Hootsuite’s social breakfast: wise words

Digital Marketing

April 22, 2016

Yesterday we were invited by Hootsuite to attend their event ‘Unlocking business value: The Future of Social Content’.

Craig and I attended and we want to run you through a few things that were covered that we agree are important and apply in the way we work and for our clients. It was a great event, thanks to Hootsuite for having us, we are looking to work closely with them in the upcoming months to help deliver a great service to our clients on social.

1. Digital transformation has to start from the top

The Keynote presentation was by Michael Stenberg, Global VP Digital Marketing, Siemens. One example of how committed Siemens is to a content strategy that will aid the company’s digital communications is the bullish process Michael puts the corporation’s CEOs through when asking for their buy-in.

Michael demands that they attend a 7-hour session to educate them and decide their core topics for their role in the content strategy. As this requires a significant commitment at the first step of the process, Michael believes you will know by the end if you have a CEO who is fully behind the activity.

We know it can be difficult for our clients to gain internal buy-in from outside the marketing team, but this illustrates the importance a global brand such as Siemens places upon the whole company engaging with digital activity from the top down.

2. “It’s not about being always on, it’s about being always good.”

We completely agree with Adam Reader from LIDA London on his perspective that it is not about quantity, it is about quality. We often hear clients worry about the amount of output that is required from social activity, but one compelling story is always going to win through against 10 pieces of content that are simply posted for the sake of it. This trend towards better content has to be taken seriously when you look at the saturation of users’ timelines.

3. Video has to be part of your marketing strategy

 

Penny Wilson, CMO at Hootsuite, delivered the following stat during her presentation – by 2019, 80% of all internet traffic will be attributable to video.

Video can offer significant challenges to teams who are busy and constrained by budgets, but it cannot be ignored – and this is true of financial services marketing as much as any.  The question was asked during the panel discussion about how much video should be part of your content strategy, and the panel agreed it should be as much as you can afford!

We have seen many examples of video content done badly, but the production of quality video doesn’t always have to be a whole day in the studio. Simple things like getting the lighting correct, as Nerissa MacDonald from Facebook pointed out, can be instrumental in getting your videos to look engaging and professional. The panel at the event discussed the length videos should be, and of course there is no single answer for this. The first 5, 10 and 20 seconds are of course going to be extremely important if you are looking to get your message across to a time-poor audience. But, if you know you have an already engaged audience, then placing long-form content in front of those that have shown an interest in your content provides you with a real opportunity to tell a longer story – something we have seen a lot of success with when delivering paid social campaigns for clients.

4. Businesses, customers, employees… all humans!

 

We work with many B2B businesses in the brandformula digital team. Many initial conversations with clients are about battling the scepticism of why a business would want to engage with another business on social. Clearly this is not the way the world works, a business does not operate without the humans behind them – so get your brand to engage with them!

For each individual you are engaging with, think how they fit into your client journey – it may even help if you break it down to into the old-fashioned equivalent (i.e. evaluation used to be done through the yellow pages -see below tweet) to assist with your approach to content on each channel.

Author

Charlie Titcomb, Digital Marketing Manager

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Further Reading

Digital transformation has to be driven by your customers

The modern spring clean is a digital audit

We are always excited to hear how your digital strategy is challenging your business, tweet us @brandformula_uk.

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