How well do you remember middle school? At one point, your math teacher told you, “A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not always a square.” And after a few seconds of head scratching, you wrapped your mind around the concept.

Well, the same thing is happening in the world of social media. Two concepts –employee advocacy and social selling – are causing marketing and sales leaders to scratch their heads. For many, it’s unclear how the two terms complement each other and how they differ from each other. This post answers those questions in the B2B context.

How Social Selling and Employee Advocacy Are Similar

The fact is, social media is a powerful avenue for connecting with our customers. But the world is changing. A few years ago, everyone was talking about the importance of social for marketing departments. Companies were encouraged to have some presence on social media. Now, having branded social channels is no longer enough. Buyers crave more authentic, human relationships with brands, and that’s where employee advocacy and social selling come in. Here are a few similarities:

Basic Premise

Ultimately, both employee advocacy and social selling aim to get employees to use social media for business purposes. As you can imagine, employee advocacy is broader, in that it wants toempower all employees to use social networks. Social selling, on the other hand, is specific. It wants salespeople to use social networks.

Communication Style

Traditional social media marketing has its limitations. Across social networks, marketers try to write messages that resonate with large groups of people, and they communicate those messages through a dehumanized, faceless brand logo.

Employee advocacy and social selling address those weaknesses. With both initiatives, the emphasis is on personalization and humanization. Individual humans – with real names and faces – can communicate one-to-one with buyers, who also have real names and faces. As a result, social selling and employee advocacy should come across as more authentic than social media marketing.

Where Social Selling and Employee Advocacy Diverge

On the surface, social selling and employee advocacy look a lot alike. But if you dig into the two concepts, you’ll find some significant differences. For instance, each type of program is designed and optimized for different purposes, and each program requires a different set of technological capabilities. Let’s dive deeper into the differences between social selling and employee advocacy.

Departmental Focus

Like we said above, the scope of employee advocacy is broader, in that it wants to empower all employees to use social networks for business purposes. It doesn’t matter whether the person is an engineer or a customer success representative. Social selling, on the other hand, is more narrow in focus. It wants salespeople to use social networks.

Business Goals

In theory, both employee advocacy and social selling initiatives are about revenue. In practice, they often have different business goals.

Many employee advocacy programs map onto traditional branding initiatives. These programs leverage employees’ social accounts so that marketers can build brand awareness, extend social reach, and drive clicks to their website.

Since social selling falls under the domain of the sales team, the tie to revenue is much stronger. A good social selling program improves a sales team’s productivity so that each sales rep can generate more revenue. Want to learn more? Check out this post.

Relationship Owner

Both initiatives being discussed revolve around relationships. Advocates need to build relationships to drive awareness, and salespeople need to build relationships to drive revenue. However, there’s a difference in terms of who owns the relationship from start to finish.

In a B2B context, where complex sales processes are common, an employee advocate may not own the buyer’s journey from start to finish. For example, an engineer may have a relationship with a potential buyer and help raise brand awareness. However, the engineer will not close the deal. The relationship will have to be passed over to a sales rep at some point.

With social selling, the sales rep owns the relationship from start to finish. The sales rep must attract buyers, develop the relationship, identify buying signals, develop them into new opportunities, and close the deals. As a result, social selling is much easier to track and attribute to revenue.

Content Needs

Given that employee advocacy and social selling have different business goals, the two programs often have different content needs. Sure, both programs need a blend of third-party and company-created content. But social selling content must fulfill a very specific need. Social selling content must help buyers understand their business predicament, and it must provide insights that will help buyers move beyond their status quo.

To be sure, you can give insightful content to all employees. However, it will be more effective in the hands of a salesperson, who will own the relationship from the beginning of the buyer’s journey until the end.

Technology Requirements

If you dig into the design and capabilities, you’ll find that, while employee advocacy platforms are great for circulating content, they often lack the capabilities that salespeople need. Since social selling is a very specific use case, sales teams need software built for them. For starters, since CRM systems are indispensable for today’s sales organization, CRM integration is a must-have, and many advocacy solutions overlook this connection. Furthermore, vendors must provide ways to tie social actions to revenue in CRM systems.

In the End…

Virtually every company has invested in communicating with customers through social channels. However, buyers on social networks are evolving, and the next step for companies is more authentic personalization. And that requires reliance on a company’s employees.

For some companies, the next logical step will be to ask their sales team to be more socially active. Once those companies prove that social is a revenue generator, rather than a cost center, they can expand into other departments. For other companies, the next logical step may be to ask all employees, regardless of department, to be more socially active.

The decision rests heavily on a company’s business objectives, which we will explore in detail in Thursday’s post.

In the Meantime…

Here are some more resources to help you learn more:

Social networks are always changing, which means that marketers are always adapting.

The past few weeks have brought several surprises for social media marketers. Mainly, Facebook has changed its algorithm yet again, and it turns out that Twitter has an ad problem.

Whether Facebook and Twitter like it or not, both these revelations support the case for launching an employee advocacy program. Let’s take a look at why…

What Is Employee Advocacy?

In case you’re unfamiliar with employee advocacy, here’s a succinct overview.

In short, employee advocacy is when businesses empower their employees to act as marketers on their behalf. Your C-suite, engineers, salespeople, HR staff, and marketing team leverage their social networks to share content, build brand awareness, and drive sales.

Curious about why advocacy works or how to get started? Check out the ebook The Rise of the Employee Marketer. Otherwise, let’s sally forth, shall we?

Facebook’s Love for People

Facebook is always changing its algorithms. At the beginning of 2014, the network’s business pages took a hit. By March, 2014, the organic reach of Facebook pages plummeted roughly 50%.

To compensate for the drop in reach, many marketers thought they needed to pay for Facebook ads. What those marketers failed to consider was another way of reaching Facebook users: their employees.

While your company’s Facebook page took a hit in 2014, your employees’ personal networks didn’t. Your employees could still post and reach their friends, family members, and colleagues. No problem.

As a result, the savvy marketers of 2014 encouraged their employees to share content on Facebook so that their companies could still reach Facebook users organically.

Fast Forward to April, 2015

The case for employee advocacy became even stronger in April, 2015, when Facebook updated its algorithms yet again. The most recent changes were even more favorable to individual Facebook users with strong personal connections.

Facebook has decided that

Score for Facebook users! Zuckerberg and his team have made a commitment to prioritizing posts from our friends in our News Feeds!

Unfortunately, this could spell more disappointment for businesses. With the posts of close friends rising to the top of the News Feed, other types of content have to descend. The loser in this instance could be your company’s business page.

Rather than seeing the latest algorithm change as a challenge, brands should view the update as an opportunity. When planning your Facebook tactics, don’t think solely about your business page. Encourage your employees to share content with their friends and family.

Your employees’ posts should appear higher up in the News Feed, creating more visibility for your company.

Twitter’s Ad Problem

Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not curate your timeline for you. There isn’t an algorithm that marketers have to game. Instead, each Twitter post appears in your followers’ feed in chronological order.

In some ways, that’s good. In other ways, that’s bad. You see, if your followers aren’t online when you post, they might miss an update from your company.

To ensure that their tweets are reaching more people, some companies are turning to ads. But what many companies didn’t know is that Twitter has an ad problem. Its algorithms are failing several of the world’s largest, most trustworthy brands.

For example, Nielsen recently paid to promote a webinar recording on Twitter, and their paid promotion appeared on several adult-themed profiles. Not exactly the type of publicity that Nielsen had in mind.

What is more, AdWeek has reported that NBCUniversal and Gatorade have had similar problems.

Extending Your Reach on Twitter

Twitter’s ad problem raises the following question: What is the best way to extend your reach on Twitter?

You have several options. You can…

• Entrust your message to Twitter’s ad algorithms, which have been known to fail. (Twitter has indicated that they are working to resolve the issue.)
• Adjust the frequency and timing of your company’s tweets.
• Encourage your employees to act as brand advocates on Twitter.

Most companies overlook the third option, and they are missing out.

Think about It.

In 2012, the typical Twitter user had 208 followers. If you have 100 employees representing your company on Twitter, you could reach at least 20,800 people. Many corporate Twitter accounts don’t have 20,800 followers.

Plus, through advocacy, you don’t have to worry about your employees’ tweets appearing in the timelines of licentious Twitter accounts (unless, of course, you happen to work in the adult entertainment industry).

Instead, your employees’ tweets will reach their followers – like-minded people who have a relationship with your employees and who trust your employees.

Don’t underestimate the relationship between your employees and their followers. It is invaluable, for when it comes to the buyer’s journey, trust is the most important component.

How Are You Extending Your Reach?

If you’re struggling to reach more people, perhaps it’s time to change your strategy. Perhaps you should empower your employees to build their personal brands and to share quality, relevant content with their followers.

Ready to change your strategy? Drop us a line. We’d love to discuss your advocacy plans.

Related Links:

How much software does your marketing department use? My guess: A lot. You have tech for web analytics, lead nurturing, content marketing, data cleansing, events, webinars, mobile marketing, online ads, social media, and more.

So, how does an employee advocacy platform fit into your larger technology ecosystem? The answer depends on the sophistication of your employee advocacy tool. Let’s dive in.

A Quick Look at the Flow of Content

Distilled to its essence, employee advocacy is about content. Employees need content to build their professional brands on social media, and marketers see advocacy as a way to expand the reach of content.

To discuss employee advocacy’s place in the marketing technology stack, we must first think about how content moves through an organization. There are three basic parts:

The Content Problem

Every company needs content to attract and nurture customers. But where does the content come from? That is the content problem. Blog posts, infographics, and white papers don’t just magically appear in our offices.

To solve the content problem, companies have three options: They can create content. They can rely on third-party content. Or they can do what many smart companies do – rely on a combination of both created and curated content. (See the 4-1-1 rule.)

Got Content. Now What?

The next step is to organize and distribute content internally so that it can be shared externally. This means building a content library, where key stakeholders can find the assets that they need. Moreover, it means notifying key stakeholders that new assets are available and are ready to be shared publicly.

Many people overlook the importance of internal content distribution. SiriusDecisions estimates that 11% of content is not used because it is hard to find, while 17% is unknown to users. As a result, significant amounts of money are wasted every year.

Optimize through Measurement

Finally, you need to measure the effectiveness of your content. Are people engaging with it? What are people reading? Using the data, you can improve on the performance of your content marketing.

How Employee Advocacy Platforms Fit In

Now that we have an understanding of how content flows through a company, the next question is: How does this pertain to employee advocacy?

To be sure, employee advocacy platforms are not content marketing platforms, and content marketing platforms are not employee advocacy platforms. They are separate beasts.

That said, the content marketing workflow is useful for understanding how much an employee advocacy platform can accomplish. Let’s take a look.

Bottom-Shelf Employee Advocacy Tools

The least sophisticated advocacy tools focus on content distribution. They allow companies to distribute links to their employees, who can share content to their social media accounts. That’s it.

Sometimes, these tools offer the ability to create a content library and to notify employees when new content is added. But in general, they are link distribution tools.

To build a more powerful employee advocacy program and to measure its effectiveness, you need to look for a more sophisticated employee advocacy tool.

Mid-Tier Employee Advocacy Tools

The next tier of employee advocacy tools adds another layer of sophistication. In addition to enabling companies to distribute content, they add some statistical data. How many clicks are employees receiving? Which pieces of content are receiving more engagement?

These numbers help you amplify what’s working and eliminate what’s not working. To be successful with employee advocacy, program managers need these metrics at their fingertips.

Top-Tier Employee Advocacy Tools

While the inclusion of metrics is a nice addition, mid-tier advocacy platforms have a glaring shortcoming: They force you to solve the content problem on your own.

To satisfy your employees’ content needs, you have to either produce copious amounts of content, or you need to find third-party content to supplement your company-created content.

That’s where sophisticated employee advocacy platforms come in. In addition to helping you distribute content and measure its effectiveness, top-tier advocacy platforms help you solve your content problem.

As you think about top-tier platforms, keep in mind that the majority of employees want to share a combination of company-created content and third-party content. They love the blogs, white papers, and infographics that your company creates. At the same time, they don’t want to be corporate shills. They want to gain their follower’s trust by sharing content from other sources.

For many employee advocacy programs, the real challenge lies in finding enough third-party content to satisfy your employees. With a top-tier advocacy program, that is not difficult. Sophisticated employee advocacy platforms will provide you with a powerful content curation engine – one that uses artificial intelligence to learn your preferences and recommend new pieces of content.

That way, your advocates will always have the right content – content that they want to share and know will resonate with their followers.

Envisioning Employee Advocacy in Your Marketing Stack

By now, you understand why employee advocacy is important. You have thought about what makes for a successful employee advocacy program. And you can conceptualize how employee advocacy fits into your marketing ecosystem. You understand that a top-notch employee advocacy platform fulfills many of the functions that your disparate content marketing solutions do:

• Solves your content problem
• Organizes your content
• Distributes content to key stakeholders
• Notifies stakeholders when new content is available
• Measures performance

Now, you’re ready to think about your platform options. It’s time to create your list of vendor criteria. Here are some resources that can help:

“People buy from people.” How many times have we heard that old adage?

No matter how many times, it is still true. The door-to-door salesman worked tirelessly to sell his goods – and he figured out pretty quickly that, if he could build trust and engage with his prospects, he would end his day with a lot less inventory than when he began.

We all are trying to engage our prospects and build trust. However, we face a different challenge today, and that is how to open the cyber door. “Knock, knock!” – link me in, follow me, friend me…all very familiar to us in the era of social everything.

There is a lot of excitement building around the practice of social selling, and it is important to sit back and think about what that means to your brand, your team, your prospects, and your results. Most of us know what we mean by social selling but here is a simple definition:

Social selling is the use of social media to increase sales revenue.

As we think about social selling, it is important to keep a few facts in mind:

• Americans spend more time on social media than any other major Internet activity, including e-mail (Business Insider)
• 100% of B2B decision-makers use social media for work purposes (Forrester)
• The majority (57%) of B2B IT buyers use social networks as part of their purchase process (IDG Connect).

All this adds up to an obvious conclusion that companies must adopt social selling as part of their selling motion.

How does content fit into social selling?

When embarking on a plan to begin social selling, one of the critical elements is to determine the type of content that your sales team will leverage in order to engage their prospects. It is the content that will capture the audience’s attention, generate interest, and provide relevant insight to help build relationships that will produce results.

We all create content and sales assets to support the sales team. Our content is filled with data sheets, white papers, power point presentations, battle cards, price lists, positioning PDFs, and endless documents about features and functions.

But what about the stuff that really starts a meaningful dialogue? Stuff like, industry trends, the latest news, your prospects’ competitive advantage, industry or legal insights, blogs on relevant topics, cool videos, podcasts, and your commentary associated with this content. This is what enables the sales team to be interesting while generating buyer attention.

Today’s buyers are smart. They leverage the Internet to determine the best-of-breed solution or services they need to drive their business. They are >60% down their sales cycle by the time you reach them.

So, in order to engage them, you need to have a different conversation with the prospective customer. They want a meaningful dialogue from a thought leader who is providing education and/or insight. If you want salespeople to sell using relevant insight, real-time information, and compelling, original stories, you had better source them.

It is the content that turns into sales currency, and a content management strategy is a critical element to maximizing the ROI of social selling.

You don’t want your sales team taking time out of their selling time to source their own content, and as a marketer you want to ensure the content that is being shared is consistent with your brand message, voice, and value.

We are building content management strategies for our marketing efforts. We now need to extend those strategies to our social selling activities.

Engaging with prospects on social media is not merely a fad. It actually works. Sales teams that use social selling tend to come closer to attaining their sales goals than sales teams that do not use social selling.

• 64% of sales teams that use social selling attain their sales quota (Aberdeen Group).
• 73% of salespeople who used social selling techniques met or exceeded quota in 2012 (Aberdeen Group).
• 54% of salespeople close business as a direct result of social media (McKinsey & Company).

How Trapit can help

There is a lot to think through, and at Trapit, we believe that we have the answer. Trapit allows you to easily discover the high-quality, unique content that you need for your social selling requirements. We allow you to curate the content, and you determine what to share and when to share it.

Because Trapit works 24/7, 365 days a year, you will have the volume of content you need, when you need it. And you will never have to worry about your sales teams social media channels going dry.

The marriage of relevant content and a push of a button social media publishing, makes Trapit a must-have for your social selling activities. We not only have the leading application for discovery, curation, publishing, and analytics, but we have also built some basic “getting started” best practices.

It’s time to make Trapit a household name for your company. “Knock knock!” – it is great to know that when the “door” opens you have something to share that will ensure that door stays open and that the relationship endures.

To learn about the best practices of social selling

Download our free social selling white paper:

Full disclosure: we are biased when it comes to content curation, but that’s only because we believe it works!

If you haven’t gotten into the content curation game yet, you might be wondering what all the buzz is about. Selecting and sharing content created by others might seem like a daunting task – and what are the benefits? It’s not an easy process, but there are tools out there to help you curate (like Trapit, ahem), and finding the right mix of sharing original content alongside curated content can reap serious benefits. If you’re still not a believer, or aren’t sure exactly what we mean, here are just a few of the ways that content curation can help your business.

1. It can ease stress on your content team, resulting in better original content.

One of the biggest struggles that marketers and businesses face every day is how to create enough content to stand out online. Businesses are expected to be on a handful of social media channels, run a blog, and have knockout content on their websites to boot. Creating enough content to fill all those channels is a serious issue, and probably puts daily stress on your content or marketing team. If that team is less worried about the sheer amount of content they need to create, they can focus on crafting better original content, and use curation of other quality content to fill in any gaps.

2. Finding the right content mix makes you less egocentric, and can help you hit your numbers.

In our Trapit study of U.S. marketers late last year, most said that the companies they represent should be sharing at least 10 pieces of content per day. I don’t know of any business, big or small, that regularly hits that number with original content alone. If you want to keep up with the pace of Twitter and other social media channels, one post a day just isn’t going to cut it. Combine two original posts per day with 8 thoughtfully-curated posts, and you’ll be a Twitter standout. As an added bonus, the mix of both original and curated content makes your brand seem a lot less about “me, me, me,” and more about content that is helpful to your audience.

3. It fosters brand awareness and thought-leadership, which can help you stand out.

How do you get word-of-mouth (or word-of-social, rather) to positively spread about your company? We think that creating a sense of thought-leadership in your industry is a big factor. That means becoming a resource for your audience, instead of focusing only on selling whatever your brand offers. Curate the best content you can find in a thoughtful way, and your audience will see that you care about giving them the kind of information they need and want. They will come back to your brand’s social channels to seek out quality information, not just to decide whether to purchase from you or not. While this may not directly lead to dollar signs, building a solid reputation on social media can go a long way when it comes to general brand-awareness.

4. It keeps your team knowledgeable, which can help your overall marketing efforts.

As a marketer, it can be tough to keep up with the ever-changing best practices, social media tactics, and latest industry trends. For brands who curate content, team knowledge-building is built into the process. If your marketing team is always reading and curating great content about your industry, they will always be in-the-know and ahead of the curve. We sometimes share our favorite curated articles with our own marketing and sales teams to provide valuable industry insight. Taking the time to read high-quality content other than your own is hugely important to staying informed, no matter what industry you are in, and curation can make that an easy part of your day.

5. It can help generate new business over time.

When you start curating content on your brand’s assets, you are getting your name out there on a consistent basis, and at a pace that helps your brand stand out. It’s much more difficult to do that with original content alone. Building brand awareness, creating industry thought-leadership, and posting good content more frequently can all lead to more business, and more revenue for your company. Using curation for revenue-generation is a long term strategy, but I think we can all agree that having a great reputation online, and as a resource for your audience, will help any brand succeed. Curating the most relevant outside content alongside your own can help you reach that goal in many different ways.

– Kelly

I have some bad news for you: Market leaders are losing their dominant position to companies that have a digital business advantage. Right now, the “digital predators” are generating over 80% of their business digitally, and by 2020, that number will grow to 90%. Most companies, though, are producing 29% of their sales through digital means.

What’s more, in 2014, Gartner estimated that 20% of all market leaders would lose their dominant position to a company founded after the year 2000 because of a lack of digital business advantage

In today’s buying environment, the power of growth-focused companies lies in the concept of digital business advantage. Those companies use technology to gain a competitive edge. They use solutions to build personal relationships with customers and win their business.

Effective use of an employee advocacy platform is one of the best ways to get a leg up on the competition. Below, you’ll find four ways that employee advocacy can help you stay at the forefront of digital transformation initiatiives.

Make Your Company Visible to Customers

One the largest issues that companies face is awareness. Sure, you can always spend more money on advertising to attract attention. But buyers have learned how to tune out ads, and the ones they see, they don’t trust.

So, how do you get on your buyers’ radars? Instead of buying attention, you earn it, and you do it through some of the most trusted people at your company: your employees.

Buyers are in control, and to educate themselves, they seek out helpful, authentic content that explains how they can overcome their challenges and achieve their goals.

And while they can find content on your branded channels, keep in mind that social media isn’t just about what you share; it’s also about who shares it. And peers and company employees are among the most credible spokespeople. Why wouldn’t you want content in the hands of the most trustworthy people at your company?

What’s more, your employees are able to reach new audiences. Dell has found that 90% of an employee’s social audience is new to the brand. Take a second to do the math. Let’s say that you have 1,000 advocates, and together, they have 634,000 followers. Of those followers, 570,600 will be new to your brand. That’s a lot of untapped potential.

Create a Well-Established Sales Machine

Many employee advocacy programs start with their sales teams. That’s because sales reps are already trained on the company’s messaging. Plus, there’s a tight link between reps’ actions and revenue.

Several studies have shown that sales reps who use social outperform their peers, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. By building a strong presence, reps can attract buyers. They can engage and nurture them. They can maintain relationships with current customers. And they can expand their influence by connecting with more stakeholders at their existing accounts.

“The individual seller is a demand generation platform in and of themselves,” says Julie Currie,Vice President, Lead Management & Marketing, IBM Digital Business Group. But to be effective, they need support and technological infrastructure. While sellers might be able to figure social out on their own, they’ll be much more productive if they have an employee advocacy platform in place.

An employee advocacy platform will equip reps with:

• The content they need to educate their buyers
• Sample messaging they can tweak for their individual buyers
• Insights about their accounts and industries, which will make their communications more tailored and more educated

The best part? Reps don’t have to waste time, seeking out that information on their own. With an employee advocacy, that information comes to them, and it’s located all in one place, whether that be online, on mobile, or on their CRM.

Focus on What Works

Reporting plays a big role in gaining a digital advantage over your competitors, particularly reporting that lets you hone in on what works.

Many employee advocacy platforms provide you with tactical metrics. They help you understand how many people clicked on a link, or how many people your advocates reached, or how many people retweeted a tweet.

To be sure, tactical metrics are especially important at the beginning of an employee advocacy program, when you’re trying to establish best practices. If people aren’t clicking on your advocates’ links when you have 50 advocates, you might want to rethink your approach to social sharing before you enlist 100 advocates. Perhaps you need different content or snazzier headlines.

That said, while tactical metrics have value, they have their limits, as well. CMOs and other executives aren’t interested in tactical measurements. (That’s why some marketers refer to tactical metrics as “vanity metrics.”) CMOs want more strategic metrics – ones that can be mapped onto the sales funnel and be assigned dollar values.

Today’s multi-touch, multi-channel world requires reporting that ties revenue back to all campaigns that influence a deal, and that includes your employee advocacy program. Unfortunately, revenue-related numbers happen to be the numbers that many employee advocacy vendors ignore. As a result, many program managers have trouble justifying their advocacy programs to their CMOs. Try not to let this happen to you.

Attract the Best Talent

The right talent can be a major advantage for enterprises, and employee advocacy can play a major role in attracting the best talent. How? You can construct a strong an employer brand and include your employees in it.

It’s one to tell recruits what your company culture is like; it’s another thing for potential hires to see your employees living your company’s culture on social media.

Still not convinced? Check out these stats:

• 76% of applicants viewed an employee’s LinkedIn profile 6 months prior to applying for a job at that company (LinkedIn).
• 69% of active job seekers are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its employer brand (Glassdoor).
• Employers with strong employment brands see a 43% decrease in cost per hire (LinkedIn).
• Companies that not only have a strong consumer brand, but also a strong talent brand, registered a 36% gain in share price (LinkedIn).

Prepare for Digital Dominance

Buyers are looking for a differentiated customer experience, from first touch to purchase and beyond. That’s where employee advocacy comes in. By leveraging an employee advocacy platform, enterprises can see a digital advantage by tapping into the credibility and authenticity of their employees.

If you’d like to learn more about employee advocacy, check out our ebook The Rise of the Employee Marketer.

Posted byMark Bajus

When you do a Google search for “How do I find local content?” the results are disappointing. They focus on SEO strategies that teach you how to rank in Google’s geotargeted search results. They don’t, however, explain how to find content from a specific geographic area.

So, what do you do if you want to find content about events in San Francisco? New York? Chicago? Sheboygan, Wisconsin? Well, let me show you…

When do you need local content?

Before we jump into finding location-specific articles, videos, blog posts, etc., let’s talk about when you might need this type of content.

Scenario 1

Imagine that you work for the tourism bureau for Chicago. You want to create a portal on your site that notifies people of upcoming events and provides people with reviews of those events.

To keep that page fresh with new content, you could have event planners submit upcoming events to you, and you could have local journalists submit their reviews of those events, as well. Then, you could assign a marketer to the task of digging through all the submissions, picking out the most relevant ones, and posting them to your site.

Or you could take more ownership of the process. Instead of relying on others to submit their events and reviews, you could find those reviews and actively share them.

Scenario 2

Imagine that you are a financial planner. You are not Suze Orman, and you never plan to be a Suze-style evangelist to the masses. You have found your niche, and it is targeting people in Northeastern Pennsylvania, specifically in Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming, and Lackawanna counties.

To stay in touch with your clients and discover new ones, you have decided to be active on social media. In addition to sharing tax information for students and valuable retirement information, you want to stand out from your competition in another way. You plan to share information on arts and culture in the area. You know, show your customers that you know what really matters to them – in all walks of life.

But how do you stay on top of everything going on in those four counties? Where do you find content about local festivals? Here are three different ways to do that…

1. Save Your Google Searches

Before you start, you need to enable Google save searches. (This works only if you have Google account.) To do so, you need to navigate to your account history page. Then, you have to allow Google to track what you search for.

Next, you will want to create a new search. For the sake of example, let’s use the first scenario from the section above. And let’s say that you are looking specifically for information on jazz in Chicago for the tourism bureau.

For starters, you might search for “jazz Chicago” or “jazz in Chicago.” Next, set your location to “Chicago.” To do that, click on “Search Tools” in the Google browser window, and enter Chicago if it is not already set to Chicago.

Now that you have your location set, you will want to set a time frame. Visitors to Chicago don’t care about content from 2010. They want to know what’s happening now.

So, you’ll want to go to “Search Tools” again. And you will want to change “Any time” to the “Past week” (or “Past 24 hours”.)

When you go to your search history page, you will find that Google has saved your search criteria for you. And you can use it for a later date.

Every time you want to find new content, you can click on “jazz Chicago,” and Google will take you to that search.

There are limitations to this strategy. As you can see from our results, Google will not necessarily find unique content. The top search results might be what everyone else in the Chicago jazz scene is already discussing.

Plus, once you do find a piece of content that you like, you will have to copy and paste it to your site, social media channels, e-mail lists, etc. Saving Google searches is not an efficient way to find new local content. But in a pinch, it can get the job done.

2. Geotargeting with Trapit’s Discovery Capabilities

Trapit’s discover capabilities are similar to Pandora. But instead of helping you find new music, Trapit helps you find new blog posts, articles from professional journals, videos, articles from newspapers, and more.

With discovery, you start off with a broader topic. When you look at your discovery results, you give a thumbs up or thumbs down to content. Then, Trapit’s artificial intelligence learns about your preferences, and it delivers more personalized results.

When using Trapit’s discovery feature, you can filter by geographic locations. As you can see in the example below, we have set the location to “Chicago, Illinois.”

If I hit “New Trap,” Trapit will save my discovery criteria, learn my preferences, and look for content for me 24/7. When I find a piece of content that I like, I can publish it to my website, or I can share it on social media.

Unlike Google search results, I will receive articles tailored to me – not what the 3.5 billion daily Google searches indicate is popular or relevant.

3. Finding Location-Specific Content with Trapit’s Search Capabilities

In addition to offering discovery based on artificial intelligence, Trapit offers boolean search. In some ways, it is similar to Google boolean search. However, Trapit does not rank your results according to other people’s search preferences. Instead, whenever Trapit runs across a piece of content that matches your terms, the platform will show you that piece of content.

Here’s what a trap might look like for the “Chicago jazz” topic:

Since you are looking for a specific set of words when conducting a search, Trapit’s artificial intelligence is turned off. In other words, you cannot give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and Trapit will not personalize your search

That said, as we saw with the discovery capabilities, Trapit will save that search and look for content for you 24/7. When you find a piece of content that you like, you can easily post it to a variety of end points – your site, social media, e-mail or a tablet.

What about You?

Above, you’ll find three techniques that I have used over the years to find local content. What about you? What strategies have you used? Leave a comment below!

-Mark

Intrigued by Trapit?

Read more about how it works! Then, request a 15-minute demo!

For many companies, it’s naive to think that sales reps will close their deals solely through offline tactics like client dinners and phone calls. By the same token, it’s just as naive to think that sales reps will close a deal on LinkedIn or Twitter without a few offline touches like phone calls or in-person meetings.

For many companies, a successful sales playbook involves combining both online and offline tactics to generate better results. But how do you get started? What does the merger of online and offline activities even look like? Let’s take a look at a couple scenarios.

Scenario 1: An Offline Referral

Meet Jane. She sells social media management tools to health care marketers. She’s attending a conference in Boston, where she’s showing off her product and interacting with industry influencers. Here’s what unfolds.

Offline: While Jane interacts with conference attendees at her booth, Ralph stops by. He’s the Director of Marketing at a tech startup. After seeing the product, he tells Jane, “Look, we’re not in the market for your product. But my friend Susan at Big Whale of a Fortune 500 Company is looking for something similar. I’d love to introduce you.”

Online:After the conference, Jane emails Ralph, reminds him of their conversation, and asks for the referral.

Online:Meanwhile, Jane starts researching Susan at Big Whale of a Fortune 500 Company.

Using her social selling tool, she reads Susan’s latest tweets to understand Susan better. Jane also checks out the company’s tweets to get an idea of what their brand stands for and what the company’s initiatives are.

Online:A day later, Ralph emails Jane back and puts her in touch with Sally.

Online:Jane sets up a discovery phone call with Sally via email.

Offline: Jane and Sally connect on the phone. Because Sally was referred to Jane through a trusted friend, Sally is happy to speak with Jane, but Sally’s always reluctant to speak to salespeople. She’s grown tired of salespeople, who immediately launch into their generic sales pitch during their phone calls.

This time, things are different. Sally can tell that Jane has done her research. Jane asks questions, tailors the conversation specifically for Sally, and demonstrates that she understands Sally’s business. That’s because Jane took the time to do her research online.

All in all, Jane comes across as a trusted consultant – rather than a pushy salesperson. And Sally is happy to take another phone call from Jane.

Scenario 2: Following up with a Prospect

Meet Andrew. Andrew’s tech company sells sales software. In the industry, they are known for selling to SMB customers. Now, the company is trying to break into the enterprise business. Andrew had his first meeting with Priya, the U.S. Sales Leader at a Fortune 500 company.

Offline: Andrew’s discovery phone call with Priya goes okay. He could sense that Priya was uncertain that Andrew’s technology would scale on the enterprise level. This is a sticking point because Andrew doesn’t have any enterprise customer success stories to share with Priya. In fact, Priya would be the company’s first enterprise client.

Online:To stay top of mind with Priya, Andrew decided to connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter. Every day, Andrew posts sales-related content to Twitter and LinkedIn so that he continues to nurture his prospects and establishes himself as a trusted advisor.

Online:Despite Priya’s initial skepticism, Andrew notices that Priya has favorited and liked a few of his posts.

Online:Encouraged by Priya’s actions, Andrew continues to research Priya’s company. Through his company’s social selling platform, Andrew receives the latest content about Priya’s company. One day, Andrew notices an interview with Priya’s CEO, in which the CEO says that 2016 will be the year of artificial intelligence.

A light bulb goes off for Andrew. “Aha!” he thinks. “Our competitors’ platforms aren’t built on artificial intelligence! I’m going to leverage that!”

Online:Andrew sends Priya an email, including a link to the interview with Priya’s CEO and a reminder that none of his competitors offer artificial intelligence.

Online:Priya responds to the email, and she offers to set up a meeting with one of the VPs of Sales at her company.

Offline: Andrew does a little dance in his cubicle.

In the two scenarios above, the sales reps and buyers moved seamlessly from online to offline interactions – and back. Are your sales reps able to do that?

It’s an important question to ask because today’s sales reps don’t live in an online vs. offline world. Rather, today’s sales reps must weave together both online and offline sales tactics, and they need to do so effortlessly.

If your buyers can easily move from phone to email to social to in-person meetings, so must your sales reps.

When launching a social selling program, what’s one of the biggest mistakes a sales team can make? Content. Many sales leaders either dismiss the importance of content, or they overlook the need to create a content strategy for their sales teams. In so doing, sales leaders hinder their sales teams’ chances of success.

Used correctly, content will help your sales reps rise above the countless sales messages that buyers receive. It will help reps build and maintain relationships with customers in the digital world. It is the magnet that attracts new customers. It is the fuel for customer engagement.

Bottom line: Content is essential for modern sales. That’s why we’ve assembled a library of resources on the topic. Enjoy!

Being good at phone calls is no longer enough for a sales rep. The best salespeople position themselves as knowledgeable experts and consultants for their buyers.

As The Challenger Customer notes, the best sales reps push buyers to think differently and to engage buyers with new insights. They don’t just blast product messages at their customers. This transition can be tricky for many sales reps, but when salespeople are armed with relevant content, their job is much easier. This blog post outlines a few ways that content can make the modern sales process run smoother.

Users of sales content average 69% more revenue growth year-over-year compared to their peers.

But here’s the thing: marketing and sales enablement teams cannot throw content at reps, cross their fingers, and see what sticks. They need to be deliberate in curating content that will work for both their sales reps and for their buyers. This post looks at five classic examples of where your sales content has gone wrong.

Social selling requires salespeople to think less like cold callers and more like content marketers, for content is a social seller’s best asset.

Through blog posts, infographics, videos, and more, sales reps can attract the attention of their buyers, educate them, and spark engagement. Learn more in the slide deck below:

LinkedIn can be a great way to attract new customers and nurture existing ones. Not sure how to do that? This post provides a short list of dos and dont’s for sharing content on LinkedIn. For example, did you know that you shouldn’t link your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts? Or did you know that sharing only company-created content can turn off your buyers?

How should sales teams use content? How should sales and marketing teams store content? What types of content will resonate with buyers?

The Aberdeen Group tackled those questions in a recent report, and this blog post summarizes their findings.

Before sharing content online, social sellers should ask themselves…

• Will my customers care about this video or blog post or article or infographic?
• Which customers will care about it?
• Why will they care about it?
• What’s the best way to share this piece of content?
• Should I share a general update? Or should I send personalized messages to individual buyers?

To help you navigate those questions, we created a flowchart, which should help sellers determine when, where, and how they should share content.

Image via

With Super Bowl Sunday quickly approaching this weekend, and Sochi shortly thereafter, I am wondering as a marketer how many consumer brands are furiously working on their content plays to stand out. It used to be all about who could generate the day-after water cooler talk with the most shocking or original television commercial, and don’t get me wrong, it still is a huge draw, especially for me, but now the impact of the Super Bowl can be even greater for brands that create a before, during and after campaign on social media channels.

So how are brands harnessing the power of social during the big game? Well, it’s already started (if you like to be surprised in your Super Bowl experience, this is your official spoiler alert):

• Check out M&M’s facebook page – apparently the yellow M&M is up to no good and you have to watch the Super Bowl to find out why.

• Steven Colbert is sharing his snacking tips for the big game and leveraging his own brand for Wonderful Pistachios on Twitter at @getcrackin.

• And Budweiser already released its ad, and it is all the media is talking about today – Time, Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, etc. Budweiser is definitely going for the heartstrings with a sequel to last year’s heartwarming ad.

But, as a brand, are you prepared for the unknown? Remember last year during the third quarter of Super Bowl XLVII when there was an unexpected power outage at the Superdome? Oreo took advantage of the opportunity to stay relevant and Tweeted out a starkly lit Oreo with the message “Power Out? No Problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” This message was re-Tweeted 15,000 times and got 20,000 likes on Facebook — not bad for a one-off joke by a cookie brand. So how did Oreo put its own twist on the lights-out scenario so quickly? It turns out they had a 15-person social media team at the ready to respond to whatever happened online in response to the Super Bowl. So not only did they have a regular commercial run during the first quarter, they also had copywriters, a strategist, and artists ready to react to any situation in 10 minutes or less. And it certainly paid off.

Where should you focus? Facebook or Twitter? Well, the unofficial blog of Facebook features a 3rd party survey saying they will ‘beat’ Twitter in owning the social conversation around ads before, during and after the game. Here are the takeaways from the survey:

• One out of four viewers will post about Super Bowl ads on social media before the game.

• Facebook will dominate game time activity, with 55.8 percent of respondents posting on Facebook about the Super Bowl during the game. The next most likely digital action is sending a text message (41.5 percent), followed by a phone call (28.1 percent). Only 25.1 percent of respondents said they would be Tweeting about the Super Bowl. That’s a significant difference: More than one-half of respondents will post on Facebook about the Super Bowl, while only one-quarter will Tweet.

• 62.2 percent of viewers will re-watch ads after the Super Bowl.

• After the game, 73 percent of respondents will follow brands on Facebook or Twitter, and 27 percent will follow teams on those channels.

So no matter where you focus, there is no doubt that content matters and harnessing social channels is a key opportunity to build brand loyalty and engagement. I know most companies don’t have huge brands like Budweiser and Oreo, or the budgets that go along with them, but having a content plan, being ready to capture a real-time opportunity, and starting to push your messages before and after any important event is a growing best practice. So what are you waiting for? If you need some help check out our 7 Tips for Shareable Content.

– Bethany