0:00
Whitney Blankenship
First of all, I just want to thank everybody for coming today. I am so excited about this. We are going to go back to basics and we're going to answer the questions that you have about social media, especially for a B2B context. And Olivia, I am absolutely stoked for this. And just to give you a little context about who's talking right now, my name is Whitney Blankenship. I'm the senior content marketing manager at Oktopost, our resident sponsor speaker, our expert today is Olivia Messina. Olivia, do you want to introduce yourself to everybody?
0:35
Olivia Messina
Yeah, of course. Hi, everyone. Like Whitney said, I'm Olivia Messina, our social media and community manager. And I am just as thrilled at Whitney to be here today and talking about what I love most, which is social media. So let's do it.
0:49
Whitney Blankenship
Absolutely. So here's a little bit about what we're going to cover today. First, we're going to go into how to best understand your audience, how to create that diverse, interesting and engaging content for your audience. How often should you actually publish on social media? And that answer might surprise you, so stay tuned. And how you should go about fostering and creating that community on social media, as well as an experiment that you did, Olivia, this year with on figuring out best practices. Because best practices, they're, they're kind of a baseline benchmark, but best practices, ultimately, you know, they're different based on your individual brand and your customers and their needs, right?
1:41
Olivia Messina
Exactly.
1:42
Whitney Blankenship
100%.
1:44
Olivia Messina
Stay tuned until the end because you won't want to miss that conversation. So we decided to talk about this topic specifically today because in the past couple of years, the social media landscape has shifted and we are no longer using social media solely for brand awareness. And a lot of brands are waking up to the idea that you can use social media to hit your business goals. And in fact, a lot of B2B brands today are using social media as a demand generation channel. And it makes sense. We consult social media before almost any person purchasing decision and we want to buy from brands that we trust. So social media is a great place to do that and build that trust. In fact, 75% of B2B buyers use social media to support their purchasing decisions. And on average, this might surprise you. Consume 13 pieces of content before making a decision to reach out to a salesperson or buy a product. So they really want that buy in before they make that direct leap to engagement. And with every social post that you send, with every piece of content that your buyers consume, they are making those micro purchasing decisions. And that's why having Such a strong social strategy and sharing the right message to the right audience is key. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to go back to the basics. We're going to set that foundation. So let's do it.
3:20
Whitney Blankenship
And I just kind of want to go back to the stat because this stat, it's definitely not surprising to me. In fact, I've got a poll set up and I just kind of want to understand, like, do you use social media when you're making purchase decisions? Because I can tell you that nine times out of ten, I definitely do. I'm looking at what kind of content do they, do they publish? Are they going to help me? You know, once I, like after I purchase the product itself, you know, I'm, I'm often a person who tests different, especially in the SaaS industry, different tools and products and things like this. So having that, you know, extra support on social media, having that extra content that I can kind of lean on and really, you know, sink into, like, that's, that's definitely something that factors into my position. And, and honestly, 13 pieces of content doesn't surprise me so, so much. We know that, you know, any sort of buyer needs between 7 and 10 touch points with a brand before they're comfortable making a decision. And I would, I would argue that perhaps for, for B2B, you know, maybe we need more, maybe that's, that's a bigger decision. Maybe it's a higher, a higher risk decision. So maybe we need a little bit more. And I'm looking at the poll right now and we've got a couple of people have said, you know, every time I look social media, I've got the majority that are saying, most times I look at social media when I'm making, so that we're hitting that 75%. And then I've got quite a few people who are saying sometimes a few more, saying, you know, on occasion. But I don't have anybody saying never. And I think that that's, I think that's kind of telling. And watch, somebody will say never because I said that. But I think the point is, you know, social media does factor into that decision. And so this is becoming more than just brand awareness, which is what we've heard so much about over the years.
5:20
Olivia Messina
Exactly. All right, so the first thing that I wanted to touch on is audience, because believe it or not, you can't reach an audience if you don't fully understand who you are trying to reach. So having a very deep understanding of your target audience in their specific unique pain points will help you reach them on that deeper level and help you provide more value driven content for them. So remember, when it comes to social media, you do not need to be the loudest because you are not trying to reach everyone. You just need to reach who you are setting out to reach. And when it comes to social media and B2B, LinkedIn is always going to dominant dominate that conversation because that is where the leads are. In fact, LinkedIn alone generates 80% of social media B2B leads these days. So for us, LinkedIn and Twitter are the main players because first it's where we get the most engagement and it's where we're hanging out, our audience is hanging out. So we prioritize those two networks and I firmly believe that it is better to choose one or two networks that you can go all out on, you can nail, you can dedicate and prioritize your time there rather than doing every single network kind of half baked. So that is why we specifically hone in on LinkedIn and Twitter. Now that is not to say that we neglect our other networks because we definitely do not, but or simply just being active where our audience is. So take a good long, hard look at which networks your audience is engaging the most on and then you can focus on providing them that valuable content on those specific platforms. And you might be asking, okay, I have the platforms, but how do I go about really providing that rich, valuable content for them? And this is where having those clear buyer Personas that highlight their unique pain points is really going to come into play.
7:32
Whitney Blankenship
And you know, I feel like we have these marketing fundamentals, these things that, you know, we hold near and dear to our hearts as marketers. Or we say, you know, go back to your customer. What does your customer want? What value can you provide? Where is your customer? And I feel like sometimes marketers, they get so excited about social media and they're like, oh, we got to be everywhere, we've got to be here, we've got to be there. And the fact is, probably not, probably not. I mean, it's good to keep like baseline presence. Right? But if you really want to use social for something just besides again, brand awareness. There's nothing wrong with brand awareness, but you want to go further. You know, it's definitely better to have a couple of focus networks where you can really zone in on and master.
8:20
Olivia Messina
Exactly. And I think sometimes we also kind of get caught up and just churning out the content, producing as much content that we can sometimes Shift our mindset of remembering who it's for in the first place and why we're doing this. So that is why having that deep understanding of your target audience is so important. And I will be the first one to say it. It can be really challenging to understand a target audience that you're not a part of or reach a community that you didn't create. And if you work in social media, you know that you are expected to be an expert in the industry. And that's where it can become really intimidating and really challenging when you transition into a new role and you have a brand new target audience to reach that you might not know enough about yet. So you have to find a way to connect with them. So to do this, to really get an understanding of their main challenges and their pain points, you can do a few things. You can join Facebook groups, you can read Reddit threads, you can utilize social listening. And you're doing these things because again, you might not be a part of that target audience. So you have to do a little bit of research and the image actually have up on the screen. Here is a Facebook group that I'm a part of because I'm a social media manager and this is where I go to learn and connect with other social media professionals who may be experiencing the main challenges as me, but it's also a group that my target audience may turn to as well. So I can learn some of their challenges and understand a few of the things that they are facing and then I can create the best content to serve them. And as you are doing this, you will get to know your target audience better over time. But one thing that you'll notice is that people are might not be so excited to air their biggest challenges, their deepest challenges, publicly on LinkedIn, for example. So that's why a closed group like Facebook is probably your best bet and a great resource because people do feel better about opening up in there and engaging with people that are going through the same challenges with them. But you can also set up social listening streams to reveal trends and common challenges. But like I said, this will happen over time. You will get to understand them more. But just because they may not be as open to share their biggest challenges publicly, there are still ways that you can kind of set up the conversation and get some feedback from your followers in a more informal way. For example, on Twitter, you can simply just share a Twitter poll asking what the most helpful content would be for your audience. It's an informal, laid back, casual kind of way. They don't have to type out exactly what they are facing. And right there, that's a direct response from your current audience. Because at the end of the day, we're doing this for them. Everything we're doing when we're creating our posts day to day is to provide value for them. So just never take your focus on how you can provide the best experience for them.
11:32
Whitney Blankenship
Now, Olivia, I couldn't agree more. I think that, you know, coming out and saying, you know, you can look at your data and you can really kind of get a sense for, okay, so what's working, what's not working? But I mean, if you can get direct feedback, I mean, that's obviously going to be the most valuable. We do actually have a question that's come in. What is social listening? Can you kind of run that, run through that for our audience today?
12:01
Olivia Messina
Yeah, exactly, of course. So social listening is different than social engagement where you're monitoring the mentions and things that are going on. So social listening actually taps into the conversations that are going on outside of your brand mentions. So you can set up queries to pull in data around what people are talking about. So you can set up a query to talk about. For example, Oktopost, we are B2B social media engagement suite. So we have a stream set up where we can see when people are talking about social media management tools and maybe wanting to purchase a tool. So we set up those streams and we're able to have insight into what people are saying when they're looking for a new social media tool, even though they're not talking about Oktopost, we were not mentioned, we were not tagged. We are able to gain insight into those conversations. So that is why it's a great tool to utilize to see things that you might not have seen if you're not mentioned in something. So it's different than your community engagement metrics where you're seeing your comments and your mentions and tags and things like that.
13:10
Whitney Blankenship
Kind of like a spyglass on social media.
13:15
Olivia Messina
Exactly. So once you do have that target audience nailed down, now it's time to create your value driven content playlist. So when it comes to social media content, you have to remember that yes, social media value driven content leads the way, but social media is a place to be and your social media needs to be its own entity because we are no longer using social media just to drive traffic to our website. Long gone are those days. And if you are sharing nothing but links to the latest blog post might start to sound a little bit spammy. And yes, we Absolutely love our blog content. But on social, it's all about finding that really delicate balance between your demand generation content and content that builds community, fosters relationships, and provides value for your audience so that when they are ready to make that purchasing decision, they think of you. And you know, it's getting a little noisy out there. So when it comes to determining which content you're going to share, you have to ask yourself, what am I going to say and what am I going to do that is going to get someone to stop and pay attention to us and listen to us? So a really big important factor here is having that diverse mix, because again, if your content is very diverse, you're not going to sound spammy and you won't lose your audience's interest as much because you have that good mix. And I know as social media professionals, I feel like everyone has this ingrained in them. We've heard this so often that your social media content needs to do a few things. It needs to entertain, enlighten, educate. I feel like we all have heard that so many times. But you will have different buckets of content that you will share. Specifically for B2B, I have a few listed out on the screen here, but I think the biggest thing to really remember, and it's something that I'm thinking about when I'm creating content every single day, is we have to strike that good mix. And just don't forget that you are speaking to another human. Sometimes we can get wrapped up when we're writing content maybe about a technical product or very super important topic, and it can be hard to kind of make that human and engaging. So don't forget that you are speaking to another human. We don't need to talk like robots, even though we are in the B2B space. But I think above all, just focus on providing that value. And that's why knowing your audience is so crucial, so you can really target each message directly to them.
16:13
Whitney Blankenship
I honestly, I couldn't agree more. This is something that it's kind of like the central mantra for anybody that creates content. And I'm a content creator too, just on a different channel. So it's, you want to be people obsessed. You want to take, you know, your audience and their pain points and what is going to create value for them and put it absolutely at the center of everything that you're doing. And if you do that, you cannot go wrong.
16:39
Olivia Messina
Absolutely. All right. And now I'm super excited to talk about this because this is my favorite part about being a social media manager. And, and that is community engagement. So community engagement is not only so important, but honestly it's something that can make or break you because your job is not done done when you hit publish. As social media professionals, our job's not done when our posts get sent out. We still have more work to do. We're putting all of this time and effort into creating content for our audience. So once you have sent your posts out, it's time to engage back with your audience. Because social media is a two way conversation. And I think whenever community, community management enters the chat, I think some people get caught up in the fact that community is a closed group. But at the end of the day, every time that you are hitting post, you are contributing to building community. And I always like to say that community is built in the comments. And if someone is taking the time out of their day to comment on your posts and engage with your content, I believe that they deserve a response back, even the negative ones. I know it can be tricky to kind of navigate those situations, but I think every comment always deserves a response. And like I said, it can make or break you. So you do want to make sure you are very responsive and time sensitive with how often you check your comments and your DMs. I usually like to check every two hours or so during the working day. But at the end of the day, biggest takeaway, don't be a megaphone on social media. Venture out. Don't be nervous to leave your profiles and go engage with other users and other brands. LinkedIn actually released the feature a couple of months ago at this point point now where from a branded page you can actually go and comment on other posts without needing to be tagged. So definitely utilize that. I think that's a great tool for brand awareness because we don't follow brands the way that we actively follow people. So commenting and engaging in conversations and adding value to the conversations that are already taking place, that's a great way to build brand awareness right there. So there's a little growth hack for you. Don't be afraid to venture out and go engage with other people because it's. Social media is meant to be social. That's why it's named social media.
19:15
Whitney Blankenship
I have this great. It was, it was actually posted as a question. Was posted anonymously, which makes me a little sad because I'd love to give you credit for this, but we have don't post and ghost.
19:25
Olivia Messina
Yes.
19:26
Whitney Blankenship
Which is everything. I love it so much. So absolutely don't post. And it's so. It's so very relevant to the current season, which I love. So thank you very much for that. I love that. Don't post in ghost.
19:41
Olivia Messina
Absolutely. We got to get. We got to get that on the shirt.
19:44
Whitney Blankenship
We do. We need to do. That's. That's great. That's a great idea. Note that down.
19:50
Olivia Messina
Of course. So now we're getting into the good stuff. We are going to talk about a little experiment that we've been working on for a while, and it is around posting frequency. So we're going to dive into what we have found over the past couple of months, because on social media, there is this narrative, and I'm sure everyone listening in can probably relate to this, but there is this narrative that we always have to be doing more and we never have enough content. We always feel like we have to be doing more and more and more. So here at Oktopost, we decided to put this narrative to the test, and the results really surprised us. So in the past year on our owned channels, we decreased the amount of posts that we were sending out, and we decreased them by 29%. But not only did we just cut back on the sheer amount of posts that we were sending, we also shifted our mindset from focusing on the volume of our content to then focusing on the value of the messages that we were sharing with our audience. And we came to this decision because of two things. Number one, we were really starting to get caught up in that narrative that I was just talking about, where we needed to be posting so much content, and we were focusing on the sheer amount of content that we were sending every single day, rather than providing our audience with that rich content that they really deserved. And then two, we were not putting those best practices to place. So once we did start to implement those best practices, once we posted in line with the best practices per network and cut back on that content, we saw that our impressions increased, our engagements increased, and our engagement rate increased. So we are kind of breaking that narrative that not, like always posting so much, sometimes less can kind of be more. So, yeah, honestly, like, exciting.
21:56
Whitney Blankenship
I couldn't agree more. You know, it's crazy when you think about, like, we even. We fall into that. That trap of, oh, my gosh, we have to do more, we've got to create more. And I know, I feel that pressure too, in content. It's like, oh, we got to make more articles, got to do more of this, we got to do more that. And sometimes focusing on value over volume is really just the key that you need to go further.
22:24
Olivia Messina
Exactly. That is my new mantra, value over volume. And our results showed it right there that you don't need to focus on how much you're sending out. It's just focusing on what you are saying. So we got the results that we did because, like I said, we weren't using those best practices. And specifically on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, we were sharing more than one post per day, sometimes two to three, which is really crazy to think about now. But once we just stepped back and we're looking more into the way that the platform works, the LinkedIn algorithm only prioritizes one post per day. So when we were posting that other content, that second or third post was absolutely getting lost in the shuffle, and it wasn't getting any engagement because no one was seeing it. So when we did cut back on that content and we only posted once per day, it gave the algorithm some breathing room. And our content, we were able to see more impressions, so more people were seeing our content. So then more people were able to engage with our content. So the same thing actually kind of happened for Twitter. We were posting more than five times per day, sending out more than five tweets per day. And we knew that Twitter works differently and operates differently than LinkedIn. The lifespan of a tweet is much shorter than the lifespan of a LinkedIn post. I have LinkedIn posts that get engagement from a month ago. So the two platforms totally operate differently. But we were kind of getting caught up in. It's so quick, we gotta move fast. We have to share as many messages and many tweets as possible on Twitter. So we actually cut back to around three tweets per day. And there's actually data to suggest that after that third tweet, engagement can actually start to decrease. So I know I just touched on some metrics like impressions versus engagement. So I thought this would also be a great time to kind of dive into the most important metrics that I like to track to see if your content is resonating with your target audience and if it's performing and setting out to do what you are aiming to do. So when it first comes to growth on social media, I think there are two important metrics to track, and that is your impressions and your engagements. Because the goal of social media is to get people to engage with you on social. You want to reach your target audience, and once you have reached them, you want them to engage with your content. So as your impressions start to grow, impressions are the number of times that your content has appeared in someone's feed. So as More people are seeing your content. You want more people to be engaging with your content as well. So you do want these graphs to mirror each other, because as more people see your content, you want them engaging. So you do want them to increase at the same time. And as we all know, there are some things that we cannot control, and sometimes it's not the case where they are both rising at the same time. Sometimes your impressions increase, your engagements decrease, or vice versa. But actually, as you can see on the graphs here, our impressions have slightly decreased over the past month or so, but our engagements have actually remained pretty consistent. And that is because we are focusing on that valuable content that warrants a response that people want to engage with. They want to engage in our conversation. So it's always really important, I believe, to kind of understand what your data is telling you. So if you do have a huge spike in engagement, I think it's always important to kind of dig deeper and see what that is telling you, what piece of content is contributing to that. And sometimes, you know, you see a spike and you get really excited because, oh, my gosh, our engagement is increasing. But it's always important to dig deeper because what if you had 100 negative comments and that's why your engagement spiked? So I think as social media professionals, it's always important to understand what our data is kind of telling you. Of course, we can't be too hard on ourselves because there are things that are out of our control and certain things that can affect the way our content is performing. But overall, I think it's really important to see which kinds of content and topics are contributing to that success.
26:54
Whitney Blankenship
Now, I'm going to pop to the next slide, but we do have a couple of questions that I wanted to kind of pause for a second and dive into. So we have one question. When you say LinkedIn only prioritizes one post per day, does that also apply when multiple regional offices are using the same LinkedIn with language targeted posts? Which is a very good question.
27:16
Olivia Messina
Yes, that is a very good question. I would have to say I don't know for sure, but if it is the same account, I would have to imagine that the algorithm would operate the same. Would you agree, Whitney? I do.
27:33
Whitney Blankenship
There is a bit of an override to that algorithm prioritization, which, because I actually had an opportunity in early 2021 to actually attend a seminar given by somebody at LinkedIn who was telling us about the algorithm and how we can get the most engagement and how we can really grow on LinkedIn, which was incredibly valuable. And one of the things that really stuck in my mind was the one post per day. And then also the biggest part for me was getting engagement early on a post. So if you're creating a post on LinkedIn and you're able to get early engagement and get a little bit of traction, I think within the first hour, I think is what he said, then, that that tends to kind of propel you into more feeds. And all algorithms kind of work that way. Right. Like when you get more engagement, you're then going to appear in more feeds. Right. So I think that that's kind of, kind of part of the key to that too. So you can have engagement across multiple posts in a day. And I would imagine that the algorithm does take that into account, but I think that's something that we would have to actually research and kind of understand a little bit better. I think multilingual platforms and multilingual brands have some unique challenges on social media, especially concerning using the same account to post in different languages. That's a really, really great question. Thank you so much for asking it. And I'm just going to, like, I might reach out later on once we get a little bit more information about that, so I can maybe answer that a little bit more a little cleaner. And we have another question, which is, would a click through count as engagement? Does that count for as engagement?
29:33
Olivia Messina
Yes, it does, because that is someone taking action and engaging with your post. So, yes.
29:41
Whitney Blankenship
Awesome. And we now have another one. Oh, we got lots of them coming in. Okay. Is there a way to find out algorithm data, how algorithm algorithms work on a regular basis that is reliable? That's a really good question too. And I think that sometimes one of the issues with social media and Olivia, feel free to jump in, Correct me, keep me honest, is that the algorithms are always updating and what we have to do as social media marketers and as content creators is we've got to keep up with those. And I think that often the best sources, the social networks themselves, they usually announce algorithm updates and kind of walk you through, you know, what's going to be be happening. But there is a bit of a, I'm going to be honest, there is a bit of a curtain between what we know and what we would really, really want to know.
30:37
Olivia Messina
But I also say sorry to cut you off there. Even with the algorithm changes, feel free to test on your own, because if you are posting more than one LinkedIn post per day and it's working for you, keep doing what's working. So sometimes the algorithms change. But you know, maybe you're changing your own things as well or you're testing different things. And if something is working for you, I would say keep doing it as long as it's working.
31:04
Whitney Blankenship
If it's not broke, don't fix it. Right, Exactly. Absolutely. Okay. And we got one more question coming in. How does, how much does editing a caption after posting affect the algorithm visibility? Ah, that one's interesting, Olivia. Do you have any insights on that one?
31:20
Olivia Messina
This is, this is such an interesting one. And I have a theory. Now I don't know if LinkedIn has actually ever come out and say this, but I have heard that when you do edit a post within the first couple of hours, it might see it as spammy and it might not show your content to as many people. So what I like to do, if I need to edit a post or if I forgot to tag someone, I usually wait just a couple of hours and then I go back and edit it. Like I said, I don't know if LinkedIn has ever come out and say this, but it's things that I've heard from other leaders in the space and it's just kind of what I've been doing because it gives that, it lets that post have that two hour period where you want to get the most engagement. So I try not to mess with it within those first two hours. So that's kind of how I approach this. But I don't know. Have you heard anything, Whitney?
32:20
Whitney Blankenship
Yeah, well, I mean I haven't heard per se, but what I have is I've experienced that myself. I've noticed that with posts where I've very sillily made a typo or something and I've gone back in and I've edited in the first like 10 minutes. I have noticed that those posts tend to not get as much engagement. Not that's anecdotal. Again, that might depend, but I think that's definitely something that we could absolutely look into. And something else. So we have. Madeline's come in in the chat and she said, I recently asked LinkedIn this question. They've assured us that if posts are geo targeted, posting more than once per day will not penalize any of the posts. So thank you very much Madeline. I really appreciate that. That's a great response and definitely helps us kind of understand and answer that question. I figured that it wouldn't, but it's always, it's always good to kind of have it like have that definitive answer. Exactly. And that's all of our Questions for the moment.
33:26
Olivia Messina
All right, awesome. Well, with that, let's jump into to campaign level engagement. So this is another aspect that I look at specifically and keep a close eye on because looking at your campaigns and which ones are performing is giving you direct insight into what topics are resonating with your audience. So I like to look at the campaigns that specifically have the highest number of engagements, clicks and conversions. Now, those conversions are really important to me and my team as B2B marketers because of course, demand generation is a top goal. So our conversions are telling us exactly which content topics are getting people to our audience or to our website and to fill out a form. So that's really giving me insight into which content is allowing people and wanting them to make that jump to go to our website. So I think that anytime you can use these kind of metrics like conversions, anytime you can use that social media data to demonstrate that the activities that you are doing day in and day out, they're impacting leads and opportunities for your business. People will take you more seriously if you have numbers to back that up. That's power right there. So, and not only that, but it really helps you create similar messages down the line so that you can really create content again in line for what your audience wants. Because, you know, it's really all about finding what works for you and what works for your audience.
35:03
Whitney Blankenship
And I honestly, I really couldn't agree more. Especially I think social media, I mean, again, it was, it was written as sort of like a brand awareness thing for so long. But I mean, now we're kind of, I think in the B2B space especially, we're taking social media seriously. And any data that you have that can really kind of help support that narrative is just going to kind of feed into that virtuous cycle. And yeah, I think that these are very actionable metrics in terms of what kinds of data, I'm sorry, what kind of content you can create for the future.
35:46
Olivia Messina
Exactly. So at the end of the day, in the past year and all of our findings, we just are here to remind you that you are not trying to reach everyone. And it is not about making as much noise as possible on social media. It is about reaching who you set out to reach. And when you do that, you will find that ultimately sometimes less is actually more. Less noise, less volume and more value and providing the absolute best experience for your audience.
36:24
Whitney Blankenship
Olivia, thank you so, so, so much for joining us today. And thank you everyone for coming out. We're going to open it up for More questions, if you guys have any that are kind of left kind of rattling around in the brain and you just kind of want to get those answers real quick. And if not, you can always reach out to us. We've, we've actually linked our linkedins here and we'll be sending out the deck and the video tomorrow. So everybody will have all of these insights and all of this data and everything, plus ways to contact us if you, if you have questions that maybe you were just feeling a little shy about asking. Oh, so we got another question that's just rolled in that I'm very excited about. What is the best way to better get to know your audience? What's your opinion, Olivia?
37:18
Olivia Messina
This is kind of what I was talking about with those Facebook groups is really going into those places like Facebook groups or on Reddit. Reddit's a really great place to utilize and you can also use social listening to tap into Reddit as well. But going into those closed groups where people are comfortable sharing what they are facing, I think that's probably the best part, is putting yourself in the shoes and going where they are hanging out. So if your audience is not on LinkedIn, then LinkedIn is not the best network to go on and try to connect with your audience and start conversations with them. So I think it's about going where your audience is the most active.
38:01
Whitney Blankenship
Awesome. I'm sorry, I was just like trying to keep track because all of these question just flooded all of a sudden. So does the strength of a headline or a hook affect the algorithm? And I'm assuming we're talking about LinkedIn here,
38:17
Olivia Messina
so I don't know if it specifically affects the algorithm, but I think that a hook kind of makes or breaks if someone's going to stop the scroll and engage with your posts. So for me, I think it's important to have a very strong engaging hook because most of the times, you know, like I said, social media is getting noisy. There's so much content being published every single day. And I know for me as a consumer, when I'm scrolling Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, I read the first line or two of whatever that post is and if I'm not engaged or see something that interests me, right off the bat, I keep scrolling. And the same kind of thing happens. If I see a super long post, I read the first sentence or two and if it's not something that I absolutely need to read, I keep scrolling. So I think it does affect that engagement. So like, if you have a really engaging hook, people are going to want to like it, save it, engage with it. So that's, that's my take on it.
39:17
Whitney Blankenship
That's exactly what I would have said. It doesn't really affect the algorithm per se, but it does affect, like, we know that the algorithm prioritizes posts that get engagement. So if you're getting those clicks to expand, if you're getting, you know, reading, if you're getting comments and likes and, you know, reactions and all those kinds of things thanks to a great headline or a great hook, then that's, that's likely going to make a positive impact. Absolutely. Thank you very much for that question. I appreciate it. So we've got a question which I think you're going to really enjoy. Olivia, do you think TikTok works well for B2B? We love this question here.
39:58
Olivia Messina
I say 100%. Yes. TikTok is growing so rapidly and we know that TikTok knows no bounds. Or what's the saying about age? I don't know what the exact saying is, but everyone's on TikTok. Even B2B brands, B2B buyers, everyone's on TikTok, TikTok these days. And it's a great way to just reach a larger audience. It's very. It's a lot easier to grow on TikTok than it is these other networks. And it's just a great way to be human and present your brand in a more informal way, in a more engaging way, because you're not going to share the same content that you share on LinkedIn. Like, that's just not going to work at the end of the day. But there is a way to present your brand in an engaging way. And it's also a great place to kind of share like best tips or tricks, because a lot of people go to TikTok to search for how to do something or if they want to learn something new. I think actually last year TikTok had more visitors than Google. I think I heard that stat, which honestly doesn't surprise me because nowadays if I want to learn something, I will go to TikTok and type it in. And then you find hundreds of videos that have the answer and they're showing you how to do it. So you can also utilize TikTok for your employer branding and showing a little behind the scenes of your company and use it for recruitment. So I say Absolutely, yes. TikTok is great for B2B and it's also a place where you can really have fun because you have to tailor your messaging. You cannot post the same content that you're posting on your other network. So it's also a really fun place for social media managers to get a little more creative and get those creative juices flowing.
41:45
Whitney Blankenship
So that is absolutely true. I, what I've seen personally, and I think you've seen a lot of this too, Olivia, is that TikTok is working, working really well in terms of employer branding. And I think that like the little mini tutorials of how to do something easier, for example, if your business helps somebody do something a little easier than having that quick tutorial, that very DIY sort of aspect to it is, is really going to, that's going to resonate really well. And I think, I think there's a lot of opportunity on TikTok that, you know, B2B marketers have not yet, not yet broken into. And I, I think we're really going to see that in 2023, to be honest with you. Thanks so much for that question. So I'm going to answer just two more and then we're gonna have to call it. But do you think blog posts on social media should be posted with the graphic or with an auto, auto generated link image? What do you think, Olivia?
42:49
Olivia Messina
So I think it depends on what the auto generated link image is. I think if it's something that's engaging and can, will catch your audience's eye, you could keep it. But maybe you want to create a short little graphic that has like the top three takeaways that would get someone to engage with that blog post. So another tip that I've actually had someone say on my podcast behind the post, which I think is such a great tip. And you know, blog posts are so great and I think a great way to make them more engaging. It's not just saying, hey, come check out this blog post, blog post, but you can actually incorporate a question into your post and then say like, go find the answer in this blog post. So I think that's a great way to get engagement on those posts because, you know, our blogs are full of so much rich, valuable content. But, but as far as the graphic, I would say if it makes sense to, yes. But if not, create a quick little graphic with the top three takeaways and that would, that would want to make someone click and read more.
43:51
Whitney Blankenship
I completely agree. And I mean like even Facebook has a link debugger for a reason. Like because it will just, it's notorious for pulling the wrong image. Right? So I think that you're 100% right and I love that tip about Creating a tiny like a quick image with like best practices or a pop out stat or something that just really grabs attention. That makes so much sense.
44:16
Olivia Messina
Yeah.
44:17
Whitney Blankenship
So I work mostly with LinkedIn, but I'm not a social media specialist. Could you share some common mistakes that we should definitely avoid when posting on LinkedIn? This is going to be good.
44:29
Olivia Messina
So I would say try to make your content as consumable as possible. So don't be making your audience do a lot of work. If you have a point, get to the point and get to the point as soon as possible so you're not making your audience try to make sense of what you're saying. So I would say again, know who you're talking to, know what they care about. Again, all everything we just talked about about understanding your target audience. Don't just post content without keeping them in mind. Again, don't post too much. Don't flood your audience with so much content that they don't even know what to do with it. Don't spam your your audience with the same amount of content every single day. For example, if you have a webinar coming up, sprinkle in other content pieces. Don't just keep talking about that webinar because that's going to make someone lose interest. If you're just talking about the same thing over and over and over again. And then have a good mix of. If you're sharing videos and links and images and carousels, I would say just posting the same kind of content style all, all the time. You know, it's nice to switch it up sometimes and your audience will appreciate that as well. So definitely lean into that.
45:46
Whitney Blankenship
I agree. All right, and we just got one more that somebody popped into the chat. Hi Josh, if you're posting non generation, non, I'm guessing non lead generation content, how do you measure the success of that content in business terms? That is not just saying, oh this got 3% engagement rate, we earn new followers. How does it help the business?
46:11
Olivia Messina
So I think that is a little tricky because at the end of the day not every piece of content you're going to post is going to be demand gen content that has a link and you can track your conversions. So I think that it's important to tie metrics to your business goals. So like for example, if a post gets a lot of impressions and engagements, you can directly tie impressions and reach to brand awareness. So I would say think about the metric that you can tie to each goal because lead generation isn't going to be your goal on every Single post. You know, social media is about building that community and building a place for your followers to go and engage with you and other users in the industry and space. So I, yeah, I would say just try to tie those measurable metrics to goals. But Whitney, if you have anything to add.
47:09
Whitney Blankenship
So I think from a content perspective, because content often falls into this issue too, where, you know, we've got, you know, it's, it's kind of like, okay, so what's the impact? What is the impact? How do we tie that back to, you know, closed one, for example? And I think that that ends up being such a tricky question for people who are playing the long game, like content, like SEO. So what I would say is that not every piece of content has the same goal, right? Not every piece of content is going to be, you know, the lead gen. And I think that, you know, I would say, like, what, what was the purpose of your post? Was it to start a conversation? Did you manage to start that conversation? Did you have a great discussion in your comments? Do you have comments that are rolling in months after your, your post went on LinkedIn? That's a huge one. I've, there are some posts that we've made on, on Oktopost and even posts that we've made on personal accounts. You mentioned this earlier, Olivia, that we're, we're still getting engagement from and it's been three, four, five months because the more engagement gets, the more it appears in people's feeds and so on, so forth. So sometimes, you know, it's, it really is about, you know, having those conversations and gaining intel, right? Because if you're having those conversations, you're learning something. You're learning about what your audience wants to see and you're learning about, you know, where their pain points are depending on the conversation that you have, right? So if you're like, sometimes that, that might be tied to more brand awareness, sometimes that might be tied to, to just social intelligence, like understanding more about your audience. And you can use that, you can take that to, to product, you can take that to customer, you can take that to, to higher ups and the marketing team and say, like, hey, look, you know, this is what I'm learning. This is what people are saying. Here's the intel that I've gathered from social media. So I think that that's something, that's, that it's not one of those things that you can tie to a specific KPI, for example, but it's something that does make a difference and it makes a big impact. I think so. Thank you, everybody for joining us today. Thanks so much for taking the time. Olivia, we're going to go ahead and call it there. As I mentioned before, we are going to be sending out the deck in the video tomorrow. And I just want to thank you guys. This has been a great. I think this has been my favorite webinar so far.
49:39
Olivia Messina
This is awesome. Thanks for all the great questions. That's like the best part.
49:44
Whitney Blankenship
So, yeah, absolutely.
49:46
Olivia Messina
Questions, everyone. And thanks for tuning in. I've had so much fun kind of breaking it down and going back to the basics.
49:53
Whitney Blankenship
It's been great. Have a great evening, everybody, and we will see you in the next one.
