McFly once sang “It’s all about you, it’s all about you baby”. Well, sadly, when it comes to social media and connecting with clients, it’s NOT all about you.
To really engage with people, with potential clients and customers, it must be about them.
It’s about what lights their fire, what makes them smile, what makes them think “ahhh, yes that’s so helpful” or “yes, that’s what I need to do”.
I call this Value Content. Think about the value you are giving to your fans and followers.
Do not even mention anything that comes back to what you offer – testimonials, case studies, discounts, offers, pricing guides or discovery calls. This sort of content is definitely useful and certainly has its place in your social media content. But ultimately the aim of this type of content, I call it Promo Content, is getting them to buy from you.
Yes, of course we do need to sell but not all the time.
We should see it as a privilege that we are in people’s social feeds and in their email inboxes. Because of this, we need to offer people something in return.
Before people buy, they firstly experience awareness; awareness of their problem or desire and then they need to become aware of you. They see you are talking about their need or desire and are aware that you can help them move forwards.
If people constantly see Promo Content all the time they will soon be turned off. Your engagement will go down and your email open rate will decrease.
So, what counts as Value Content?
Simply put, is it helpful and useful to your fans and followers.
Value content could be macro content (bigger picture, overall view) such as your blog, video or podcast or it could micro (bitesize), such as social media posts (eg snippets of your latest blog post, quick tips). Either way, the content is something that the reader can takeaway.
You might be wondering about posts such as behind the scenes or ‘about you’ posts? They can still come under the Value Content header. The ‘about you’ post can show you have empathy with your followers and understand their pain because you have been there too.
Talking about your brand values instils trust in your followers. For example, an email or article explaining why you only deal with suppliers who are organic certified will build awareness of you in the parent who wants to move to a more organic lifestyle. You are not saying come and buy my products or ‘look how wonderful my organic products are’.
Just because you are not providing the Promo Content doesn’t mean to say you won’t sell or get enquiries into your inbox. Value Content builds the like, know and trust factor and it is entirely possible that you can sales off the back of it.
So, go check your upcoming posts. Do you need to add in more Value Content?
Stuck for content ideas? Then you may be interested in my Content Creation Workshop – a two and a half hour session after which you’ll have oodles of content ideas for the next 3-6 months. Check it out here.
