantage. In the current legal climate, it’s those firms that look to do things better and differently that will come out on top. This could be a good place in which to invest time and energy.
It’s good to know that there are experts like Vaughan out there who can help firms really leverage social technology within their organisations and reap the rewards.
Does your firm use social technology internally? If so, how’s it helped from your perspective?
Related articles:
McKinsey Global Institute: Reaping the rewards of enterprise social
SAP Community Network: Escape from the inbox: How one team reduced its email workload by 90 percent
Steve Farnsworth: Customer engagement starts first with employee engagement
Image courtesy of Kromkrathog at Freedigitalphotos.net
How much power is it reasonable for LinkedIn group owners to have?
Of course, they should be able to take control of their own group(s).
But should they have the right to affect a LinkedIn member’s activity across all other groups?
This is effectively what LinkedIn has allowed with it’s recent group moderation rules, which I read about last week in a post by Lincoln Smith at Lead Creation in Australia.
Dubbed SWAM by one blogger (site wide auto moderation), this effectively means that if you are blocked/deleted in one group, you will be put on ‘Requires Moderation’ in all of your other existing groups. This means that your contributions will be held in each group’s Submissions Queue for review before they can be displayed. Group managers can override this by flipping you back to Free to Post within their group but many are unaware of this or of the change which LinkedIn reported on in late 2012.
Aimed at combating spam (which is something LinkedIn does need to address), I agree with Lincoln that this is a step too far and is open to abuse. It seems a number in the LinkedIn community are concerned (and rightly so) as this somewhat draconian approach will punish anyone who is blocked from a group.
It’s so very easy to get blocked from a group. A post on the LinkedIn community discusses concerns about this policy and members share their stories of being blocked from groups for minor or often unknown infringements (hat tip to Emily Miller for sharing the link to the community post).
I was thrown out of a group a few years’ ago with no warning whatsoever for re-posting a message with a link I forgot to attach the first time around. I didn’t, at the time, realise you had 14 minutes to edit posts once they went up. It was a genuine and easy mistake to make. My question is: does a mistake such as this really justify someone being put on moderation across multiple groups?
Surely these rules are open to abuse by group owners (I acknowledge the majority would not behave in this way but anyone can start a LinkedIn group) and, even when a manager wants to (and has the right to) block someone from their group it’s not always for spam – so should that manager have the right to penalise someone beyond their own group? Before you answer that, consider these scenarios:
The manager who blocks a competitor.
The manager who doesn’t agree with someone else’s viewpoint or has an issue with a person that has nothing to do with group rules.
The manager who just blocks people without any warning or notification about why they’ve been blocked.
I could go on – but you get the picture.
If you’re using LinkedIn as a networking tool then being blocked in one group will have a serious impact on your activity across the board.
I agree there’s a need to prevent spam but don’t think this is the right way to go about it. LinkedIn needs to be in control of such matters NOT group managers.
If you’ve been blocked from a group and you either aren’t sure why or you feel it was unjustified, you may want to ask a friend or contact to appeal to the group owner on your behalf.
I have just done that on behalf of a contact who was not sure why she had been blocked from a group. I contacted the group manager and explained the situation. He apologised and lo-and-behold my contact was reinstated.
Another thing you may be able to do is to leave some of your groups and then rejoin them as I don’t think ‘Requires Moderation’ applies to groups you subsequently join (but I could be wrong).
One idea to address the issues around being blocked from a group was suggested by Emily Miller in a LinkedIn group discussion about these rules. She mooted the idea of a “higher court that members can refer these types of group mis-management issues to.” I think that would be a great thing for LinkedIn to initiate.
So far, LinkedIn have not responded to the discussion within the LinkedIn community – which I find bizarre.
I know a few people have contacted them via both LinkedIn and Twitter to ask them to reconsider these rules but am not aware of any responses to date.
Perhaps LinkedIn could consider this:
Come on LinkedIn, what do you say? Are you going to keep these worrying rules in place or listen to your members’ concerns?
What do you think of these rules? Do they worry you or not?
…or is it enough to simply be present and have conversations?
I posed this question to members of the ‘social media for lead generation in professional services firms‘ group on LinkedIn.
What came back was that each has a role to play and should ideally work together as part of an integrated approach. Ros Morshead said;
“…professionals need to share original content, as well as being present…social media interaction assumes both the professional and their target audience are technologically literate. If a professional relies on the social media band-wagon, then…the professional risks overlooking some or all of a target market.”
To get mileage from your activity you need to share it more broadly than just on social networks including on your website, with clients who will be interested etc, regardless of whether or not they are active on social networks. However, social networks can be a great source of good content.
Gihan Perera adds “I don’t think it’s an either-or or a better-worse. Have genuine conversations with some solid content backing it up. Yes, you CAN generate a lead without content backing it up (just as you can by chatting to somebody at a barbie), and you CAN generate a lead with content but no conversation (just as you can by publishing a high-quality article in a magazine…). But the sweet spot is when you have both.”
I agree with Gihan. Engaging with others is how you build relationships and gives you the opportunity to show a bit of yourself. This is important because, as Tony Vidler comments, “…people tend to do business with people whom they like and trust so it is A path to business.”
“However content creation is THE path to establishing credibility as an expert, or professional at the top of their game…Content curation is a strong method of delivering valuable information and resource and being seen as knowledgeable and informed.”
In fact, given how busy professionals are nowadays, content curation is often a good place to start according to Bryn Hughes.
“Time pressure/lack of time is often the biggest reason that lawyers give for not writing content…given this, surely content curation is a good place to start to help professionals (i) find their feet in social media networks and build confidence in using these channels and (ii) begin to become known (build their brand.)”
However, it’s not enough to simply forward content with no accompanying note. Shelley Dunstone put it well when she said “Curating content is a good way to be seen as a source of interesting news, but don’t just send it with the note “FYI” – say why you think it’s interesting and relevant.”
Another advantage of curating other people’s content is it shows you are interested in others’ opinions. Oli Moore, like others who commented in the discussion thread, believes there needs to be a mix. “After all, if all you do is create and do not curate, then for me that would show a lack of engagement and interest in other peoples opinions.”
Which brings us back to engagement.
As Oli says, “commenting and engaging with others is paramount to engaging and creating that environment where people will come to you.”
Emma Partington believes “being present is MORE important than creating content – the content is also a bonus. Being present is what is lacking in professional services social media…especially within firms.”
She’s right. You only have to look at the Twitter feeds of some large firms to see it’s all about them. There’s often no sharing of others’ content, no conversations and, seemingly, no knowledge of anything beyond their own ‘push strategy’ tweets.
The content you share doesn’t always have to be work related. Don’t underestimate the power of the occasional personal post: People like to laugh and be entertained, and as per Tony’s earlier comment, people do business with people they like (or, I have heard it said, people do business with people like 
them.) Kelly Madden (and his firm) uses a combination of professional and personal content “We try to provide useful and educational content in our efforts to build trust and online relationships that may develop into future business…and sometimes I just post fun stuff about things that make people smile.”
Does it really matter whether the content you share is your own or someone else’s?
Sheena Sarkar doesn’t believe so. “I think the key is relevance to your target market. If you can tell them something that is relevant to them and that they may not have heard before, I don’t think it really matters if it is content you have generated yourself or something that you are curating/reposting.”
One way you could make use of curated content to help your clients and prospects is to create a searchable directory of curated content on your website. This would allow visitors to quickly and easily access any content of interest to them and position you/your firm as a source of valuable information.
Julie South said something that I’ve also found to be true, “I’ve read (& learnt from) more relevant information as a result of what I’ve discovered through social media…than from traditional teaching…
She went on to say, “Sure, it’s important to verify the varacity of each article/author but IMHO [in my humble opinion - I had to look it up!] anyone who writes their own content (or repositions – in a relevant and meaningful way someone else’s content – and cites it) earns more street cred and thus, improves their opportunities for more leads/sales.”
Despite the value of content curation there’s little doubt that creating your own content is really important if you want to establish credibility and be considered an expert on a particular subject.
Bryn Hughes believes “Professional brands should seek to produce their own content online, as part of their marketing mix (no less as effective SEO to aid visibility in natural search!) If done well, generating original [content] does gain more traction for your brand in terms of exposure and engagement online…that hopefully aids conversions down the line.”
Greg De Simone shares how regularly creating content has helped his business,
“I can’t say for sure that my content has directly created a lead because all of my strategies overlap to create multiple touches in my target market. But I have noticed that since I started blogging once a week vs once every 6-8 weeks, my web traffic has doubled and my engagement on my site has increased by 25%…since I’ve began creating content, my prospects have a much better idea on what I do and it makes my sales conversations much easier (i.e. conversions have improved by about 10%).”
I find that really interesting. Does it mean that people have almost made up their minds before meeting you that they want to work with you, based on your blog posts? Is the meeting just to check whether you’re someone they’d like to work with? i.e. is it yours to lose rather than yours to win? If so, that’s a pretty compelling reason to create original content.
But professionals are busy. How can you find the time to write or video or record something on a regular basis?
You probably already have some content in the form of Q&A’s, presentations, White Papers etc. A good starting point is to re-purpose this content. As Bryn Hughes points out, generating original content shouldn’t be the responsibility of one person, “In helping to share out the workload and providing varied original content, a … firm could put out an original content strategy together that includes content from its own lawyers, lawyers from other firms (perhaps on the other side of a big transaction), key referral partners, bought in content, instruct third parties to write on their behalf, their clients…”
Social media can be daunting and it’s hard to know where to begin. I’ve always believed that you should build up your use of it in stages – start small and build out from there. It seems Bridget Greenwood agrees. She shares some brilliant practical advice to those just starting out, to stop you feeling overwhelmed,
“…Step 1 show up! Listen, engage, get comfortable with one platform first.
“Step 2 start curating and sharing other peoples content. If you just RT it or share it across networks without adding commentary you’re missing out. If you choose to target the audience who will most benefit from the content you’re resharing, then even better. This can be to individuals, as part of an ongoing group discussion, or shared with specific groups WITH your own comments added as to why you’re sharing and what your view point is.
“Step 3 it’s now not a big leap to make your comments more than one or two sentences and start creating your own content.
“Step 4 collaborate with others to create and share content (both internally at your work place and externally with other relevant professions).
“Add other platforms…as your influence on your current network grows. All that we’re really doing on social media is extending our circle of influence. Showing yourself as an authority is a great way to extend your influence and, ultimately, I believe you can do that best by following all 4 steps.”
- Engaging, content creation and content curation all have a role to play.
- Engaging is how you build relationships and gives you the opportunity to show a bit of yourself.
- Curating content can position you as a source of good content but the content you share has to be relevant and you have to say why it’s relevant by introducing it with your own comment.
- Creating content enables you to establish credibility and helps you get more attention/traction for your brand in terms of exposure and engagement (again, provided it’s relevant!)
- Creating content (within a PSF) should be the responsibility of lots of people.
- If you ONLY create content and don’t share other peoples, it conveys a lack of engagement and interest in others’ opinions.
- Think beyond the social network(s) you use. Share content with individuals who may be interested in it (regardless of whether they are on social networks), on your website etc. Consider setting up a searchable directory of curated content on your website.
- Build up your use of social networks in stages and follow Bridget’s 4 step process to really position yourself to generate new work.
What would you add?
To what extent do you agree with the comments in this post?
Sue Viskovic runs Elixir Consulting, a business coaching firm for financial advisers.
The nature of her business means that clients have to open up and really talk about their businesses to benefit from her team’s help. Elixir has a good brand and is well known in the Australian market. However, before choosing to work with a prospective coach financial advisers really need to know that they can trust the person and have the confidence that he or she isn’t going to change things against their will.
It’s easy to break down these barriers in a face-to-face meeting, but how can you seek to demonstrate your trustworthiness and beliefs before you’ve met someone?
Sue and her team turned to video.
Because their strategies and tactics need to work for individual business owners the team realised they could only use video to share concepts and examples of what’s worked for others.
Sue has tried a few ways to capture video and has learnt heaps from the process.
“At one extreme we got a professional firm to do everything and at the other I’ve recorded video interviews with clients over Skype.”
The first set of videos Sue had recorded were profile videos of the team. She got an external producer to do this and then sat off screen and asked her colleagues questions so they’d appear more natural on camera.
“I don’t like scripts. If someone is relaxed then it looks good but if they’re over-thinking it can have a negative impact. I advise people to plan roughly what they want to say and then just talk.”
Sue and her team then helped with the editing process because they know their clients and can immediately see what the powerful bits are. They reviewed the footage and told the editor the bits they wanted to use.
Now all Elixir consultants have their own camera, tripod and lapel mic. so they can record their own pieces. They send in their raw footage for a video editor to edit (Sue found someone on Elance and has worked with him for a while now. She advises others to look at the person’s credentials and ensure they have positive recommendations from others prior to hiring them).
The consultants are aware of the location they’re using and ensure there are no shadows, and that there is something of interest in the background. For example, some videos are shots of someone on a couch with a view of the landscape behind.
Sue is shortly launching Elixir TV, a more human version of their blog. Each clip is 3-4 minutes duration and provides either a tip or story to help people in their business.
She wanted an intro footage Elixir could use on every clip, with a music track. After narrowing it down to two music pieces, Sue asked her contacts on LinkedIn to vote for their favourite. She used Shutterstock.com to find an appropriate stock video to use as background to the intro segment and looked on royaltyfreemusic.com and premiumbeat.com to source the music.
“You pay for the music once and then you can keep on using it without having to pay again.”
In addition to Elixir TV, the team are planning to record webinars they run and to break these down into short segments they can post.
Following a consulting session with a client, a consultant might put together a short video after covering an ‘ah-ha’ moment the client had or giving them some tips for overcoming an issue they had. They’d then send the video to the client a few days after the session to prompt them to take action and to remind them they’re there to help. Client feedback on these is really positive.
The team also record videos to send when submitting proposals. This allows them to explain why they have included certain things e.g. ‘The reason X is in the proposal is you said Y was important to you.’ Obviously, in this scenario, it’s important that no-one else can see the video. Sue and her team use Sproutvideo.com to store videos because it allows you to keep videos private and to set passwords where desired. It also has great tracking features allowing you to see how many people opened each video and how much of it they watched.
Sue says, “Long videos don’t work well - I fell into the trap of producing 9 minute videos because I couldn’t decide which content to leave out. Now I keep videos to a couple of minutes. If there is a lot of good content, we put the videos up as a series.”
She also wanted to ensure that when someone clicks on a video on the Elixir website, it doesn’t take them off to YouTube where they might get distracted. That’s where Sproutvideo.com comes in. It allows users to view a video within your website, and enables more control. It also has great analytics features that allow you to see how many times the video has been viewed, how much of it is viewed, right down to the countries the viewers are located in, what sites they arrived from, and what device they viewed it on.
Youtube can be a good option if you want your videos to be found by people searching on your topic. If you do want to put something up on YouTube, Sue advises unticking the box to automatically allow the video flicking over to suggested sites at the end. While you can’t stop the suggestions on the right hand side from coming up you can prevent those at the end – and there’s good reason why you might want to. At the end of one of Elixir’s videos YouTube suggested viewers might want to watch a clip of two nuns in bras!
Another suggestion is to get clever with your tagging. If you put up a series of videos with the same/similar tags, you can ensure that your stuff comes up in suggested views on the right hand side.
Another great piece of advice from Sue: “Be aware of your surroundings. We shot a video by the beach and in the 15 minutes we were there the wind had got up. I knew it was messing with my hair but it didn’t even occur to me that it was also messing with the sound as it hit the microphone a couple of times and we didn’t realise until afterwards. Had we checked things we would have realised this and could have turned in the other direction to stop it happening.”
What would you do differently if you were starting again now?
“I’d do more research and not be afraid to project manage videos myself. If you do decide to get videos done professionally, get the company you use to give you the raw footage so that you can use your knowledge of your clients to work out the ‘gems’ you want to keep.”
Sue has found a recent graduate who charges $350 for half a day’s work in Perth who she uses to record some videos. She’s also found a video editor she really likes in the USA via Elance so gets him to edit all internally produced videos.
Knowing little about video (I’ve self recorded a couple of pretty poor quality ones), I got so much from my chat with Sue. Her tips should give even the most video-phobic (is that a word?) of people the confidence to put something together.
1.Choose your format to suit your purpose. Do you need all the bells and whistles? Be mindful of the message you’re sending – it may be professional but does it also make you look too expensive?
2. If you use a professional team ask for the raw footage. You know what will be of most benefit to your clients so let the video team know the snippets they should include in the final version.
3. Give it a go. Don’t be afraid. If you can’t get good footage then don’t put the video up. It will reflect badly on you.
4. Sit to the side of the camera and ask your colleague questions so it appears more of a natural conversation.
5. Be aware of the background and any noises that may interfere with your recording.
6. Get someone else to check your footage as you can get too close to it.
7. If you’ve self-recorded, get a professional to edit your video. Elance is a good place to find people. Make sure the person you choose has some good recommendations from others.
8. Think about the different ways in which video can support your business e.g. updates on topical issues, to support new business proposals, as a summary of coaching sessions etc.
Have you used video successfully in your firm? What other tips would you share?
Photo courtesy Paul at Freedigitalphotos.net
