how to maximize the RESULTS of your Pitch Competition

A founder of a startup company came to me with a compelling question: “How can we use social media as a strategy before, during and after an event?” The specific event he was referring to is a popular pitch competition that he is attending with his team. In fact, it is so sought after, only 15 groups can attend this event from all over the world. Preparing a social media strategy is not only a great way to introduce other companies to your followers, but to gain recognition for both you and your brand. Here's what to do before, during, and after your pitch opportunity.

What to do before your pitch competition

1. Do research on the companies that are going to be attending the event. In this specific case, the Founder and his team will study the other 14 companies presenting at the pitch competition FoodBytes, follow them on social media, and begin their outreach plan.

2. Come up with an eye-catching message that will make yourself stand out. You can enhance this message by including a graphic (our design team utilizes Canva). When you begin the outreach process, tag the CEO/Founder of the company and FoodBytes (or the host of other events). Here is a sample message: 

“We're looking forward to meeting you at #FoodBytes and learning more about you and your company <use company social media handle> there!” 

3. Continue to make new connections by following or connecting with CEOs or Founders of the other companies. A great platform for doing this is LinkedIn. Ensure that your LinkedIn profile says a little about you and what you do, and then before try to connect with others.

4. Create  team pictures with branded designs and add them to your Instagram Page. 

5. When you begin to use your social media platforms to highlight the other people at a pitch competition, a question that founders and their teams will ask you is, “Why are you doing this for us?” Your answer should be as simple as, “Why would I not do this for you?” Consider this equation: 

 Social media (free) + Research (a little time) + Publicizing other people = GOOD BUSINESS 

What to do during your pitch competition

1. Walk into the event with confidence because people are going to know who you are. You have done your research and reached out to those who are attending the event. Think of your engagement as though old friends are catching up, not introducing themselves for the first time.  

2. Using Twitter, engage in real-time with other pitches and the event itself. Remember, it's your job to help THEM look good.

3. Ensure you take lots of photos with the other Founders and their teams to share on social media platforms. Prove that you are who you say you are and celebrate each other’s successes.   

4. Utilize event hashtags (and company hashtags if you have one) in your posts. It's likely the use of these hashtags will have an explosive amount of activity during the conference, but not so much following the event. Capitalize on where people are paying attention.

What to do for follow up after your pitch competition

1. Post, post, post!! Use platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram to showcase what you did at the event. Share the photos you took with other Founders and their teams and tag them to increase engagement. Again, help highlight them and what they do.

2. Follow-up with the people you met using video messages. Soapbox from Wistia is a great resource for creating video messages. This is a much, much more personal way to share your message and help people recall who you are. Remember, they are going to meeting a lot of new people; you want to be the one who stands out! Don't relegate yourself to simply using email. Use personalized videos through Soapbox to solidify who you are in your prospects' minds.

​How do you use social media strategies before, during and after an event? Did I miss anything? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!​

THREE WAYS TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS AS A BUSINESS ON THE 4TH OF JULY HOLIDAY​

This may sound very obvious, but it’s something I see year after year - small businesses not availing themselves of the hashtag

#HappyFourth.

This is important in three regards:

1.) Use the #HappyFourth hashtag on relevant posts on all the social media platforms. This is the most obvious of the tips, but if a small business owner doesn’t use the hashtag in their posts, it doesn’t exist. The social platforms rely on hashtags (even LinkedIn) to ascertain the overarching theme of a post, and the omission of #HappyFourth is a big mistake.

These 5 Lessons I’ve Learned Will Make You Rethink How You Use LinkedIn

If you’re interested in using social media to engage with your customers, you’ve probably spent some time memorizing some rules about when to post on each social network. Maybe you’ve studied a chart like this one:

For LinkedIn, the traditional wisdom says 7a.m., noon and 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday are the best times to post.

As much as I like these charts, they don’t apply to everyone. Instead, I’m a big fan of sharing what I’ve proven to be true with my own data, so here it goes:

1.) The timing of your post on LinkedIn is WAY less important than the content of your post.

Because of the volume of content, and the behavior of users on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, timing is more important on those networks than on LinkedIn. The shelf-life of a Tweet seems to decrease every time someone writes about it. A few years ago, the shelf-life was a day or so. Now? We’re talking less than 3 hours.

The beauty of posting on LinkedIn is that high-quality content has a long shelf-life. The most clever Tweet will be forgotten within a day at absolute best. But an original article or a thoughtful post on LinkedIn will still spark conversation and engagement for weeks after you post it. I noticed this week that I had notifications of likes, comments or shares on posts from a day ago, three days ago, and 14 days ago. My best content is still generating conversation weeks after I post it.

Why is that? I’m not an expert in LinkedIn’s algorithm, but I think it relates to the behavior of users on LinkedIn. For the most part, LinkedIn users don’t get on the platform looking to waste time. They go on with a purpose — they want to connect with people in their industry and gain business insights by reading articles and posts from business people they admire.

2.) Don’t take engagement for granted.

Unlike on Facebook, where we often feel obligated to like certain posts — your cousin’s engagement announcement, your niece’s first birthday party, etc. — there’s no obligation within your business relationships. The likes, comments and shares that you earn tend to be much, much more meaningful. Savvy LinkedIn users are looking for content that will enrich their lives and enrich the lives of their followers, so if they like, comment or share your content, you can be sure it’s not an idle gesture.

If you’ve only got a few minutes available to devote to your social media effort, spend that time on LinkedIn. The longer shelf-life of your posts and articles means you’ll get the best bang for your buck by sharing relevant content with LinkedIn’s business-savvy audience. When someone in your network engages with your content, read it as a hat-tip, a sincere thank-you, and an opportunity to start a one-on-one conversation with them.

3.) Share content that will still be relevant weeks from now.

Since content on LinkedIn tends to stick around, it’s important to share evergreen content. A user might login to LinkedIn twice a month and catch up on all of the most interesting news from her network from the past two weeks. If that includes your post, you want to make sure it’s still relevant two weeks later. In fact, you probably want to make sure it’s still relevant six months later. If someone looks up your profile and takes an interest in your latest post, she might click through to your older posts to see what other insight you’ve shared.

4.) You don’t have to be world-famous, just famous in your world.

A major source of anxiety for professionals who use social media? You can follow all the rules and best practices, and you can still end up with lousy numbers. The pageviews aren’t hitting your targets, you haven’t reached 1,000 followers, or your content isn’t going viral.

But here’s the thing: going viral, or becoming world-famous, shouldn’t be your goal.

Here’s a question I like to ask in training sessions. What’s the most famous painting in the world? Most people will tell you the Mona Lisa.

But what’s the most famous farmers market in the world?

You’re probably picturing the most popular one in your town, no matter where you live. Why? Because farmer’s markets can only serve people within a small radius. Their entire premise is based on selling locally produced food, so garnering national fame is completely irrelevant for them.

Your job on social media is not to garner national fame. You simply need to become well known and respected in your own circle, just like a farmer’s market only needs to be famous in its own town to be successful. And doing that is easier than you think.

Curate your LinkedIn network by connecting with decision makers and influencers in your industry, and focus on providing meaningful content for them.

5.) Things work so well that you stop doing them.

There’s an old adage in sales – “Things work so well that you stop doing them.” After doing the same activities, telling the same stories, and seeing the same people, a salesperson wants to mix it up a little. I definitely experienced this phenomenon between the years of 2008-2015, when I was averaging 16 in-person meetings per week.

This same idea applies to social media as well. Much like consistent sales meetings or steady trips to the gym to workout, social media activities compound over time. Create a schedule, stick to it, and watch as your time investment on LinkedIn becomes more and more valuable.

Which of these 5 tips do think are most important? Have you experienced anything that contradicts what I’ve found?

Our Top 4 Design Apps for Social Media Content

Basic: Free
Pro: $12.95/mo. or $119.40/yr. 

Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is an online tool that allows non-designers to create social graphics, promotional videos, and basic web pages. It’s similar to Canva in that there are templates to use, but the customization options are somewhat limited. The Adobe Spark Starter Plan is free, but you won’t be able to personalize your project with your own logo, colors, and fonts. We feel that this option is best if you already have access to the Adobe Suite and are looking for an easy way to produce consistent branded content.

Basic: Free, with Adobe Spark Watermark
Pro: $9.99/month

What are your favorite social media design apps? Let us know if you want more in-depth tutorials on any of these (or other!) apps, we’d love to help!

How to Utilize Facebook Events for Free Marketing of your Business

Facebook Video Retargeting – Remarketing to Custom Video Audiences

Facebook is the greatest advertising platform that has ever been created. From the sheer amount of people that use this social media giant - 2.3 billion monthly active users - to the backend capabilities it has for creating ads and targeting exactly who you are looking for, Facebook has revolutionized advertising.

And on Facebook, video is king. One of the coolest things about using video content on Facebook is that when you use a video in a Facebook ad, or in a post on a page, you have the ability to retarget the people that have watched your video.

Here is how Facebook video retargeting works. Let’s say you create a video ad inside the Ads Manager (Facebook backend). Start by putting some money behind the ad and select a target audience. Once your ad starts running to that audience, people will start seeing your ad and viewing your video. If someone watches the video, they are added to a custom audience that can be retargeted, or shown additional messages from you. This gives you the opportunity to market directly to people who have already shown interest in what you're offering. What a novel concept!

Custom audiences can be created inside the Asset Library in the backend of Facebook. Here is a list of steps to take in order to create your custom audience based off of Video Views.

• Go to the Asset Library
• Select Create Audience
• Select Custom Audience
• Choose Engagement
• Choose Video (Create a list of people who have spent time watching your videos on Facebook or Instagram)
• Choose people to include in the audience based on the length of video viewing time. (3 seconds, 10 seconds, 25%, 50%, 75% or 95%)
• Click Choose video(s) to select the video you want the audience built from (You can pick more than one)
• Choose the number of days people will remain in your audience after they engage with your content. People will be removed from your audience after a set time period unless they engage with the content again. (Up to 365 days)
• Enter a name for your audience
• Click Create

Your audience will begin populating and is immediately ready for use in any ad creation.

You’re probably wondering what you should show an audience of people who have already watched a certain portion of your video content? Great question! Anything that you want them to see! Duh! Figure out what the next step is in your customer progression and show it to people in this audience.

For example, if your initial video is talking to people about the importance of having car insurance vs. not having car insurance, then create a Facebook audience of people who watched over 50% of that video. Maybe your next piece of content to them is a price guide in a downloadable format. You’ve already proven that the people in your audience are interested in having car insurance because of how much of the video they watched, but they probably want to know what it’s going to cost them. So, create a valuable price guide that includes average rates, coverages and particular needs based upon the type of car they drive. Then put it on your website for them to download after they’ve supplied their name and email address. Now that you’ve collected a little info, you can keep them messages going depending on what your next steps are.

The options are endless. Facebook - and social media in general - have opened up the door to create marketing that is not only finely detailed, but also incredibly useful to your customers. And all at a reasonable price!

How to Create 9 Pieces of Content in One-Hour or Less

In just one hour’s worth of work, how would you like to have at least nine pieces of content that you can use on your website and on social media?

You’ve heard you should be creating content to further your business development efforts, but you end up running out of time, right? How can you justify investing your limited hours in something that may or may not work?

Our team at AmpliPhi have refined a simple strategy for you to use where one hour’s worth of work will yield at least nine pieces of digital & social media content. This content will assist your business development efforts because your prospective clients will think about your more often than not. Next time they have a matter that could benefit from your expertise, they’ll think about you first instead of someone else.

After 3,000 in-person business development meetings between the years of 2008-2015 I discovered this – it’s really, really important for your prospective clients to hear from you on a recurring basis. If there’s too big a gap between the last time they heard from you and the present day, they won’t consider you when a need arises.

Video is the most effective way to stay in touch with prospective clients for two reasons:

• Unlike an email or phone call, this person can match your face to your name
• Videos can be used to educate prospective clients in a much more effective way than the written word alone

Without further ado, the steps -

Step 1 – record video using a phone or inexpensive camera that is stabilized on a tripod. Talk about the things that you hear every single week from your clients and your prospective clients and simply answer those questions, concentrating on one question at a time.

Either edit the video yourself by adding some music or graphics or have a member of your staff work with you to make it look professional before uploading it to YouTube.

Step 2 – once the video is uploaded to YouTube, YouTube is going to do something really cool for you – automatically – for free.

It actually close-captions your words for you. It takes what it thinks you’re saying and puts it into subtitle form.

YouTube isn’t going to be perfect at this, but it’s really easy to go in and edit the words to be sure that what you’re saying is actually correct. Once you’re done with your edits, download the caption file in SRT format.

Step 3 – Go to your Facebook page, and upload that same video and upload the captions to the video as well.

This is really important because the vast majority of videos are watched on Facebook in silent mode. If you upload the closed captions viewers will see your words on the video as they’re scrolling through their feed. So, viewers can actually watch it in silence and hear the same stuff or see – if you will – the same stuff that you’re saying.

Step 4 – Use your video editing software to edit one (or more) 60 second clips and upload that to Instagram.

Step 5 – Use your video editing software to edit one (or more) 30 second clips and upload that to Twitter. Note – the Twitter time limit was recently increased to 140 seconds (2 minutes, 20 seconds)

Upload videos natively to social media

Why not just link to YouTube on those platforms and save a lot of time? The social networks reward us – so to speak – by uploading the video to their native platforms. Instead of just showing the viewer a YouTube link, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter will all start playing your video automatically, and the video will usually be shown to more people than a link to a YouTube video. This is definitely worth your time invested.

Now that you’ve used that original video four (or more) different ways let’s start on the written end of things.

Step 6 – take that SRT file that you downloaded and edit it into a blog post format. Remove all the closed-captioning notations and add the title, subtitles, bold text, italicized text and anything else to make it look aesthetically pleasing and upload that article to the blog on your website.

Use that same blog on LinkedIn, Medium or anywhere else that you can contribute on a regular basis.

Step 7 – Take excerpts of your blog article and share those updates on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or even Snapchat.

This strategy is really about getting everything that you already have in your head into some kind of video form, because once we have that, it’s very easy to edit it and transcribe to use it on all the different social media platforms. Get started with this strategy right now.

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