Welcome to episode 53 of the Industry
Angel, thanks for returning.  Last
week we videoed the introduction so
we're going to try that again today and
thanks for your feedback as well, I know
you enjoyed it and you guys sent me
quite a lot of feedback, quite a lot of
questions which I'm going to get onto
today actually, because we discussed
content marketing and it's sort of
resonated with you guys and I've got a
bunch of questions and interestingly
enough you want to know about influencer
marketing which is a bit of a buzzword
these days it's a term you might have
seen used around and you guys have asked
what my opinion on it is, if
you think should you implement it and it
really depends obviously depends on what
your product or service is or if your
value prop is business to consumer, then
then yeah maybe it is something but if
you don't know what influencer marketing
is I'm going to give you a quick
run-through and I'm going to give you an
idea of how you can do it better okay. So
if anyone that doesn't know the term
it's essentially it's a tool to get
you in front of an audience but via an
influencer, so that person will already
have the audience in place hopefully
they'll be trusted and they can share
information about products to their
followers... hopefully with integrity!
Examples of famous ones have been, you
know, models for instance or superstars
posting pictures of themselves wearing
a particular dress or recommended a
particular device.  Sometimes you
don't even know what's happening.  I
think it's two out of three consumers
engage with branded content now, so this
is big business and as I say you
probably don't even know what's
happening sometimes, there's even
platforms out there who can hook you up
with influencers.  So they know the
influencers, they have got access to them
and if you wanted a particular
demographic or particular target market
you can go to these platforms and say I
want to be in front of this chosen
target audience and they'll get you in
front of them, it's
pretty crazy how it's gone now, so
yes it is interesting it actually can be
quite little cost due to the return, so
you know if you do get your dress wore
by some rock star and it's sees by
millions then yeah I guess it is a low
return, interesting for me is it's
targetable okay and it's also trackable
as well, you can really see the
impressions and how many people
retweeted it, seen it, hit the hashtag
whatever, so yes it's interesting but I
want to talk about... I want to flip this
question okay, I'm gonna talk about.. it's
close to my heart and it's customer
influencing and employee advocacy okay. So
customer influencing,  hopefully
you've got some fantastic customs I know
you guys have, you've got... they love you
okay and you've got case studies from
them haven't you???
yep okay you've got some great case
studies and customers who rave about
your value proposition, they love you and
they trust you and they want to refer you
okay.  So get that case study in front them
if it's in a video even better you can
push it through your channels and the
customers channels as well, so if the
customers shown in a good light and they
have moved into a good space by using
your product or service they're going to
push through their channels and they've
enhanced their business by using it so
why not, if the videos done in a good way
they will showcase you through their
channels you can sure showcase
through your channels and it's just a
nice marketing message and I think this
one's quite overlooked. Okay right next
one my favorites because I bet you guys
aren't doing this okay employee advocacy.
Right, this is your employees raising
exposure through their channels.
Just think of the available network, so
you're in a company five strong 10 20 30
50 whatever okay and their all fully
connected
on social media.  So imagine 35 fully
connected superfans with your business,
give them ownership alright, make them
feel a part of this strategy.  I recommend
you put a social media strategy in place,
some guidelines, some do's and don'ts.
Once you've got that policy
in place... go for it.  You know that
you've got a social strategy anyway and
this will dovetail nicely.  Maybe
gamify it
how many mentions can you get... how many
impressions can you reach... maybe
incentivise staff you know, give them
bonuses if the hit X, take them here if
they hit Y.  You've got all these employees
sitting in the business who aren't
being encouraged to share through social.
Give them some free swag, get the the guys some t-shirts, give them
some water flasks for the gym and
cool cups, anything... you've got such a
reach there and in terms of reach let's
have a think, say a company has 50
employees and they've got 500 fans on
this Facebook business page that reaches
500 that's it, that's all it can reach
okay, now every employee in your business
has an average I think it's 338
friends on average, on Facebook I think
we've got, now think about that, if
youv've got all your employees...
say 50 have 338 staff... sorry 338 friends, that's a
reach of like 17,000 people they could
hit and the good point about this is
that your friends are 16 times more
likely to read a post from you than a
brand, that's just fact, you know if you
say that (FACT) then it's just a
fact, but no it is, it is, they will,
you'll do it yourself, you know yourself
if one of your friends shares something
you're gonna you're going to look at it
whereas if it's a sponsored ad or or a
brand sometimes you just like
thumb past it.
So today's takeaway... implement your
employee advocacy, plan a strategy,
explain the benefits to the team,
implement social guidelines okay, create
a hashtag, that's an interesting one.. so
you could have your own firms hashtag, I
use quite a few, I use #noSHOUTcuts
because lots of people are looking for
shortcuts and they're shouting so I
use #noSHOUTcuts I use #farnorthresults sometimes, so create your hashtag,
share thousands, take over the world. I
want to see photos, I want to see
your personal journeys, why I love to
work for the company, I want to see you
baking, having a charity race,
whatever it is, humanize the business get
those employees shouting about what you
guys do, so for me that is influencer
marketing.
okay until next time thanks for watching
and thanks for listening
