Create B2B content worth sharing

Getting your content passed on shouldn’t be confused with it going ‘viral’, says Dave McMullen, co-founder of integrated agency RedPepper.  Here are four tips for creating ‘shareable’ content

Most companies are beginning to realise the power of social media, and at least once a month someone will ask how to make a piece of content go viral. I’m assuming when they say ‘viral’ they mean get as many people to view it as fast as possible. The idea is to spend a little time and money creating on the front-end and hope for the content to spread like, well, a virus. But I’d like to suggest that for companies and brands that want to enlist their current customers to help find new customers, viral is not the right goal.

For most brands, and especially B2B brands, it is unrealistic to expect their content to do as well as most of the insanity that gets spread across YouTube.

Instead, B2B brands should aim for shareable. Create something your customers actually want to share with their peers. Here are four characteristics to build into your content that will give it the best chance at getting passed along.

1. It’s not about you
Try to remember that people generally do not like advertising. And they really dislike blatant, narcissistic advertising.

When your content is nothing more than a sales pitch, your customers may endure it to get the info they need to make a decision, but they will rarely find a reason to share it. Instead, start from your customer’s pain point. Do you have a meaningful point-of-view about the problems they face everyday? Do you know your customers well enough to know what they talk about with their peers? What content are they sharing now? What do they find interesting and important? Aim your content at your customers’ hearts.

2. Bring value
What can your company do to make your customers’ businesses better? Think beyond your product or service to find the true value you bring to the world (industry). One of the best examples of this is Corning’s ‘A day made of glass’ video, which has received more than 19 million views and more than 61,000 ‘likes’ since it was posted on YouTube in February 2011. The video was created for an investors meeting to highlight new technologies, such as interactive glass tablets, touch-screens built into desks and video-enabled walls. Corning’s video shared a vision of how innovative tech-enabled products made of glass can make people’s work and home lives easier in the future. According to Corning, not only has the video garnered major awareness on YouTube but it has sparked conversations about how Corning and other companies can partner together to make these visions a reality.

People share things that make their world better, which is the reason ‘A day made of glass’ went viral. As a B2B marketer, you must strip back all the talk of features and benefits, and create content that your customers wish they could have created themselves.

3. Make it easy to share
Get help with the technology. A little work on the front-end makes things much easier to share once it’s out there. If it’s content on your website, make sure there are one-touch sharing options for all the major social sites. If people don’t have to cut and paste your content or URL into their format, you’re far more likely to get a share, like, or tweet. Pictures, videos and PDFs need to be small files that load quickly. Patience is thin online. Yes, deep analytical reports get shared from time-to-time, but most long-form, text-based documents die a quick death. Your content is competing for people’s time in a world of exciting motion graphics and high-tech design. Choose video over
print and use good graphic design whenever possible.

4. Be disciplined
You have to earn trust, even among your own customers. The more share-worthy content you put out, the more likely you are to get traction on some of it. Tasks as small as consistent, helpful tweets can build a relationship with your followers.

Kinaxis, a supply management company, learned early on that it was important to have patience in building a community of social media followers. It consistently focused on sharing quality content that was about real-world issues that interested the supply chain experts who are their customers. Kinaxis focused as much on the people as on the business. Once it had built a following and earned their trust, Kinaxis launched a humorous video series that connected the business world with real people, and gave customers and prospects a feel for the company’s personality. It was a big hit and helped the sales team open doors to new business opportunities. This award-winning video series helped them triple their sales leads and more than doubled its web traffic.

What lesson does the success of Kinaxis teach us? Develop a strategy. Have a plan. Work the plan. Be regular contributors to your customers’ lives. Your customers will know when you’re trying too hard to be something you’re not.

Remember what you have in common with your customers. They like you and what you stand for. They want you to be successful and will share your content with their peers when you do things and make things worth sharing.

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