• Do This One Thing to Grow Your Business, Nonprofit, or Personal Brand with Social Media
    2022/05/12
    In this final episode of Season 1, Dr. Barnes shares one thing that every business, nonprofit, or a personal brand must do to grow with social media. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." Season 2 of the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Podcast will explore the 7 Things Your Social Media Plan Should Include and will be available in July 2022. Transcription: James Barnes: (00:07) Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host, James Barnes, and thank you for listening today. Let's get started. James Barnes: (00:22) Today, I want to share a story with you, a true story that happened to me when I was doing a workshop, a social media marketing workshop. And this last episode, I wanted to really be a word of encouragement to you about giving your social media a makeover to really grow your business. It's possible. Tons and tons of companies do it each and every day, and they grow their businesses with social media. But you got to do this one thing, and I'm going to tell you what that one thing is in just a few minutes, but I want you to know a story, something that happened to me that really gave me the reason to write the book and put together the content around five social media mistakes your business should avoid. James Barnes: (01:04) So I was giving this workshop, and the workshop started in the evening time, like five o'clock. So there was a meal that was provided and it was a group of business owners in a community. The next day, we were going to spend a couple more hours working on things in the morning for the social media marketing workshop, and much of what we've covered in season one, we went through during the workshop. James Barnes: (01:25) But at the very beginning of the workshop, we were going around the room and I was asking participants, business owners, "What are you expecting to get from this workshop?" They were there to give their social media a makeover. And I'll never forget this one guy, and I'm just going to call him Jim. When it got to him and it was his turn to speak about it. He said, "I don't have time to do social media. I'm too busy." Now, everybody prior to Jim had said, "Well, I'm looking to learn how to give my social media makeover. I want to get more engagement. I want to get more sales, more leads, build relationships." Lots of things, all positive outcomes, things of that nature you want to do. James Barnes: (02:03) But when it got to the Jim, it got really personal. And he just said, "I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to do this. I'm too busy." And it really changed the tone of the entire meeting that evening. You have to imagine, everyone's sitting around this U-shape table, beginning to eat. There are some still in the line getting food. I'm in the middle, talking with them. And he says this, and there's a couple of ways you could handle that. So I just asked Jim, I said, "Why don't you have time? Tell me more about it." And then I said, "Before you answer that," I said, "does anybody else feel like this?" James Barnes: (02:42) Every business owner in the room raised their hand. They said, "Yes, I struggle with this. I don't have time to do this." And for me, it was a moment of, okay, this is an opportunity I can help. This is a moment when they need the help of some kind. And so I was hoping that in the time we had left that day, and then the next morning, we could start to give them some help in the workshop. But Jim said that he didn't have time to resonate with everybody. And so we started talking about the reasons. Why don't we have time? And oftentimes, it's just we're so busy, we've connected with so much with our mobile devices to social networks, to so much that we're just really, really busy and running a business is a lot of work. James Barnes: (03:33) So, as we talked about those reasons and we started talking about, okay, which ones can we control? There's some of the stuff that we can control. There's some of it we can't control. But we can control a lot of our time and how we use it each and every day. So you've got one of two options. This is what we talked about there in the workshop that day. You can outsource someone to handle your social media management to get you started. If it's overwhelming, don't let it be. You can outsource to someone to start creating content, to get you up on the platform where your target market audience is at, where they're engaging that group of people. And just remember, this is not about just posting something. This is about how do you build community? How do you build a tribe engagement? How do you do that? James Barnes: (04:16) Think first about that. And one of the things that helped Jim that day, and I think all those business owners is that Jim hadn't yet identified the real problem that his business was solving for ...
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    12 分
  • The Social Media Blueprint for Success
    2022/05/05
    Dr. Barnes explains a series of questions you can use to create a social media blueprint for success. If you're stuck and not sure how to give your social media a makeover, these questions will help. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." In the book, Dr. Barnes documents the growth of a technology company as it implemented a social media blueprint for success. Although the company has a social media following of fewer than 50,000 on Facebook and Instagram, it routinely reaches between 10 and 20 million people each month by following the social media blueprint for success. Transcription: James Barnes: (00:07) Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host James Barnes and thank you for listening today. Let's get started. James Barnes: (00:22) Well in this season, we've been talking about the five social media mistakes your business should avoid. And we've been talking about how you turn those mistakes into principles you can use, to start giving your social media a makeover. That's really going to get your brand noticed and start to grow you online. And today what I want to talk about, it's called the social media makeover blueprint. In the book, I go through quite a bit of detail and show you the exact social media posts that you can create using the blueprint and all kinds of details and I show you the case study example for [inaudible 00:00:55], the company we documented in the book. But today I want to take a step toward that by just talking about the right questions. You should be asking to give your social media a makeover. James Barnes: (01:07) Okay? So we're just going to cover the questions in this episode and then wrap up season one. In the next episode, we're going to be talking about the one thing that you've got to do to give your social media a makeover. I'm going to give you the questions today, but there is one thing that you've got to do, and I'm going to tell you what that is in the final episode coming up to wrap up season one. But today let's talk about the questions. So the first question or set of questions really talks about problems and loss. We've talked about this at length. So I'm going to go through these questions piece by piece. Okay. Problem and loss. What is the customer problem you can solve with your products and services? What is the customer problem that you solve? Can you name at least two values your products and services deliver to your customers? James Barnes: (01:51) And these are values that if they don't purchase them, they're going to lose out on, maybe your product or service saves time and saves money, fewer headaches, something. So you want to think about that, what are those and what can you write answers to that question? And then finally, can you use videos or images to show customers experiencing their problems and losses? In other words, can you document the problem? At the end of the day, that's what it is for hog out of the company, in the book that we talk about and show. If you look at their social media, they're going to show you the damage to property and land and crops, and lots of types of damage that are caused on property and land that [inaudible 00:02:34] hogs caused, that's the villain for them if you will. James Barnes: (02:38) And so they documented this on social media extremely well, they show it and then they show the solution and they get into what that looks like for their technology there, their camera business. But again back to, can you use videos or images to show customers experiencing their problems and losses, whatever they may be, think about how you can do that and capture that. Next here are some questions about empathy. Can you explain or show empathy toward your customers? Can you use language that explains here's, how you can connect with them? I understand, we understand the problem you have, how frustrating it is, whatever it may be, you need to use empathy. So how can you do that? How can you show that you understand the problem and the losses your customers have experienced? James Barnes: (03:23) Maybe you have a personal story. Maybe you can share that with someone, your customers so that someone out there will connect with you and they'll go, you know what, they really do understand the problem I have. I want to do business with them. And a lot of times we buy stuff that really does connect with us that way. Another thing you can just ask yourself about this is, can you write empathetic statements to use on your social media and your other marketing. Once you really get good at writing words of empathy, not only will it be on your social media, it'll probably end up in your one-liner, maybe even your part of your value proposition, it could end up on your website, any of your marketing collateral can be a piece of that. So about ...
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    7 分
  • Five Principles You Can Follow to Build a Thriving Community on Social Media
    2022/04/28
    Dr. Barnes explains how to use five social media marketing principles to create a social media plan that attracts customer attention to get your personal brand, business, or nonprofit noticed. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." In the book, Dr. Barnes walks you through the steps you can take to give your social media a makeover that works. A free video course Social Media Makeover Made Simple can be found on the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Facebook page. View the pinned post for details. Transcription: James Barnes: (00:07) Welcome to the Bricks-to-Clicks Marketing Podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host James Barnes and thank you for listening today. Let's get started. James Barnes: (00:22) So in season one, we've been talking about five social media mistakes your business should avoid. And we've covered all five of the mistakes. In the last episode, we talked about mistake number five, not using social media. Today I want to talk about how you take all these five mistakes and you turn them around. Let's make avoiding mistakes into principles to follow. There are five principles to give your social media a makeover. James Barnes: (00:50) If you start doing this, if you start writing words, using imagery video to show these things, you're going to start to get more attention online for your brand and your business and that's going to be a good thing for you. So today I want to go through all five of these principles. These are the things that you can do now to really start to give your social media a makeover. James Barnes: (01:08) Now, remember, this is about the words that you write, the imagery that you use. These are the ideas that you want to implement. Okay? So principle number one, you want to explain your customer's problem and how it costs them time, money, frustration, or other losses. I don't know what it is that your customer has as a problem, but whatever it is, it's costing your customer also something. They're giving up something. You can even go so far as to tell them if they do nothing, it's going to continue to be a problem. Some problems are even worse if you don't address them as soon as you have them. James Barnes: (01:42) And you can use images or video to add to any or all of these points, but that's really principle number one. When we talked about this early on you had to connect problem and loss. That's what you want to do is you start to write and create content to go up on your social media. It's one of the ways you can get attention. James Barnes: (02:00) So let's shift forward now to principle number two. We want to explain that we understand our customer's problem, whatever it is, and the losses they experience. And that may be painful for some people, the advertisement example I gave you throughout those five episodes was all about a billboard that I had seen where if you had a gambling problem, this rehab facility offered a solution for that. And so what did they do? In big, bold letters in the middle of the billboard, they said, "We can help," in bold letters. James Barnes: (02:32) So empathy is an important part of that. Your customer needs to understand that you get it, you have been there, maybe you even have the proverbial t-shirt to prove it, right? So you've been down that path. You understand it. So you want to use empathetic language and then call them to do something about it. If you remember in the advertisement, the billboard, that rehab facility provided a phone number. That was the action step they wanted their customer to take. Once they understood the problem and loss and then empathy, boom, then they jumped and said, "Here's our name the rehab place. Here's the phone number, call." That's the kind of stuff you want to do. Principle number two, use empathy, start using empathy. James Barnes: (03:15) Principle number three, really talked about the mistake in number three, not using your secret weapon. Whatever you're selling your product or service should not be a secret weapon. I mean, people should know what it is. And if you use problem, loss, and empathy first in the content you create, then you can pivot to using content to show here's what we sell, here's how it's going to help you have a better life. And you can use images or videos either one or both to show that your product or service really does solve your customer's problem and ends their frustration, pain, and losses. It really is effective at doing that. James Barnes: (03:51) So if you say the problem is something is difficult or complicated, you want to make sure when you use words to describe your product or service, that it becomes easy and simple and effective. You want to relieve that tension or that drama that you created with the problem statement. So you want to use that. So that's principle number three, start using video and ...
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    9 分
  • Social Media Mistake #5
    2022/04/21
    Dr. Barnes shares the fifth social media mistake that many business leaders often make: They don't use social media ads because doing so can be overwhelming. Dr. Barnes explains how to create social media ads to grow your business, personal brand, or nonprofit without feeling overwhelmed. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." Transcription: James Barnes (00:07): Welcome to the Bricks to Clicks Marketing podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host, James Barnes. Thank you for listening today. Let's get started. James Barnes (00:22): Thanks for joining me again, back on the podcast. We've been talking about in season one, the five social media mistakes your business should avoid. Today we're going to talk about mistake number five, and this is it. Most businesses don't use social media ads because it's absolutely overwhelming to use them. I get it. I work with businesses all the time, and one of the things that they struggle with is using ads. Where do I start? How much money do I spend each month? What kind of returns should I be getting for the ads that I'm putting out? Should I use search ads or just should I focus on social media? There are so many questions surrounding this topic that you literally, there are just podcasts out there completely about social media ads and advertising and the whole idea and what you do to be persuasive and lots of other things. James Barnes (01:13): But I wanted to boil this down into not just here's the mistake because that's one step to helping you, but the rest of it is I want to layout three ads today that you can implement that's going to help grow your brand, that's going to give you more engagement, going to get you out in front of more people and get noticed. They're really simple ads to run. I'm going to tell you how to run them and things that we've seen be successful for companies we work with here at Mississippi State University in the Bricks to Clicks Marketing program for the past nine years. So we're going to share some research about all that today with you to help. The mistake is that you're just not using them. And it's completely understandable because it can be overwhelming to get started. So, that's really the hardest part is getting started into which type of ad should I use. James Barnes (02:00): So I'm going to talk about using Facebook Ads, but you can generalize this to Instagram as well and/or some other platforms because a lot of it's the same thing. The ad copy itself is going to be a little different depending on the platform, the words you use, and the imagery or video, but at the end of the day, how you execute and who you serve these two are going to be very similar. So with that in mind, let's talk about three ads you can implement today to break the overwhelm, get you unstuck, to start using social media ads. James Barnes (02:34): The first thing is I start with a small budget. Most of the companies that come into our program are small businesses. They have literally, it's probably 500 to $1000 or less oftentimes to start experimenting. How do I experiment with using social media ads? The first thing that you have to get comfortable with is you're going to need to continue to learn. You're not going to run a set of ads this month and that be what you do the rest of the 12 months or the rest of the 11 months. You're going to learn. You're going to be implementing ads. You're going to see how you do. You're going to make adjustments. You're going to run them again. James Barnes (03:05): So, the mindset here needs to be, that this is the beginning, not the end, and you're going to have to make changes to it. That's completely acceptable and that's completely normal. That's the way everybody does it. You put something out there, you see how it does. You make edits to the ad copy, to the image or video, or even to the target market who you're serving it, and then you go again and you try it and you see how you do. It's always about constant improvement as to what you're doing in ad space. So that's pretty much the mindset that you need to have. James Barnes (03:36): All right. Ad number one that you want to be running is to first start to build awareness about maybe your Facebook page. You want to talk about Facebook. So in this ad space, what that's going to look like is a page-like campaign. There are several objectives you can choose when you're in the Ads Manager on Facebook, and this one is going to be focused on getting awareness for the brand or your company. You're going to be running ads to create and get page likes. That's what you want. You want more followers to be aware of what you do and who you serve and how you can help them have a better life. That's the kind of thing you want to focus on. James Barnes (04:13): When you're running the page likes ads, one of the things I would ...
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    13 分
  • Social Media Mistake #4
    2022/04/14
    Dr. Barnes shares the fourth social media mistake that many business leaders often make. This one mistake can leave people confused about your mission as a business, personal brand, or nonprofit. And if that happens, you won't get the number one thing you need online to get engagement: attention. In this episode, Dr. Barnes explains how avoiding this mistake can help any organization get attention and engagement. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." Transcription: James Barnes (00:07): Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host, James Barnes. And thank you for listening today. James Barnes (00:22): In season one, we've been talking about five social media mistakes your business should avoid. And today, I want to talk about mistake number four, and it's really this: You don't identify the villain in your customers' stories. Villains play a very important role in the story that you're telling on social media and brands use villains all the time. And there are all sorts of villains that you can identify in your marketing and especially to tell the story on social media. And I want to give you a few examples and then lead you through a process that you can use to discover what's the villain really on for your customer because remember the villain causes this customer, your customer to have a problem and ask the question, why are your customers not solving their problem? This leads us directly to know who the villain is or what the villain is. James Barnes (01:12): So if you look at this, sometimes a villain can be the competition. It can be your competition. Brands do this all the time. T-Mobile does this and did this many, many years ago. In 2012, when the new CEO took over, they identified their villain early on. This is written up in a Harvard Business Review article. You can check out. At the time, they had 33 million subscribers and by 2016, based on using the villain that they identified in their story, in their marketing, they jump to 69 million. So the villain was a competitor, AT&T and actually Verizon a little bit too. And so they really chose AT&T but of course, Verizon was lumped in there as well as they began to argue why their service is so much better. James Barnes (01:57): And so this happened in the mobile industry, and it also it's happened over the years in real software and hardware programs for computers. Years ago, there was a series of YouTube ads that were on Get a Mac and it pitted the cool guy in the ad who was the Mac person or Apple person against the nerdy looking guy in the image, [inaudible 00:02:24] glasses and all how they characterized him. And so they had this conversation back and forth as to who was better at what, and Apple always came out on top, of course, on different things that they're really better at. That's their whole idea. James Barnes (02:35): And so one villain that you can use is a competitor. And now just know when you did it just like it did with T-Mobile, they're going to engage in the fight. I mean, if you come out and say something, they're going to come out and say something. And so if you're wanting to pick a fight and really choose a villain like that, a competitor, it will do it. It will work. This happens in lots of other industries and lots of different examples, but that's one example of how people choose a villain and then use that in their marketing and they tell this story of how they're fighting against the villain. And everybody listens to those stories because it introduces something that holds our attention. It's called drama, and the villain's causing the drama, causing the problem for our customers. James Barnes (03:18): So problem and loss, we've talked about early on in the episodes for this season, how we need to characterize what that is. Well, the villain really causes the problem and the losses to happen. And if we can name it, if we can describe it, if we can show it, then we're going to amp up the drama that people are going to be listening to. Then soon after that, it's all about how you solve that drama and get rid of it. Well, you get rid of it by selling the service or product, whatever you have, that's going to defeat the villain. It gives the customer a tool, gives the customer a product or service that they can use to defeat the villain. James Barnes (03:52): Another example, a lot of times, small business owners won't have time to do their marketing is just there are so many different things they're doing. And so years ago, a marketing company created a time thief as a villain. And so this time thief would, or a thief would go around and steal your time as you were operating your small business. And so you didn't have time to do your marketing and something else would happen in the business throughout the day. And you wouldn't ...
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    13 分
  • Social Media Mistake #3
    2022/02/07
    Dr. Barnes shares the third social media mistake that many business leaders often make. This one mistake positions a company’s products or services incorrectly in the mind of customers. Making this mistake can drastically reduce engagement, leads, and sales. Dr. Barnes explains how avoiding this mistake can keep a brand or company’s product and service top-of-mind with its social media followers. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." Transcription: Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host James Barnes and thank you for listening today. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. In season one, we've been talking about the five social media mistakes your business should avoid based on a book I wrote that just came out on Amazon and Audible not long ago. And I just want to carve out a little piece again from the book. And today we're going to talk about really mistake number three, and the mistake is you don't use your secret weapon. What do I mean by that? In previous episodes, we've talked about explaining to your customer that you understand the problem they have and the losses they experience, and that sort of goes together, problem and loss. And then next we wanted to add empathy, you want to express genuine empathy so your customer understands you get it, you know what problem they have, you know how to solve it. You get it, you have empathy. And then today, really the reason I call it "you're not using your secret weapon" is that a lot of times those pieces do not go into the marketing collateral when people just say, "Here's my service and you should buy it." They don't know why to buy it. They don't know if they buy it, how their life is going to be made better. Sometimes they may be even unclear as to how they even buy the service or engage with the company or brand online. So what you have to do is you have to position yourself so that your products and services can be the solution to the problem and loss that your customers are having. You explain the problem and loss that they have, you understand it with empathy, and then you can immediately position what you sell as the solution to it. Think about it like this, if you sell something that helps customers reduce anxiety, then what does life look like when someone has less anxiety? Well, your solution, whatever it is that you're selling that does that, needs to express those points, it needs to say, "If you buy this service, you're going to reduce your stress, you're going to be able to get back to life and live it to the fullest," that kind of stuff. So your secret weapon is really what you sell, but you don't want it to be a secret weapon. But when it's not positioned as the solution to the problem your customers have, it does has become a secret weapon because people don't know about it, they don't know why they should actually buy it and you don't want that. So what you want to do is express that you understand the problem they have, problem, loss, and empathy go first, and then you can pivot to offer what it is you sell, could be an ebook that helps them do something, could be any kind of service or product, it just doesn't matter. You want to position yourself as the solution to the problem. And if you want to think about like, your customer's problem, there's some pain point they have about it, and your solution provides the medicine. So pain and medicine go together. All of a sudden you relieve the tension they have, the stress they have, the problem they have, and you have a chance to sell what it is that you sell in your business, product service, whatever it may be. That's sort of the idea, and that's the kind of content that you would write in any social media post, problem, loss, empathy, and then you can offer your service, whatever it may be. It doesn't have to be for sale either, it could be a free e-book or free something else. I'll go back to the example I've been using in the podcast for the season, and that is the billboard example. I was driving down the road in Louisiana years ago and saw this billboard and the top it said, "Gambling problem?" And then it said, "You could lose this," and there was a silhouette of the family and you could see that was the loss. And so underneath, they expressed empathy by simply saying, "We can help," in really bold letters, you could see it very easily. Well, the next component to that is the secret weapon. What's the service? What is it I can now use that you have to actually solve these problems that I have about gambling? And so what this company did is they had the name of the rehab facility and it said, "Call us at..." and then it gave the phone number. So they were calling their customer to action once they said, "Here's our secret weapon, here's our service, here's who we are." But they did ...
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    7 分
  • Social Media Mistake #2
    2022/02/07
    Dr. Barnes shares the second social media mistake that many business leaders often make. When business leaders make this mistake, trust cannot be built between a brand or business and its social media followers. Dr. Barnes explains how business leaders can avoid this mistake and instead build trust so social media followers engage with a brand or business. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." Transcription: Welcome to the Bricks 2 Clicks Marketing podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle to market your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host, James Barnes. And thank you for listening today. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. In season one, we're talking about five social media mistakes your business should avoid. It's based on a book I wrote, it's on Amazon and Kindle, and I just want to carve out a little bit more content about this second mistake, mistake number two, that so many companies make in their social media marketing. And here it is: they don't use enough empathy. Empathy tells your customer that you understand the problem that they have and expressed in a way that's genuine. And remember, we were talking about it in the last episode, we talked about problem and loss and how we need to be talking to our customers about the problem they have and the losses they'll continue to experience if they don't solve the problem. And that helps us also then pivot to saying, "We understand it; we get it." And that is empathy. That's the basic foundation for starting to connect with your customer. You understand the problem and loss. Now you're in a position where you can express empathy, and this is not a place where you fake it. You really do need to have genuine empathy. You really understand that the problem that your customers have, you've experienced their problem. You've made a business out of helping people get out of that problem and find solutions, which is what you sell. And so you want to be genuine, but you want to be using empathy. And I want to go back to my example from the last episode about the billboard. As I was driving down the road many years ago in Louisiana, I saw a billboard, one of the best ads I've ever seen to date. And at the top of it just said, "Gambling problem?" And then it said, "You could lose this." And then next to that statement, it had a silhouette of a family. So it captured the whole idea of problem-loss very, very quickly. And remember, the problem is the hook and the loss makes us feel, look, I'm going to have to do something about this. I don't want to experience loss. There's a great deal of behavioral economics that support that whole idea of how we act to avoid losses. And I'm not going to go into all the stuff here about that, but problem and loss are there in that billboard. And the next statement is one of the most powerful things they said, and it was really simple. And it simply said underneath, "We can help." That may sound really overly simplistic. "All right, that's it, James? That's all they said?" Yeah. That's enough. When you tell your customers you understand the problem they have, you understand the losses they're going to experience or have been experiencing, and that you understand it and we can help, it's just therapy. I mean, it really is. I mean, think back in your life, when you had someone to listen to you, and maybe it wasn't a therapist, just a good friend who was a good listener. And he said, "Look, I'm struggling with this." And your friend said, "Okay, tell me about it." And you just unloaded and you got all that out. They listened and they said, "Man, that's a really tough thing you're going through. I get it. I can see why you'd be struggling." That's the kind of stuff that you want to be doing with your customers. You want to be empathizing with the problem they have. And it doesn't matter what kind of business. If you have a plumbing business, a cleaning business, an automotive repair shop, if you have a coffee business, it does not matter. If you're a consultant, a life coach, it doesn't matter. You being empathetic to the problem your customers have is going to help you get attention because they really will trust and believe that you understand their problem and can help them solve it. And at the end of the day, that's what you want to be positioning your business. Whether personal brand or business, you want to be positioned as a helpful business; a helpful brand. And the way you do that is you understand the problem and loss your customers are going through. And you start empathizing with that problem, those pains, whatever it may be, of the feelings they have. Last time, I gave you an exercise to go through and identify the problem that you solve for your customers. And remember, it was like, you could do it in Excel or you do it on a piece of paper. In one column, you had "Problem." And I said, just simply fill out, "We help...
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    10 分
  • Social Media Mistake #1
    2022/02/07
    Dr. Barnes shares the first social media mistake that so many business leaders make. This one mistake can limit engagement and cause people to unfollow a brand or business on social media. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." Transcription: Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle to market your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host James Barnes. And thank you for listening today. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. I'm glad you joined me here today. As you know, in season one, we're talking about the five social media mistakes your business should avoid. And today I want to dedicate this little short episode to mistake number one. And I think it's one of the things that I've seen over the last many years that the companies struggle with really at the very beginning of even creating a marketing message in general, but also just putting content out on social media. And it's this. This is the mistake. Most of the time businesses don't talk about the problem they help their customers solve. And that's part of it. There's a problem piece that's missing. They're about how they solve the problem for their customer, how this problem needs to be overcome. And they don't talk about it as a problem first content and people need to, because the problem is the hook. If you've ever watched any good series on Netflix or any movie or anything that you've enjoyed watching, most of the time at the beginning of the show, something blows up. There's always a problem. Someone is abducted. Gosh, maybe it's a supervillain that appears and they're going to destroy the earth. It could be lots of things, but there's always a problem at the beginning and that creates the drama. And then that drama has to be relieved or solved throughout the movie. This is the same hook that works in your marketing. You have to start with the problem. What is it that you solve for your customer that's a problem they have? And so that's where you really have to start. Now, the second piece to that is it's not just about talking about the problem. It's also identifying that if your customer has a problem, they are losing out on something. If they have a problem, they're experiencing some kind of loss. The loss may be loss of time, loss of money, loss of a lot of things. It could be a lot of things, but time and money would capture a whole bunch of it. Okay. The problem is people don't talk about problems and losses together. And let me give you an example. I was driving down the road many years ago in Louisiana, and I saw a billboard. And to this day, it's one of the best advertisements I've ever seen that captures this whole idea of problem loss and putting it together. At the top of the billboard, it simply said, "Gambling problem?" There's a question mark. That's it. And then next to it said, "You could lose this." And the image that they had drawn next to it was just a silhouette of a family. Now, if you had that particular problem if you struggled with gambling, and you saw that, how fast would that identify you as, yeah, that's me? At the end of the day, that's what we want our customers to say when they read our marketing content about what we do to help them. We want them to self-identify and say, oh yeah, that's me. That's the problem I have. And that's what I need help with. This billboard was amazing. It was so short and sweet, to the point gambling problem. And then it said you could lose this and it had a silhouette of the family. And it was so clear that if you continue to have the problem today and in the future, you risk losing your family in lots of different ways, relationships, could be a divorce, could be lots of things, could be lots of losses, but it's just a powerful example of how, if we can start talking to our customers about the problem that they really have, it positions us so well to actually do business with them eventually, because we really do want to help them. At the end of the day, most companies solve problems for customers because they want to help people. And there are just tons and tons of examples of it. But if you don't put together problems and losses and you just talk about the problem, sometimes our customers don't feel the loss if they don't do business with us. And there has to be some kind of loss. They're going to lose time. They're going to lose money. Something is going to happen that's not a good thing for them. And it's our job to talk about that a little bit. We don't want to be too negative about it. One of the things that you can do to lighten this just a little bit is you can ask a question like that. Gambling problem? Pretty straightforward. It's not too negative. You could lose this silhouette of the family. That's heavy, but it does make the connection. And an addiction problem like that, they're making the point. This is a big deal. You've got to get on ...
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