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How To Post Social Media Content Every Day Without Losing Your Mind, Passion, Or Unique Branding

Do you feel like you need to post every day on your social networks to keep up with the Joneses? And if so, do you think that could be a detriment to your business? Not necessarily. You can post every day and maintain quality, variety, and value. It isn’t always easy to conceive ideas for new content every day, but there are ways to make it easier.

The 3 (Not-So) Secret Ingredients to Daily Social Media Content

To build a solid online presence and gain followers, post quality content regularly, with variety in your posts and value for your readers.

Quality. Variety. Value. These three variables, when combined, create top-notch blog posts. Don’t worry about keyword density or backlinks. Instead, focus on creating fascinating blog posts that people will link to naturally. Google’s Panda update rewards this sort of content because Google knows that your readers will naturally want to share or link to great content.

Quality Comes First.

Quality Comes First.

It’s a common misconception that you have to post more content to gain more followers. But the truth is that posting high-quality content will bring people back for more.

No matter how often your material gets shared on social media, people will stop viewing it and go elsewhere if it lacks quality. Quality is the key to creating solid relationships with your audience, and it’s what makes them want to keep coming back for more.

If you want to be seen as an expert, or just a credible source of information, you need to make sure that everything you post is high-quality. Your content needs to be researched, well-written and accurate. If it isn’t, no one will take you seriously, and they certainly won’t trust your opinions or advice!

Variety Comes Next.

Variety Comes Next.

We know you’re busy, so we don’t want to tell you this every day: posting the same thing every day is a bad idea.

There are a few reasons why. First, it gets boring—your followers will get bored and stop following you if they see the same thing repeatedly. Second, it’s not suitable for your brand—you want people to be excited about what you post, and if they can’t even remember what you posted yesterday because it was the same as today, how excited can they get?

So how do you make sure that doesn’t happen? We recommend posting 3-4 different kinds of posts throughout the week. How many depends on your industry—if your followers are in the tech industry, then maybe only one post per week is enough; but if they’re in retail or fashion, then perhaps two or three times per day might be necessary!

Your audience is looking for a variety of content that will help them with their daily lives. If all you do is post about how excellent your product is and why they should buy it, they’re going to get bored with what you offer.

People want more than just sales pitches from brands—they want something that helps them understand their problems and gives them advice on how to solve them.

You need to mix things up a bit! Some days, you can post a link to an article relevant to your business and industry. Other days, you can post a picture of something funny or cute. Sometimes, it’s even okay to post something that makes you happy! If all else fails, think about what would make other people like the posts they see in their feed—and then go with that.

Finally, Provide Value.

Finally, Provide Value.

Here’s the thing: If you’re not providing value to your followers, then what are you doing?

Your followers follow you because they want to learn something new and be inspired. They want to see what you’re up to in your business, but they also wish for tips and tricks to help them in their careers and personal lives.

So what do they get when they see a bunch of selfies and the same old sales pitches? Not much.

You need to give your followers something that will improve something for them. That’s where the real magic happens—when you give people something that makes their lives better, no matter how small or insignificant it seems.

The most important thing you can do as a brand is to give your followers something to make them feel valued.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of posting just to post—but if you’re not providing any kind of value in the posts you share, what are you even doing? What’s the point?

If you don’t have anything valuable to say or give to your followers, then why are they following you in the first place?

The answer: They want to be inspired, informed, and entertained by your content. And if they’re not getting that from you, well—they’re going somewhere else.

Conclusion

You’ve probably heard this before: you have to put in the time to see results.

It’s true—and especially true when it comes to content creation. When you’re trying to build a brand and gain followers, you’re building up trust. And you do that by showing your audience that you know what you’re talking about and that they can trust what you say.

That means creating quality content that tells your story, educates your audience, and gives them something they want or need.  It also means editing each piece of content, so it’s as accurate and polished as possible before publishing.

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#S4LSocial Blog Sales Advice Social Selling

Twitter Success: How To Score More Sales In Less Than 140 Characters

Twitter Chickens

With more than 500 million tweets sent each day from an average active monthly user base of 271 million people (and growing), Twitter can seem a bit daunting, even for long-time users.

But, as the largest source of third-party content in the world, can you afford NOT to join the party?

As an endless stream of news, videos, infographics, e-books, webinars, memes, and more, Twitter is teeming with information.

While it may appear that everyone is seemingly clamoring for attention at the world’s largest social conversation, your buyers and prospects turn to Twitter to gather and share this perpetual font of knowledge.

What’s the bottom line? Twitter can help you sell more.

Here are six actionable tips to help you sift through all of the noise and engage your clients and hot prospects.

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#S4LSocial Blog

How to Sell on Social Media: When To Pull The Trigger

The advent of social media has fundamentally and permanently changed the sales process. Given the behavior of today’s buyer, savvy sales professionals increasingly turn to social platforms as a healthy source of potential prospects.

How to Sell on Social Media
Gone are the days of information asymmetry, outdated sales transactions where one party (usually the salesperson) has more or better information than the other (i.e., the buyer).

Today’s buyer is better informed and better educated about your product or solution before s/he contacts you, the sales professional.

Statistics show that the buyer’s journey can be as much as 90 percent completed before s/he ever thinks about interacting with a sales person.

As the Social Selling revolution continues to captivate the sales industry, the most successful and forward-thinking sales representatives utilize social media to connect and capture more business than ever previously imagined.

According to an oft-quoted statistic from Jim Keenan, a whopping 78 percent of sales people using social media outsell their peers who aren’t using social.

But, how exactly is this accomplished? Here are three simple steps that describe the transformative process of “Social Selling,” or how to use social media to generate revenue:

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What To Do When Your Content Cupboard Is Bare?

It’s not just a bad dream – the type where you wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, with a feeling of impending doom. When your content cupboard is bare, you feel naked and exposed before your audience.

Cupcakes

For sales professionals, the content equation can seem both uncomfortable and overwhelming at times.

Content is the life blood of social selling. Without a constant source of relevant and helpful content, your prospects and potential buyers will wither on the vine and die like spoiled fruit.

Feeling an increased pressure to provide value to prospects and buyers during all stages of their buying journey, sales professionals must avoid any interruptions in their content stream or risk alienating their target audience.

Here are three strategies to fill any content chasm and help position you as a continuous, supportive resource to your buyer:

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Vanity Metrics vs. Real Social Selling KPIs – Avoiding Fool’s Gold

One should never establish any program or initiative unless the outcome can be measured. But, what happens when the metric is unreliable?

Social Selling Analytics

A common challenge facing industry professionals today is measuring the ROI of social media. Unfortunately, conventionally accepted methods rely upon faulty logic and reasoning and ultimately provide nothing of true value.

Metrics must have substance and should actually yield useful data that benchmark a specific result or action. Otherwise, your yardstick is nothing more than fool’s gold, which led to the ruin of many well-intentioned prospectors during the US gold rush of the mid-1800s.

Don’t make the same mistake by utilizing today’s social media iron pyrite: vanity metrics.

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How To Choose the Right Social Selling Tools

Right Social Selling Tools

Selecting the right tool may not guarantee Social Selling success, but using the wrong pro tool may spell disaster – for both you and your organization.

In theory, tools are supposed to make our life as a social seller easier.

The right tool can increase our productivity through automation by freeing time that was previously spent on mundane, repetitive tasks.

The right tool can gather essential information in a faster and more efficient manner.

But what are the criteria for choosing a pro tool? Here are 6 fundamental questions I consider when evaluating a new pro tool for our team:

Does it Solve the Problem

Full disclosure: I have a strong affinity for shiny new objects, but that type of thinking will distract you from your purpose. The only KPIs that matter when selecting pro tools: 1) What am I trying to accomplish? and 2) What problem does this tool solve for me beyond the obvious fact that it saves me time? Unless automation is your sole objective, dig deeper.

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Social Selling: Lead Generation Secrets

Lead Generation Secrets

Leads are the lifeblood of the modern sales professional. What happens when the well runs dry?

Ask any sales professional to describe his/her ideal working environment and among the top responses (after every deal is a whopper and it always closes) is an endless supply of sales qualified leads.

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Do LinkedIn Connections Matter?

Social Selling With Twitter

Sales professionals are obsessed with numbers. Unfortunately, their focus is not always on the numbers that truly matter.

Nearly every sales professional can recite the nuances of the most complex compensation plan, including commission structure, tiers, bonus clauses, and accelerated payouts.

Because, in their mind, compensation is a reward for performance. And that bottom line number is the only number that matters.

What about the effort it takes to achieve the coveted compensation target?

An old business axiom tells us to “work smarter, not harder.” In an industry that is notorious for looking for shortcuts to success, many sales pros miss the easiest shortcut of all: the power of their LinkedIn network.

Surprisingly, sales professionals continue to operate their LinkedIn network as a closed system – much like their Facebook page – inviting only people they know intimately – friends, family, and colleagues.

They actually have more connections/friends on Facebook than LinkedIn – a clear demonstration of where their priorities lie.

Sales professionals must think differently about their LinkedIn network.

LinkedIn is the equivalent of your digital business card. When you meet people, you should look to forge a digital connection on LinkedIn.

Opening your LinkedIn network will have a cumulative effect: as the number of connections increase and you utilize the LinkedIn publishing platform, more people will see, be influenced by, and share your content.

That shared content will, in turn, be seen, liked, and shared by the connections in your advocate network (your current second and third degree connections), which most likely includes champions and decision makers at companies you’ve been trying to access.

Savvy sales professionals will tap these expanded networks for introductions, or leverage them for further conversations.

Consider this: if you initiate five new conversations on LinkedIn per business day, that’s 1200 potential new opportunities per year.

If only 10 percent of those opportunities convert, that’s 120 net new pipeline opportunities – all because of an expanded LinkedIn network.

For sales professionals, that’s a bottom line number that matters.

To learn more about the value of an effective LinkedIn network, we hosted a new edition of our weekly #S4LSocial Twitter chat, which continues every Wednesday at 12 p.m. ET.

Here’s a transcript of the chat, including some of the best tweets:

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#S4LSocial Blog Sales Advice Social Selling

#S4LSocial: And Here’s the Pitch…

Social Selling With Twitter

You’re invited to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Major League Baseball game. How do you prepare for the moment when a crowded stadium is watching you?

Some people, even those with prior baseball experience, will crumble under the pressure.

What should be a routine act – throwing a baseball 60 feet – morphs into an embarrassing situation where the ball sails over the catcher, or worse yet, falls woefully short and rolls meekly towards home plate.

Others rise to the challenge and deliver the pitch right over the plate, like they’ve been playing the game their whole lives – even if they haven’t.

The difference? Preparation and practice.

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#S4LSocial: Be the Buyer

Social Selling With TwitterIn every transaction, there is a buyer and a seller. Who would you rather be?

There is a quantum shift in the way buyers and sellers communicate.

Gone are the days of information asymmetry, outdated sales transactions where one party (usually the salesperson) has more or better information than the other (i.e., the buyer).

Today’s buyer is better informed and better educated about your product or solution before s/he contacts you, the sales professional.

Statistics show that the buyer’s journey can be as much as 90 percent completed before s/he ever thinks about interacting with a sales person.

And for sales professionals, who crave complete control of the buying process, this is a frightening concept.