The Sharing Content Question
When I tell my coaching clients to share other company’s content, a strange look comes over their faces. And then I get the question, “But won’t I be telling my customers about other companies for them to buy from instead of me?”
My answer is always, “You can look at it that way but don’t you think that they might find this on their own with a Google search? So wouldn’t it be cool if they got this valuable information that could help them from YOU?”
Many small business owners worry that if they share content to their customers from another company – especially one they consider competition – that they’ll lose their next sale.
Truth is, if your customers move on to another company then they just weren’t a good fit for you anyway. If you’re losing sales to another company, there’s probably something else going on with your marketing or your offers themselves. { But that’s a post for another day and another time. }
Let me just put this out there – there is no such thing as a limited number of customers.
Let me walk you through this example of what I’m talking about – let’s say your product or service is something that helps small business owners.
When I ran a search for the number of small businesses in the U.S. and even though these numbers are from 2009, it was pretty significant: In 2009, there were 27.5 million small businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy.
Just think about that number for a minute.
AND this number is from 2009. Can you imagine how much higher the number of small business owners would be if I found an updated report from 2014?
I’m sure if you ran a search for your customer audience, you’d find some pretty big numbers too.
Trust me when I say this – there are enough customers out there for everyone. Sharing another company’s content will not mean that you’ll lose your customers to them and not make your sales goals for the month.
Become a Trusted Resource
When you share others’ content by posting links to their blog posts or articles, hitting the share button on Facebook or retweeting on Twitter, you give your fans the chance to learn about the great information that you’ve found.
Your followers will start to bookmark your Facebook fan page, Pinterest board or Twitter account as a place for them to check in on a regular basis. They’ll add your social sites into their weekly reading as they’ll know they’ll find information to help them learn something new or give them advice on how to make their lives easier.
I think the ultimate goal in social media is to have your followers check your social networks even when they don’t see a post in their feed.
I want my fans to click on my Twitter page when they log into the program to see what new information I’ve posted and not just because they saw a post somewhere down the end of their news feed.
How Does This Content Sharing Stuff Work?
The first step to sharing content is start doing something I call Research Reading.
If you’re not reading every week about what’s going on in your industry then let me be the first to slap you on the hand and say, “Shame on you.” There’s nothing better to help you grow your business than to stay on top of the latest news and industry trends.
How can you give your customers the best product if you don’t know what’s new and how this information can help them?
Think about how to schedule time in your week to do some research online. Maybe it’s in the morning with your coffee, lunchtime when you take a break or later at night when you’re multi-tasking between watching TV and checking Facebook or Pinterest.
Figure out the best time that works for your schedule and try to do some research reading at least 3 – 4 times a week. And then schedule it in your calendar even if it’s first thing in the morning with your cup of coffee or your lunch break.
I find the best time for me to do my research reading is at the end of the day when I’m multi-tasking between watching TV and going online with my tablet. I read articles in commercial breaks and run searches during those moments when the show has lost my interest.
The next step takes you back to a post I wrote about Content Planning – if you didn’t read it before, read through my version of the content breakdown and how to schedule your posts.
My version of your content breakdown is 70-20-10: 70% of your content should inform, educate and provide value to your fans. The next 20% is to promote your business, list your special deals for your fans or let them know when you’re launching a new product. The last 10% is that thing I call Entertainment.
The content you’re going to share will fall under that 70% part. This is the stuff that brings your fans to actively click over to your page.
Your goal is to share only valuable content. When you’re deciding which article to share, ask yourself these questions:
- Will this article help your fans in some way?
- Will this information give them the steps to make something easier?
- Does this post teach them a new way to use your products or service?
PS What if you could find a way to grow your presence in your social sites? And what if it didn’t add hours to your already crazy day? What if it took just 30 minutes a few times a week?
Leave a Reply