NAB Show Webinar – Using Social Media (What Really Works)

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Cindy Zuelsdorf: Hi, I’m Cindy Zuelsdorf with NAB Show Exhibitors webinar and Kokoro Marketing. And today, we’re looking at using social media at the NAB show to promote your company, and we’re going to get into what works. So, we’re going to talk about how to know if social media is right for your company, what kind of social media is right for the trade show, and what are things like pixels, tags, events, coupon codes, and geo-fencing. And also, we’ll be taking your questions live during the webinar, and so we’ll hit your questions as we go through, and also we’ll have a Q and A at the end. And I want to welcome our special guest

Michelle Maddox. She is the marketing director at Imagine Products. Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle Maddox: Thank you so much, Cindy. Thanks for having me guys, I’m excited to be here.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: All right, well let’s jump right into it. So, a lot of us are wondering, should we use social media for our business and does it really work? And when you and I talked, you were really just telling me about how you started out at Imagine Products, and I loved that story because you leveraged social media to get to where you are today. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Michelle Maddox: Yeah sure. I started out actually as an intern, and I was still in college at the time. And I went to NAB for the first time three weeks after I started at Imagine Products, so I still was trying to figure out exactly what the company was, what its role was in the industry, and learn the lingo. I’m not very tech savvy, so it was a steep learning curve for me. So, I just thought, what can I do to help out? I knew that the company had a social media presence, but it wasn’t very developed. It was an afterthought, so I just tried to leverage that while I was at the show.

So one of the things I did was, I listened a lot so I could learn. But as customers or potential customers were coming up to the booth to talk to some of my coworkers, I was searching for them on our social media sites, Twitter particularly, and trying to connect with them. And just snapping some pictures and thanking them for coming by and talking to us, and looking at whatever product it was they were interested in. And that kind of really helped blossom our social media presence, and I think it impressed my boss. I was offered the job about two months later, so that was a nice bonus. But that was just my way of contributing to my first NAB when I really didn’t know anything, and just trying to get my footing, and it ended up really working really well for us. Now, we have a pretty decent social media following. We’re happy with it, so I think that was a good way to start off my career here.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: I love that, and I love the piece where you’re talking about, “Hey, being new to the industry and wanting to jump in and contribute, what’s a great way to do it?” And it’s so interesting that you say you would tag somebody in a post and then as they’re leaving the booth, they would maybe reply back and stuff like that. Talk about engagement at the show, I think that’s awesome.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, it was cool. And I think it helped spread the word about what we were doing because everybody’s got a network. And when you’re tapping into someone’s network, then you get access to all of those people as well, and I think people like that personal touch. We’re a small company, so we try to thrive on that personal touch when we can, and I think that was just a really good way to capture, you know, that connection with people.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Right. I mean, being a small company, you’ve got that unfair advantage of being able to be personal with people. They know exactly who you are, they could pick up the phone, and bigger companies have other advantages, and small and medium-sized companies have that unfair advantage. I love that.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, it was a great tool for me because at that point I did not have any marketing budget that I was responsible for because I was just an intern. But it was just a really good, free way to kind of drum up business and capture those customers or potential customers, and kind of cultivate those relationships.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: I have been doing, on behalf of NAB, doing some calls with new exhibitors who want some marketing help. And one of the questions people asked, so for those of you who are on and we’ve already chatted, some people come on those calls and say, “I don’t have any marketing budget, we are spending it all on being at the show. What can I do to generate buzz?” So to your point, you just came right out and used social media to do that.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, I think that social media is a great way. I mean, you can put money into it, but I don’t think you have to. I think that it’s really about your time, that’s the most important thing with social media. And being accessible to your customers, and I think it’s important that every company have some sort of presence on social media. And you have to pick and choose which ones are the right platforms for you and your company. You know, we did Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn for a long time, and I was really resistant to Instagram mostly because I really didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t use it in my personal life. It kind of became popular after I started this job, and I wasn’t really sure what we would do with it, but that has been one of the most surprising tools for me. And I don’t personally post a lot on it for the company, but my customers post a lot on it, and they tag us. And that, I think, is sometimes even better than the company doing it.

Michelle Maddox: You know, you’ve got those testimonials. Everybody wants to hear who’s actually using it, and for the customers to post these gorgeous pictures of how they’re using your products, it’s a huge compliment and I think it really goes a long way with your potential customers that you’re trying to connect with.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: So, give us a chat in, everybody who’s attending, let’s just pick on a scale of one to 10 where one is not really … haven’t done anything with social media, unfamiliar with it, that’s why I’m on this webinar, but not doing anything. And 10, totally have it maxed out. We could be giving this webinar, we’re so good at it right now. We could crush it. And five, we’re hey, I’m doing some, wanting to improve. So, on a scale of one to 10, go ahead and just chat. And if you want to be private about it, you can just chat to the panelist or the host so you don’t share, or chat to the whole group. So, just give us a chat in, kind of wondering where people are at. And Michelle, could you just recap the platforms that you’re using at Imagine? I think that’s super interesting to people which platforms.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, we started with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. I also consider YouTube to be a social media platform. I’m not sure if other people do, but we use it a lot for tutorial videos, things like that. Instagram. I’ve used Google Plus for a while, but don’t tell Google, I’ve kind of abandoned them. I didn’t really see any value.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: It’s gone.

Michelle Maddox: Okay, good.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: It’s gone. Google Plus is out.

Michelle Maddox: I thought I had heard that, but we really … it just wasn’t really doing anything, and it was more frustrating. And I didn’t really see any benefit, so it was kind of a time suck a little bit for me.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Right, right.

Michelle Maddox: And I just thought, yeah, I’m not gonna do it anymore, and I think that that’s okay. If you find that there’s a platform that’s just not working for you, then hey, you tried it. At least you gave it a shot, you know? So I always think it’s worth a try.

Instagram

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Yeah, and we’re starting to use Instagram more with some of our clients, too. So, here at Kokoro, we work with different clients and we do all types of marketing and social media is a piece of that. And so we’ve had more uptick on, “Hey, can you add Instagram to the marketing mix as well?” And so that’s coming up for us as well. So, we’ll usually use, like you said, LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter, and then now Instagram a bit as well depending on the client and what they prefer. So, it sounds like you and I are on the same page with that as well. One-

Michelle Maddox: Yeah. Oh, sorry. I just wanted to add, we do have some-

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Oh no, I was just gonna say, one thought that … you go.

Michelle Maddox: Sorry. I just wanted to add that we do have a couple of customers that use Pinterest, and I have not figured out a way to use Pinterest to our benefit, but I know that some people find it very useful. And so that may also be a platform that might work depending on what your products are. So, just throwing that out there.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: About all the different platforms. So for people who are on the call, ’cause we’re seeing some people who are really more toward the lower end of the scale, in hey, just getting started. Don’t feel like you have to jump in and do all these platforms at once. Just pick one or two and start there, and then you can grow, and once those are working for you, you can expand. So, there’s not a requirement to be 100% on all platforms at once. That’s my feeling about it anyway.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, I agree with that. I think to start slow and get your feet on the ground. I would recommend Twitter and Facebook personally, those are just my two that I think a lot of people are on, and you can do a lot of things on there, and then grow from there. Just having any presence I think is better than nothing.

LinkedIn

Cindy Zuelsdorf: And I have a lot of luck and results with LinkedIn, so LinkedIn and Facebook are the ones that we would put first a lot of times for people. So, it’s great that we’ve got different opinions on here because you can see what fits for your company. LinkedIn is nice because you can use the insight tag and see the names of the companies who are visiting your website, the titles of the people visiting your website. And I’ll have people that’ll come back to me and go, “Ah, that was great. We got all these new connections, and I got appointments for the show and stuff.” So, everybody’s a little bit different, and yeah, it’s good.

Should Our Company Use Social Media?

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Hey, let’s jump into the next question that we wanted to talk about. And you touched on this a little bit already, but how do you know if social media is even right for your company, and what kind of companies do you think should use it?

Michelle Maddox: Yeah. I think now, every company should use it. That’s my personal opinion as I think that customers are everywhere, and they’re sort of expecting there to be some sort of social media presence. I know when I run into a company personally that doesn’t have one, I always am a little confused. Maybe that’s my line of work, maybe I’m just, you know, that’s my expectation. But I don’t think it can hurt you, so I always think if there’s not a downside, then you might as well go for it.

Michelle Maddox: It makes you more accessible to your customers, you do have to be ready for that. Once you have that presence, you certainly open yourself up to the good and the bad. So, as long as you’re prepared for that and you know how to handle it, I think that’s okay. We’ve definitely had our fair share of unhappy people coming and airing their grievances, and I think you have to handle it in a professional way. It’s always gonna happen, you’ve got to take the good with the bad. But yeah, I think that every company should have some sort of social media presence. So that’s just, you know, what we’ve found useful.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Yeah, and you bring up a good point about reputation management. We want to control the conversation, right? About our own companies. And if there are people out there who are maybe saying things that aren’t great or are just off topic, we want to be able to control that conversation, and it’s just like anything. If you show up and start talking, you’re controlling the conversation, and so we want to do that as our companies. We don’t want to let our customers run that conversation. And there’s a whole business around reputation management and software and stuff like that deals with that.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: But just coming back to more simple stuff, you can do things like get a cup of coffee, sit down for an hour, and schedule out your Facebook posts for the next six months. I’m going to have a post every Thursday at 10 A.M. my local time, and just take your existing content off your website, that we’ve got a presence. Maybe schedule it for once a week, right? And so that way, at least you’ve got a presence. Because as you said, Michelle, it’s almost suspect these days if somebody doesn’t have a social media presence.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, I like-

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Or if something hasn’t been posted since 2017, right?

Michelle Maddox: Right, I agree. And I like what you said about kind of dictating the conversation. A lot of times what we find is that there’s misinformation out there, and if we can become part of the conversation, then we can make sure that the correct information is being exposed. And if you don’t have a social media presence, then that conversation is going on without you. People are happy to tag you in things. Once you get that following started, usually you can kind of just go and, again, you’re gonna use other people’s networks. So, if you can get a couple of followers, then their followers will see that they’re following you, and hopefully, it’s a domino effect. That’s the goal, so …

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And you brought something up when we were talking the other day about how many times people need to see you or your company before they’ll take the next step.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, so one thing I’ve always learned or read was that customers or potential customers have to be exposed to your brand 20 times before they pull that trigger. We sell software. It is not generally an impulse by, it’s more thought out. So I think, especially in our case, that’s very true that the more times you can get in front of your customers, the more times they can see the benefit or even just the brand, the better off you are. So I think, again, social media is gonna help you do that in a direct consumer and even business to business.

Michelle Maddox: I saw there was a question about, how can you communicate with Facebook on B to B? And one thing I learned, not that long ago actually, is that you can like other company pages as your company.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Correct, correct.

Tagging

Michelle Maddox: So, I found that to be really helpful, especially when I’m posting something that really has nothing to do with my company, but has something to do with the industry. Other companies are very happy to reciprocate, so if you tag them in something when the time is right, they will tag you in something else. Or they might just say, “Hey, thanks Imagine Products.” And then again, you’re leveraging their network of people that are following them. And I mean, our industry is not that big, so there’s a lot of overlap and there’s plenty of customers for everybody. That’s one of the benefits of social media, is that you can get in front of so many people at once.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: When you and I were chatting the other day about is it worth it, putting all this time in? And I loved what you said, it was one of my favorite quotes. You said, “Any time I can get in front of an eyeball, it’s worth it.”

Michelle Maddox: Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we spend all this time and money on trade shows, and they live for a week to a few weeks, maybe a couple of months. And they’re very relevant to be able to talk to your customers face to face, but social media gives you that access 24/7. And I think, yeah, I stand by that. Any time I can get in front of an eyeball, it’s a good thing.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: And we’ve got a question about how to get started, and whether it’s on Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook. [inaudible 00:15:42] Are you connected to your own customers on a social media platform? Please give me your customer lists and your hot prospects lists, and we’re gonna go through and connect you to those people. So, that’s a great way to get started so you don’t have to feel like, oh I don’t have any followers, I don’t want to post. Go ahead, and first connect to everybody you know in the industry and all your prospects that you want to know. And that’s a great way to get started, and then like you said, tagging people.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Also, for starting, this is a book that I wanted to recommend to people if you’re like, “Hey, I want to dig in and maybe read about it on my plane ride to NAB,” or something like that. We’ll put the link in the chat box here to this book, there it is. This is a book I like. There’s tons of stuff out there. Chapters 10 and 11 I think are the best in the book, so I would definitely recommend it, and it applies to marketing. They really are talking about return on investment and making sure you actually make money from your marketing efforts. So, they’re very big on that in this book, so I wanted to just point it out to everybody here as well.

So Michelle, what kind of social media is best before the show?

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Facebook

Michelle Maddox: Let’s see. We just kind of use all of them actually. I think Facebook. One of the things I learned last year at NAB was to create an NAB event on Facebook. I think that was … I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about it. I saw some other companies doing it and then they were able to tag or reference NAB, and I don’t know if anybody else is familiar with Facebook invites, but when you are invited to an event, you are prompted over and over again to RSVP. And so that’s just kind of a way that Facebook’s working for you. Once you set that up, it’s gonna continue to send notifications to your customers or to your followers, which I found very helpful.

And then again, you can kind of tag or reference that event once you’re there at NAB, which I really like. I know that NAB sends out its coupon codes, so every company has its own coupon code to get free passes. And so I try to send that out as often as possible. Another thing I’ve found really helpful is that I am in a couple of Facebook groups, not only for marketing, but for DITs and things like that. You know, there’s a lot of chatter going on right now about NAB, and you can kind of share it there.

I think that using Twitter and making sure that you’re using your hashtags is really important. Making sure that you are tagging NAB every time you post something on Twitter. And I mean, I don’t know who runs their social media, but they got it going on because they always like it and retweet it, which, I mean again, it’s just you using their network to kind of reach new people, and I find that to be really helpful. And if there’s ever a cool picture, I try to post that on Instagram with some information, so that’s how we do it.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: You said you start posting right when you get to the airport. Tell me about that.

Michelle Maddox: I do, yeah, and I don’t just post NAB stuff. It’s pretty much the entire experience. So, last year I got to the airport and there was a sign, and it said, I think, “Welcome guests of the NAB show” or the “National Association of Broadcasters”, something like that, 2018. And I snapped a picture and tweeted it out immediately, and I think I threw it on Instagram probably as well and just said, “Hey, we’re here and we’re ready to go.” And another thing that I found really useful is that attendees of the show have no idea what it takes to put on something like that. And one thing … they don’t, I mean, and rightfully so. Why would you? You walk in, and it’s all beautiful and ready to go, but as exhibitors, we know you walk in and you’re like, “Wow, I can’t believe it’s gonna be put together in three days.”

It’s quite a transformation, and I start snapping pictures the moment we walk in. Not only that, but we do some team building experiences on the weekend, and I take pictures of that, and I throw those out on social media just to kind of generate that buzz and that excitement. And you don’t always want to be selling to your customers, you just want that connection sometimes. And that’s another way that your brand stays in the forefront of their mind without them feeling like oh my God, here she goes again. She is gonna shove ShotPut Pro down my throat again. No, no, no. There is so much more, too, that you can do any kind of create that connection with people and cultivate that relationship.

So yeah, I am a big fan of just throwing … last year, I randomly got three hours to myself and I laid by the pool and I drank a beer, and I snapped a picture of the beer with these beautiful trees and the pool in the background. And people went crazy for that picture, so you know, it doesn’t have to be just promotional things. It can be that human to human interaction or contact with somebody, and that’s what they want, you know? All these companies and all these people are run by humans, and they want that interaction, so I found that useful.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Yeah. For sales, we all say that people buy from people they like, and so we’re just really making that human connection here. I had a photo, somebody snapped a picture of me at a trade show with a crate, and I’m standing there with a Makita, you know, I don’t know if I’m taking the lid off or putting it on. And we’re all in our T-shirts and jeans, and I got so many comments about that because it humanizes us. And we want to be people, and so yeah.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, absolutely. I try to find funny things and post those as well, you know? Especially if it’s kind of making light of myself, I think people love that. They connect with it, they can understand that. So I think that’s always a good way to connect with them.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: So from a tactical point of view, one thing to do then is to schedule some posts out in advance and then do these posts on the fly. So, you’re gonna have a mix of scheduled posts that you did in advance and things that you’re just coming across, like that shot of the beer, the crate, or the setting up or whatever it is. And that will create a really nice mix of content for you.

So, how about doing posts during the show? How about doing posts during the show? Tell me what you do for that.

Michelle Maddox: That one can get tricky, especially if you’re really busy. But you know, I try, if I can’t do a post during the show, I definitely am at least taking pictures during the show so that later that night I can do it. Any time that I can find five or 10 minutes to step to the side and shoot a couple of things out, I do. I always take a lot of pictures of my booth, and a lot of what some probably consider B-roll footage or whatever when we are not open yet, so that I can just fall back on those shots later on. If I’m sitting and grabbing a coffee or a bite to eat at lunchtime or something like that, then I’m always posting on social media during those times. And you know, if you can get access to scheduling it at that time too, even better. Because you can be putting things out where you’re not actually doing it right at that moment, but it’s still going out in a timely manner.

So, I think that any time you can just get five minutes to step to the side and try to fire off something, even if it’s just a picture, and say, “Hey, we’re showing whatever your product is and your booth number, and tag NAB, or do a couple of hashtags.” I mean, I think that’ll help a lot. There’s a lot of people out there looking for that stuff, especially at NAB, so this is a great time to kind of get your social media really off the ground I think. These trade shows are perfect for it.

Facebook Live

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Now, who’s done Facebook Live? Just give me a yes in the chat box if you’ve done that, and you can see that Fallon has put in a link to a how to do Facebook Live video. It’s a quick, two-minute video that shows exactly how to do it, including the what you do on your phone and which buttons to push, and the whole thing that I did of, I think right from NAB. I think it’s video from that. So, give us a chat in here. So, we’ve got some yeses, awesome. Most excellent. Facebook Live video still gets a bump and reaches people right away. Facebook loves that you’re doing video, and they try to give you an advantage, especially when you’re doing Facebook Live. It seems like everybody is doing it, so good. That’s most excellent.

See related article: How to do Facebook Live at NAB

Okay. I’m just looking through our show notes, ’cause Michelle and I put a list together to be sure we got through all the best stuff. Who’s using a social media calendar? Is anybody here using a social media calendar or a scheduling tool? Let’s see. Chat into us about that if you want to hear more about that. And we’ll put all of these links in the show notes, so if you’re watching the replay of this, we know we get a ton of people watching the replay. All of these links are gonna be in the show notes as well.

So, we do have someone saying that they’re using Hootsuite but are looking for better options. Another one that you might use, we use Sprout Social with a lot of our clients as well. It’s got nice metrics, nice scheduling. For Facebook, you can go in and use their scheduling tool directly, so some different choices like that. We’ll end up using a mix of tools. How about you, Michelle? What do you use?

Michelle Maddox: I do use the scheduling tool on Facebook. I use Hootsuite sometimes. I’ve checked out Sprout once or twice. A lot of times, I will do it out of my email marketing, so it’ll come right out of the content that I’ve created for my emails. I use a company called Delivra. I really like how they had it set up, and I like the things that you can do with theirs.
Michelle Maddox: So, one thing I did want to say, going back to someone’s question, was how to get followers if you’re just starting out. I would put your social media everywhere. Put it in your email signature at the bottom. Put it in all of your email blasts that are going out to customers. Make sure you have it on your website. We have it on any of the collateral or literature that we push out during NAB. If we’ve got it laying around in the booth, it’s definitely got our information on it. And I think that you know, people are already looking for you, so I guarantee that people are already looking out for you on social media. Once you get going, I think you’ll find it easier to get those followers and whatnot.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: So some of the tools, just to recap, are Delivra, and that’s one that you’re using. For scheduling, you can use Hootsuite. And we’ll put links to these in the show notes, and you can always hit us up afterward too if you have questions. We use Sprout Social with a lot of our clients, so we set up everything on there. So you can see metrics, watch conversations, make sure, check the inbox, see who’s commenting and get right back to them right inside of Sprout Social. Tons of other tools out there as well. There’s a Facebook group called social media managers that you can join. You just have to sort of demonstrate that you’re doing social media management, and they’ll let you join, so just to let you know about that.

And then we also have the broadcast marketing media Facebook group, and we’ll throw the link to that in the box here as well, and that’s another place where you can get some resources. Somebody asked, Michelle, what tools we just rattled off, so I wanted to be sure we went through and mentioned those. Were there other ones that we should share?

Michelle Maddox: I think you’ve covered them actually. Those are definitely the ones that we’re using. I’m a little old school, I do a lot of stuff live. So, I just think once you get in the habit of social media being one of the tools that you’re going to use, it gets worked into the forefront of your mind and you’re much more inclined or you’re used to it, or it just becomes a habit of doing it more often. So I think, like anything else, if you just start using it and at first schedule your time out to make sure you are, I think once you start that, you’ll think, oh I should post that on Facebook, a lot more often. Or whatever, Twitter.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: So, we had someone chat in asking about content calendar, and do you use a content calendar at all Michelle?

Michelle Maddox: Not really. The only thing I do is, I just kind of make sure that … I mean, not for social media. I do it for my emails. I make sure that I have emails going out regularly, but other than that, I do not, no.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Yeah. And for social media, for a content calendar, that can be one way to do it, is really use it for scheduled events where you can put trade chosen events on that content calendar as your key points along the year. And maybe product releases could go on there as well, and then be sure that you have emails, blog posts, LinkedIn articles on there. And you might just use, for example, something like Google Sheets. It can be that simple to where you have, maybe you’ve got a row for every single day of the year, so it’s a big old spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel. I use Google Sheets ’cause then everybody can access it. And then for each day, it’s gonna list, you know, I’ve got an email going out on Monday and we’re gonna do the LinkedIn article on Tuesday, and we’re gonna do the LinkedIn company post on Wednesday, and we’re gonna do the blog post on Thursday. Or whatever the thing is, and you just sit there and you’ve got something, and there are some days where you don’t have anything

Cindy Zuelsdorf: And then you can put your social posts in there as well, or like you’re doing Michelle, you’re just gonna do them on the fly ’cause you’re just in the habit and it’s all the time, right?

Michelle Maddox: Right, yeah. That’s how we do it.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: You can also schedule that out on your Sprout Social or Hootsuite, so you can look at a calendar. You have a calendar view of all the social posts, and so you might use a combination. Go ahead Michelle.

Michelle Maddox: No, I was just agreeing. Yeah, I mean, anyway that you’re the most comfortably organized I think is gonna work the best for you. What works for me may not work for someone else and vice versa. So, you know how you like to organize things, and if you make it a priority, then I think it’ll work for everybody.

Facebook Pixel and LinkedIn Insight Tag

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Nice. All right, we’re gonna dig into our last topic which is just going over a few techy details, and then we’re gonna have plenty of time for Q and A at the end. So, for techy details, we just wanted to touch on things like Facebook pixels, LinkedIn, insight tag, and really any other details like that. Do you use Facebook pixel in your business Michelle?

Michelle Maddox: I do not. I have not ventured down that road just yet. It might be something that I do in the future, but no, not right now.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Got you. Well, most people don’t use it. I mean, even as advanced as you are Michelle, or you’re just getting started, it’s not required to use it at all. I just want to bring it up because in the future, people may want to dig into this cool thing. So, Facebook and LinkedIn does a similar thing, Facebook creates a code, just it’s a little line of code. And they call it a pixel but it’s really a few lines of code that you generate from your Facebook ad account and you put onto your website.

And then once it’s on there, you can re-target those people with ads. So for example, Facebook pixel is gonna find all the people who went to your website in the last, say, 90 days. You can set up the duration up to 180 days, but say you want to look at all the people who have been there in the last 90 days. And then maybe you want to send them a blog post about NAB, so you’d pay a little bit of money on Facebook and say, “Hey, send an ad to all of the people who have been to my website in the last 90 days.” And then maybe anybody who clicks on that add, then the next thing you could do, is send them a meeting invite to an NAB show. Just for example, that could be a flow.

LinkedIn has a similar thing. LinkedIn insight tag, same basic technology but just a little bit different name, and we’ll throw a link in the chat box here. For any of you who joined us last year on this series, we actually did a segment on how to do that, and so this video actually shows exactly step by step how to do it. And with the LinkedIn insight tag, you can do a similar thing. That code goes on your website, you can use LinkedIn sponsored content to reach out to those people, and LinkedIn also provides information like the company names of those people visiting your site and the titles of the people visiting your site. So, just wanted to throw that out there. And if you have questions about that, shoot it into the chat box here, or you can hit either one of us up afterward as well.

Geo-fencing is a topic that came up, and I wanted to talk about that. And Michelle, jump in if you want to do any geo-fencing chat. So, geo-fencing is … so, a friend of mine is doing this type of work to where if someone goes to a school, for example, to drop off their kid, on their phone, it’s gonna pop up an ad for a local tutoring school that’s just down the road. And so it’s using your geolocation data on your phone to know to run ads to you.

You can do a kind of inexpensive version of this on Facebook. So you could run an ad, for example, to everybody who has the word engineer in their title who’s traveling in Las Vegas that week. So, that would be a Facebook style of geo-fencing, if you will. So, those are a couple of things to just throw out there in case they’re interesting or if you’ve heard about them. We came up with this webinar based on the broadcast media marketing group survey that we put out. So, we really just wanted to be sure we were reaching you, and so we’re using Facebook to decide what content we’re bringing to you in this webinar. So, it’s really a great way to connect with

What questions do you guys have about that techy stuff? Anything. I’m gonna look in the chat box here and see if that’s helpful. So, the question about posting the same thing across different media platforms. Michelle, how do you do that? How do you handle the cross posting?

Michelle Maddox: Yeah. So, I don’t really have a rule necessarily. It depends on my time. If I have a really good, thought out post that I’ve done on Facebook, sometimes I will just reuse it across all of our platforms. I do think that if you’ve got the time to sit down and reword it a little bit, certainly on Twitter and Instagram, they are super hashtag heavy. I don’t feel like Facebook is as much, at least in my opinion. So, if I am on Twitter or Instagram, I like to hashtag a lot, and I think that’s how people are gonna find you. Especially on Instagram, I mean, there can be a whole paragraph of hashtags, which is a great thing. My customers love to do that, and oftentimes that is how I find pictures of people using our stuff.

Michelle Maddox: So, I think that depending on the platform, it depends on how you kind of communicates. But I personally do not think that it’s a problem if you’re using the same thing on all of your platforms.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Great. And you mentioned earlier, I just wanted to circle back, you mentioned earlier, Michelle, about YouTube. And YouTube is the number two search engine on the internet, and so we want to do stuff with YouTube where we can. And well, as you said, we don’t think about YouTube as a social media platform. Actually, it’s something to think about because it’s gonna help with search and just is another way for people to find you. So, it’s a good idea to keep your YouTube channel updated as well.

Michelle Maddox: Absolutely, we use YouTube a lot. We sell software, so we have a lot of tutorial videos. If you have any video interviews that are done on the trade show before, I always link those. Sometimes, we will get the same question a few times in our ticketing system, and sometimes it’s just easier for me to do a quick video and say, “Here you go, guys. This is how you do it.” And people love it, and then that’s a great thing to post on your social media channels. So, you can kind of do some cross promoting there for sure.

Michelle Maddox: And yeah, YouTube is probably one of the biggest ways that we connect with customers. Especially, like I said, for software, we’ve got to have those tutorial videos. So, I’m sure that it’s applicable to many, many products. Just, it doesn’t have to be a long one. It’s kind of like blogging, it can be short and sweet and to the point. But I think it’s really important, especially in our industry with video, everybody wants to consume, so …

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Yeah, and if you’re thinking about video like oh, I don’t want to get on camera, or it sounds too hard, that kind of thing, it’s a good idea to do a video about why you do what you do. Where your passion lies with it, and so not necessarily pitching your product, ’cause people are fried on that. And so what we want to do is talk about the problems that we solve, so it’s always really about the customer. What’s in it for me? What are you thinking about? What do they care about? It’s not about us or our companies, it’s about them. What do they care about?

So, if that video is talking about a problem that they need solved or it’s something interesting to them, that’s your best kind of topic, right? So, less on the product pitch and more about, “Hey, I was talking to someone last week and they were having this issue, and we worked together and solved it like this. And now, this is the result for them.” Or, “I started this company because all these people were having these issues, and we decided to come up with this product, and now look what’s happened.”

So again, it’s more about your passion around it and how you’re being of service to others. Those are the posts and the videos that do the best.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, I agree. I think one of the best posts that we’ve had recently was nothing to do with our company whatsoever, but it was an article that I had read about women in our industry and how instrumental they are. And they had kind of highlighted, I think, like five different women and what roles they were doing. And we got so much traction on that, and it literally had nothing to do with my products or my company. But again, it’s just that connecting with people and kind of sharing a common passion, and I think people appreciate that.

Michelle Maddox: I also share things that are educational on Facebook, or whatever social media platform you’re using. I definitely don’t think it should be 100% product promotional. It should definitely be just fun and engaging and entertaining. I think a while ago, there was a question about putting personal things on your company Facebook pages or Twitter or whatever, and that was a concern of mine for a really long time. But I think one thing that I came around to was that we’ve got one of the most fun industries out there. And we like to have a good time and connect with people, and that’s what a lot of this job is, is connecting with people. And that’s what a lot of the content is that is produced, is making that connection.

I have not ever had anyone post anything negative in response to something personal that we’ve posted on there. Usually it’s like, “Oh, that looks awesome,” or just likes and things like that. So, I think that any time you can connect with someone on a personal level, it’s gonna be a win for you.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: And I wanted to mention, really that using the Facebook Pages app is the best thing that you can do. And so I’m just pointing to it on my phone right there, and that is a way that you can handle your posts because related to what you were just saying is, we were thinking, oh, sometimes when I’m posting on my phone I can get into my personal account when I meant to get into my business account and stuff like that. And so it’s good to use the Facebook Pages app, and that will help you. There’s a LinkedIn app as well, but it’s just gonna jump into everybody’s right there. So, Facebook is kind of a little bit more organized in terms of helping you navigate whether you’re on a page or group or your personal account.

How Often Should I Post?

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Another thing to follow up on is that ratio that we were talking about, is how much you post. So, 4:1:1 is something that I’d heard. You want to do four helpful, interesting, useful posts for everyone sales pitch post.

Michelle Maddox: Yes, absolutely. I have heard that as well.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: 4:1:1 or more. Yeah. And then for everybody who likes your post, invite them to like your company page or your company group. So you want to look through, and the Facebook app makes it really easy to do that, and also LinkedIn does as well. You can go through and see who’s liked or commented, and then go ahead and invite them really quickly to join your group, like your page, that kind of thing as well.

Michelle Maddox: Yeah, I agree. And another thing I do on Instagram is anytime someone follows our page, I follow them back immediately. You know, that just grows your network that much more, so I think that’s fast and it’s an important thing to do. People like that connection.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Hey, we went over so much stuff today it’s crazy. But if you were gonna give people one takeaway from everything we talked about today, what would that be?

Michelle Maddox: I think I’m gonna use the Nike slogan, “Just do it.” Just make sure that you are on social media in some capacity, in some way, connecting with those people. If you’re nervous, just start slow. I, a couple of years ago, was very nervous about blogging. I talked to Cindy about it. I did not know how to start or what to do, and it is one of the things I enjoy the most about my job now. I’ve found my voice, and I think that just jumping in and, even if you’ve got to kind of walk in the baby pool a little bit for a minute, that’s okay. Just get started.

Michelle Maddox: Pictures, pictures, pictures. I think that they are so important. I think that the more pictures you can take and share, it’s always the best. It doesn’t have to be super word heavy, it probably shouldn’t be. I think those are my two takeaways. Just get started doing something, and I think once it becomes a habit, like anything else, you will get used to it and you will do it more often.

Q&A

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Wonderful, thank you. We’re gonna stay on for questions, and Nick is gonna join us. Nick, feel free to jump on. And Michelle, we’ve got a question here about hashtags, and I wondered what hashtags you are using in your posts. And does anybody want to chat in if there’s other hashtags that you think we should be using in our posts for NAB’s show?

Michelle Maddox: So for me, I always do … I mean, I think for NAB I’ll do NAB show 2019 or #NABshow or #NAB2019, anything like that. I always hashtag my product names. So, we have ShotPut Pro, PreRoll Post, PrimeTranscoder. I always hashtag those. Each one of those also has a tagline that is associated with them, I always hashtag those as well, particularly on Instagram. They are very, very, very hashtag heavy. I make up my own hashtags. A lot of times, I’ll start to make up my own and I’m like oh, I’m so smart. And then I realize, but it’s been used a million and a half times, and that’s even better ’cause people search by hashtags a lot.

Michelle Maddox: So, any time you can tag a customer or another company, I think that’s a good idea. You know, #LasVegas. Anything like that that you can think of that’s relevant to the post, I think it’s important.

Nicholas Gadino: Great. Yeah, I’d have to agree. I think one of the best things you said about the industry too is the feeling of reciprocity where if you’re gonna go out there and help out a company, hopefully they return the favor. It’s something that it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is a big deal to repost and to tag. And it takes a second, but it is a huge, huge thing for us. And I think this has been great, and I really hope that everybody on the call today has learned a little something. We were talking before we started that really, we’re just hoping that our guests like Michelle and everyone that’s come before and our next webinar and our approaching webinar that these are just … it is a very intimate community here, and I think that programs like this and having blog posts, having these webinars, and just adding to exhibitor education, it’s something I’m really passionate about. I know Cindy is as well, and Michelle, and I think this has been great.

If I can, for a quick second, I just wanted to plug a few other things that we’re doing. Obviously, you see that we’ve posted in the chat Kokoro’s blog, our blog. There’s a couple great articles written in there, some by yours truly, but I’m not plugging myself. But we do have a great article on there about the logistics for your target move in, which has helped out a lot of people, which I’m happy about. I also wanted to just quickly talk about our show and sell program, which a few exhibitors have signed on to this year.

So, in years passed, you could take orders at the show for future orders. But this year, you can actually physically sell your products on site from your booth at the show. The only stipulation there is you have to pay the 8.25% Nevada sales tax, but when we’re talking about the big ROI, that’s a term we all love in this industry, and that’s what a lot of us are here for, right? You have to justify your presence at the show. Well, when you’re talking about an instantaneous ROI, what better than actually saying, “Oh, we actually sold this many subscriptions,” or, “We sold this many cameras,” or whatever the case may be. So, I think that that’s something we’re doing this year. I’m hoping it’s gonna have a great success.

Also, when you’re talking about something like social media marketing, marketing yourself, we’re also doing marketing calls with Cindy. So, Cindy briefly mentioned that at the beginning of the call today. If you are a first or second year exhibitor and you do need some tips, whether it’s starting your marketing program from scratch or just asking for some more advice from the expert of the industry, Cindy Zuelsdorf of Kokoro marketing, Cindy can certainly sit down with you for a 20, 25 minute phone call that you guys can record and reference back to. And then she also has a great followup with what you talked about, a great recap.

We have our guest pass program, which we’ve been doing for years and years. Make sure, on your exhibitor dashboard, if you don’t know how to access that, feel free to email me, to call our offices here. Call our exhibitor hotline or myself, and just making sure you have that LV code to promote your guest pass code, inviting your customers and your potential clients to the show for free. And they can do that up until the 23rd of March, then after that it costs them $50 to redeem your code. But right now, it is still free.

In addition to that, we have our own LinkedIn group, which I believe Fallon has posted in the chat already. We have our next webinar in two weeks as well, and we’ll have another post-show webinar. And then one last thing is our product of the year awards. I’m gonna go ahead and post that in the chat real quick here. So, this is a new effort that we’re doing here. If you had … sometime in the last 12 months, as long as you did not display a new product or unveil a new product to the 2018 show, as long as it’s new to the 2019 show, you’re eligible to entire the product of the year awards. So, that’s something we’re really, really excited about. We’re gonna have an on site reception for the winters as well, so a lot of really, really great programs.

I’m super excited about the 2019 show. I think it’s gonna be the best show ever, I’m pretty pumped. I wanted to thank Cindy and thank Michelle again for being on here today. Cindy, thanks for always hosting a great webinar. Anybody has any logistical questions, feel free to contact me. I know we’re in the nitty gritty here in these last few weeks of planning, so if you need any help or you need somebody to just try to de-stress you, feel free to give me a call. And thank you guys, thanks everybody so much today.

Cindy Zuelsdorf: Thank you, Michelle, thank you Nick, and see everybody in Las Vegas.

Michelle Maddox: Thanks, guys!

 

You can register for the next NAB Show Webinar here.

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