Introduction: Social Selling, Visual Content, Social Media Tips and Other Musings
The Power of Visual Storytelling: How to Use Visuals, Videos, and Social Media to Market Your Brand
Many experts are jumping on the webinar bandwagon. Why? Because offering a webinar is one of the fastest ways to grow an email list and is also an easy way to sell products and services. The thinking behind offering webinars is to educate prospects so they choose your solution, or to get your customers to buy from you again. When a person signs up for a webinar, he or she knows that more than likely there will be an offer at the end of the training. After participating in the webinar, ‘How to use Social Selling to Explore Leads’ hosted by Hootsuite, it really hit home why educating your customers and prospects is so important. Customers do not know what they do not know, and it’s up to the service provider to educate them.
Have you read?
Taki Moore: Running Successful Webinars
In my quest to master social media, I have been attending webinars to learn as much as I can about the topic. Although I am a Hootsuite Pro customer, I was very interested in what they had to say because I was sure that I was not using the full functionality of the system. For those who are not familiar with Hootsuite, it is a social media management system to help you with brand management.
I use it to schedule my social media status updates, but after the webinar, I learned that I can do so much more with the system. I have been using Hootsuite for a few years, but I went pro about a year ago, but haven’t fully used all the capabilities. After the webinar, I made some changes to better make use of the power of the system.
To start off the webinar, Hootsuite defined social selling as:
“The use of social media by small-medium size businesses to increase productivity and generate revenue.”
Although the webinar was primarily about using Hootsuite, there were bits of information that everyone who has social media profile can use. For instance, in the other social media webinars that I attended, there was an emphasis on cover photos, and that was also the case with Hootsuite, but the host said something that struck me, which is to think of your cover photo as free advertising space. Think about that for a second. If you won free advertising on a billboard for a day, how would you use it? What would you say? Those are the thoughts that crossed my mind.
Another important piece of advice that I needed to be reminded of is to monitor your keywords. I set up keywords using services such as Google Alerts and Mention, but I need to be a lot more intentional about it. Hootsuite makes it easy to listen to what is being said about you and your products on social media. What I learned is that prospects do not necessarily use your name or products, so you must understand the kinds of keywords that they will likely use in conversations on social media. One more important piece of information I gleaned in the webinar was how to use Hootsuite to set up your prospect list.
Sometimes I get very frustrated with myself because I seldom think on my feet. Where my strength lies is reflecting on information, then connecting it to what I already know, and during this process, I often make the most amazing connections. So during webinars, I am unable to ask the really deep questions, because I do not think of them until after the session. So I have to figure out things for myself. Can you relate to that?
What this Hootsuite webinar has done for me, is to build on what I have recently learned about social media. And this is definitely a good thing. Learning is no good without doing, so after the webinar, I made the easy changes that I didn’t have to think about, on my Hootsuite Dashboard.
Visual Content
I love Canva because it is a platform that allows you to create amazing content without being a graphic designer. My images are not great yet, but I can seen improvements along the way. I notice amazing images that others create, and I study them to see why they work. As an introvert, my observation skills are highly developed, which is a good thing for me. When I figure out why an image works, I conduct research to find out how I can add those elements to my images using Canva.
On a Blab, ‘How to create AH-MAZING graphics that people can't wait…yep, can't wait to share!’ with Kim Garst and Rebekah Radice, they shared some great tips on how to improve the look of your images. The Blab was loaded with a lot of tips and resources and most of the information was new to me. We have all heard the saying, that a picture is worth a thousand words, so it’s important to choose the right image that complements your message.
Social Selling
Visual Content Tips
- Invest in your business.
- Identify what your brand looks like.
- Incorporate your branding into the graphic.
- What does your message look like in a graphic? What is the best way to tell your story with an image?
- What message are you trying to convey? Choose a graphic that complements your message, one that helps you to tell the story. Assume the role of a photojournalist – her photos tell the story.
- About 10 years ago, I attended a lecture that the Toronto Camera Club hosted, and Richard Lautens, a photojournalist for the Toronto Star, told us that taking the photo is easy, setting up the shot is more difficult. How will you compose the graphic to tell the best story related to the content?
- Don’t want a disconnect between your content and image.
- Use elements to add uniqueness to your brand.
- Make sure that your blog post title is in the graphic.
- Include your Twitter handle in the graphic.
Visual Content Resources
Visual Content Tools
Visual Content to Drive Traffic (Apps)
These apps allow you to create captivating visual content which drives traffic to your blog.
Befunky (Photo editor)
Legend – Animate Text in Video & GIF (Android, iPhone)
Overvideo Text & Music Video Editor
Final Thoughts: Social Selling, Visual Content, Social Media Tips and Other Musings
How do visual content drive sales? Do you use social selling as a part of your content marketing strategy? Understand what drives people, what motivates your audience – what are they looking for? Think of ways you can give them what they want. There are many tools and resources mentioned, play around with them to determine which ones you like.
Social SellingSocial Selling MasteryFanatical ProspectingThe LinkedIn Sales PlaybookSocial Media for Direct Selling
