Luan Wise is an expert marketer. She is still in her thirties and has just produced her first book: “Relax! It’s Only Social Media”. The book is available from Amazon in UK http://amzn.to/2fWQJIk and in the USA http://amzn.to/2gLg4WX.
Luan Wise has been a self-employed marketing consultant for 5 years. Mainly working in Business to Business and Services. A strong background in direct mail, post and traditional marketing. Luan has agency and client-side experience too.
Her book Relax! It’s Only Social Media was published on 18th November 2016. Luan got help from a Kim Fleet (http://www.kimfleet.com/) who helps people overcome their procrastination to write their book. Kim advised the detail and what it would take to write her book. Luan started writing at the end of February and finished the text by the end of July (impressively around just 150 days!).
Relax! It’s Only Social Media – Luan Wise
Luan argues the plan for the book and content came from years of speaking at events and conferences from the last 3 or 4 years and using the questions and answers from those events. 150 days to write but a few years to formulate the content!
The writing plan included:
- Luan’s past included spells as an agency planner, so that helped her talk through the plan, in terms of what it would look like, how much writing there was to do…
- That manifested into a chapter per week
- She set herself a deadline
- Kim helped her create milestones – like when she’d completed chapters, shown people content – including rewarding yourself milestones.
- Such as planning illustrations
- Relax! It’s Only Social Media is self-published, so she had a lot of focus on getting the right permissions from people to use their material in her book.
- Once she had a plan and a deadline, she had no other option than to make it happen.
Relax! It’s Only Social Media
Luan Wise gets into the detail but Luan is not a social media ‘luvvie’. Social media is just another channel. Everything we do on social media is what we have always done. Linkedin is our rolodex. It is quicker and faster and greater reaching. Ultimately, Luan advises you should go back to the fundamentals:
- What’s your business strategy
- What’s your objectives?
- Who’s your target audience
- What’s your key messages
- And look, social media is a great way to do it…
People don’t argue Luan’s point of view; social media isn’t some bigger thing. Luan has found that people are just relieved. They are glad Luan has simplified it. Luan Wise takes social media back to basics. You don’t need to spend hours on this stuff. You just must have a plan.
Kevin likes the fact that this book is British! Sometimes we are a bit more conservative. We love Americans, but it is good that we have a fresh approach. From Britain.
Luan discovered that to write a book, you must read books. To find out about their perspectives, their examples. Most texts are American. Ultimately, the same information applies equally to all cultures.
Mastering the Art of Listening (Chapter 5) – tips?
- If you are not comfortable posting messages or tweeting, that is fine.
- Use social media as an information source – find out what people are saying, about your business, what your customers are talking about, what your competitors are talking about.
- It’s more important to listen than post those ‘me, me, me’ messages.
In 2020, it is estimated that 50% of people over 65 will be Facebook users!
- A lot of people seem not to like it that much but they stick with it.
- Younger people use Snapchat and Instagram.
Should business owners use Facebook?
- Yes, if you have a consumer audience
- It is great for peer-to-peer conversations in Facebook Groups, who can be very supportive, such as local business networks, asking for advice etc.
- It is still a bit chatty and informal, so maybe leads may be hard to drive.
Twitter is better for listening.
- 22% to 9% of peoples depending on age use Twitter.
- It’s good for news. Good for real-time feedback.
- But people don’t really get Twitter.
- Luan argues that is about quality not quantity.
- Kevin has noted a drop off in engagement over the last 12 months
- Kevin talked about initiating conversations as a positive
- Luan talked of events being a big benefit of Twitter.
Twitter Lists – you have both private and public lists. If your list is public the person will be notified that you’ve added them to your lists. You can collate them into lists – so you can send them individual messages, but not group sends.
Content Marketing
This chapter of Relax! It’s Only Social Media was her most challenging. Luan found that there was an absence of structure around content marketing. Nothing to signpost what you should do next. There was no obvious clear step by step process that pulled everything together. Luan has set out her own content marketing model.
Luan’s content marketing model starts with:
- the company (business strategy/objectives/your ‘why’)
- defining your story,
- understanding your target audience,
- the purpose of what you want to do (that’s all your calls to action – what do you want your audience to THINK, FEEL and DO)
- create the content to match the audience and stages of the buyer journey
- content type (is it a white paper, is it a blog post etc)
- content distribution – now how do we distribute the message.
Measurements that matter
This is so important for social media managers. Likes etc are a vanity measure. Start with your business objectives. Your website is owned by you, your social media profile you do not own. Luan sets out some great measurements – that you should use.
Kevin stressed that because there is so much data it is easy to measure the WRONG data.
Luan’s marketing tips: for the next 100 days
- The most useful thing is spending time on your marketing plan.
- Spending that time upfront makes everything so much easier, quicker and with less hassle.
- Understand your target audience and who they are, what they need, where are you going to find them. Luan advises listening. Sit and watch. Be a customer. Mystery shop.
- When you are in a business, you get so close to the operational side you forget that bit.
- Be in your customer’s world. Go out with a salesperson.
B2B marketing – what would she advise here?
- It is just about relationships
- Live the brand, or you are self-employed, it doesn’t matter
- Be nice and have strong etiquette.
- Linkedin is huge for business
- Have strong profiles
- Stay active and it works well for most businesses.
- Are company pages on Linkedin important? Not really.
- For larger organisations, the company page becomes a content hub, not a place to engage.
- The power is that individuals of those organisations circulate the content. You have a relationship with the people, not the company as such.
- Update your status weekly!
Is there a good way to contact people who you do not know is to ASK FOR AN INTRODUCTION. Without the intro, be personal, use a bit of flattery. Don’t get click-happy, you are dealing with people not a screen.
Linkedin, Instagram and Pinterest
For business, LinkedIn is #1.
The next best…
The fastest growing is INSTAGRAM. Great for visual businesses. Retailers. Pictures and personality. Low energy on engagement – a quick like or share.
You can remarket on Instagram. Luan is remarketed by show companies all the time!
PINTEREST? Luan found recently that a client of hers initially dismissed Pinterest. She examined their Google Analytics pages and found more traffic had come to their website from Pinterest. That is where their audience was. It is changing with ads and buy buttons.
Pinterest is great for storage of things. Kevin uses it for resources, finding a whole load of people pinning what he is pinning.
Luan Wise recommends you do 2 or 3 things well.
What’s next for Luan Wise?
- Luan was invited to California by LinkedIn to record an online learning course, by their Linda.com division. Look out for Luan’s new course next year!
- Another book! Relax! It’s Only Social Media might have established the Relax! brand
- To elaborate on some of the themes in the book. People want more on implementation
In the next 100 days, Luan Wise advises:
- Use this time of year to review what you’ve done this year – although you don’t need a specific time of year – which is back to the next 100 days!
- Trends like Virtual reality/Augmented reality
- Trends like video will be stronger, much stronger.
Contact Luan Wise on her website: www.luanwise.co.uk or on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter – soon to be on Snapchat.
