• Five Trends to Spark Your Social Media Strategy

    Five Trends to Spark Your Social Media Strategy

    The world of social media changes on an almost daily basis; between shifting algorithms and platform changes, it can be hard to keep up. It’s even harder to keep your social media strategy up-to-date and in tune with best practices. Here at Matter, we live and breathe social media. Our team spends countless hours making sure we’re on top of the latest changes and adjusting strategies and tactics for our clients. Below are a few things we’re thinking about (and you should, too!) strategically as we enter 2019, with ideas on how to implement!

     

    Every Social Platform is Different, and Should Be Treated That Way

    Gone are the days of creating one piece of content and sharing it on every social channel at the exact same time. Your audiences across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are different and your content strategy should reflect that. Depending on your business goals, the goals for each platforms should differ. If you’re a B2B company, maybe Facebook is where you connect with current staff, Twitter is where you work to get the attention of the media, LinkedIn is where you update investors and customers, and Instagram showcases your company culture for recruiting. Determine what the best kind of content is for each platform and audience!

     

    Engagement is Everything

    Social media shouldn’t just be a place for marketers to sell the latest products and services–it’s a place to engage with consumers, entice potential customers, and showcase your thought leadership in a meaningful way. I hate the term Social Media Marketing; instead I like to say Social Media Community Building. Use thought-provoking calls to action, ask for community input on the latest product or campaign, and encourage audiences to contribute their own content or feedback. By viewing social channels as a long-term investment, brands can build authentic hubs for their communities.

     

    Video is King

    The old saying was “content is king” but now it’s not just about content, it’s about video content. YouTube is making a comeback (it’s still the 2nd largest search engine after Google) and with IGTV and Facebook Watch, it’s clear that video is more important than ever. While high-quality, professional video is awesome, so are authentic videos shot on your phone. Utilize Facebook Live to showcase your staff, products and company culture, create branded gif-ographics to have a little fun with your data, and work to tell your brand story and successes in a more interesting way than a case study on your website. Upload videos natively to your social platforms to get the most views and engagement!

     

    Nanoinfluencers Help Move the Needle

    Many brands shy away from working with huge influencers because of the sheer cost of getting them to share a post about their brand. More and more brands are working with nanoinfluencers, where the cost per engagement is much lower (or even free – many will work with you in exchange for product) and the return is much better. Despite how good your product will look popping up on on Rihanna’s Instagram, the power of nanoinfluencers will grow in 2019 in terms of driving consideration on social. These influencers are associated with authenticity to their followings, and can help present brands in a more transparent and niche-oriented light. Once the perfect influencers are identified, approach the partnership like a collaboration instead of providing a fixed message. Educate them on your brand or service, and they’ll be better equipped to authentically present it to their specific audience. Not only will your brand get some great exposure, but you’ll get some professional-looking user generated content for your own social channels!

     

    Stories are Here to Stay

    Instagram Stories have grown into their own unique realm of social engagement and storytelling. The platform has steadily introduced updates and features that change what Instagram Stories mean to brands and consumers, and 2019 will be no different. As Instagram pushes their “You’re All Caught Up Feature” that decrease engagement on feed posts, Instagram Stories have become the new and best way to engage with your audience. Take advantage of the polling feature to get quick customer feedback and insights, use Stories to document company culture and behind the scenes activities, and host Q&A parties where your audience can ask you anything! Brands already on Instagram should look to add Stories to their repertoire to stay top of mind and keep engagement growing.

     

    At the end of the day, your social media strategy should help guide your content and make sure you’re achieving your goals! Need help getting started with your strategy? Contact us – our team would love to help!

     

    Matter

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  • The Pros and Cons of On Location Vs. Trade Show Customer Testimonials

    The Pros and Cons of On Location Vs. Trade Show Customer Testimonials

    “I know our company needs some video customer testimonials to better communicate our value to prospects. But should we capture as many as possible at our annual trade show, or should we focus on shooting just a few on-site at our clients’ offices? What are the tradeoffs and considerations?  What’s the best way to go about it?”

    We receive questions to this scenario a lot — and  surprise — there’s no one right answer. Only the right answer for your situation. First, take a look at the cheat sheet below and then we’ll quickly cover the two main variables you should consider: the nature of the client relationship and your budget.

    /></p> <p> </p> <h2><b>The Nature of the Client Relationship</b></h2> <p><span style=

    Broadly speaking, shooting on location at one of your clients’ offices allows for a more fully-formed, authentic and exciting story. On the other hand, you can capture a significant number of customer voices at your trade show. One of our clients makes a helpful distinction to help you choose depending on the type of client:

    “I prefer to shoot conference testimonials with lower-impact customers and shoot full scale, on location videos with our premiere clients; they’re expecting high production value to properly represent their brand, and it’s a brand that we want to leverage across our channels.”

    If you have the opportunity to capture a Customer Success Story (our preferred term) with one of your premier clients, it’s worth going the extra mile (often literally) to film on location. On site, your video producers can show your customers using your product in unique, diverse and meaningful ways within their natural environment. Your interviewees are also more likely to be relaxed and prepared for their interview. And in the end, they’ll be slack-jawed when they see just how well your video works as a polished marketing piece for them, too.

    There’s no denying that shooting trade show testimonials maximizes your production day spend — in fact, it’s worth celebrating! There’s no more cost effective way to capture a ton of diverse perspectives when so many of your clients are in the same place at the same time. It’s a great way to rapidly accumulate a large library of customer content at an unbeatable price point, and therefore a strategy clients of all stripes smartly return to again and again.

    Just don’t forget that video is a fundamentally visual medium. It can be difficult to capture enough visual variety and interest at trade shows in relation to your customers’ stories. Since repeated cutaways to miscellaneous event networking and signage become monotonous for the viewer, we always recommend asking for any media or B-Roll packages your customer might already have in the quiver that can be reused. 

    Another excellent strategy is to wait and see which of your customers deliver the most compelling interviews and send a videographer to their office to thoughtfully capture supplemental B-Roll. Because even if you’re able to capture a shot or two of your customer talking or attending a lecture, it pales in comparison to the quantity and quality of authentic shots possible when shooting on location. Therefore, it’s not a sure thing that you and your client will be as wowed by the resulting content. If filming on-location is off the table for whatever reason, you should still of course capture an interview with them at your trade show — any testimonial is more persuasive and impactful than none at all. A talented video team like ours is also always willing and able to work creatively around your constraints.

    Above all, remember that you can’t go wrong either way —  any video with a compelling customer voice is going to be a worthwhile investment, regardless of the filming location. Ideally, over time you’ll be able to shoot a healthy and effective mix of trade show and on location testimonials now that you’re well informed about the benefits and tradeoffs of each. Because with their authentic social proof, Customer Success Stories are a surefire a way to connect with prospects and meaningfully impact their decision-making process. In a modern marketing landscape oversaturated with self promotion, half truths and hot air — genuine client endorsements are one of the few tools that actually help you stand out from others.

    Looking to elevate your upcoming marketing campaigns with customer success stories?

    Fill out the form below to schedule a free strategy call with our team.

    Gabe Gerzon

  • Marketing Mojo: Insights from Myomo CMO Cliff Conneighton

    Jesse Ciccone, VP and managing director at Matter recently spoke with Myomo CMO Cliff Conneighton to discuss B2B marketing, measurement and more. Check out the video from the interview and read below for the full conversation.

     

    Jesse Ciccone (JC): Tell us a little about yourself and about Myomo.

    Cliff Conneighton (CC): I’m Cliff Conneighton, I’m the Chief Marketing Officer for Myomo Inc. located in Cambridge since it was spun out of MIT about ten years ago. Myomo is a wearable medical robotics company. Our patient is someone who has their arm, but they’ve lost use of it due to stroke, nerve injury, brain injury or spinal cord injury. Turns out that is about 1% of the population.

    Personally, I started as a software engineer then moved into product management and finally into marketing where I have been for, pretty much, the rest of my career. Much of that has been in the software market for enterprise eCommerce systems. I was Chief Marketing Officer for four companies; three of which sold to larger companies and Myomo is the fourth.

     

    JC: Myomo obviously has a *very* specific target customer. How does this impact your marketing strategy? How is it different from your previous roles?

    CC: We have a portable, robotic brace that fits over your arm and reads the faint muscle signals that are not enough to move the arm, but are readable by the device. We then amplify those signals and use it to drive motors. It restores the mobility and a person’s ability to do daily activities like feeding and dressing themselves.

    Our go to market channel strategy is very complex, compared to what I’m used to. Our customer is orthotics and prosthetics (O&P) practices who fit patients for artificial limbs. The problem is that these people don’t generate business so we must get the patients to express the need for the brace. To do so, we market directly to patients as well as to physicians and therapists who will recommend or prescribe our product to patients. On top of that, the brace is paid for by insurance companies, and it’s not cheap. Therefore, we educate insurance companies about the benefits so they will cover it. The whole ecosystem of players working together is complex: the patient needs to want it., We then need to determine if the patient has sufficient signal for the product to work. Are they healthy enough otherwise for it to be a good fit? A physician needs to prescribe it.  Back to the O&P practice to fit and deliver it.  Finally, there needs to be a therapist lined up to teach the patient how to use the product.

     

    JC: What marketing initiatives and technology within Myomo will you invest more heavily in over the next year? What will become less of a priority and why?

    CC: Early this year we began a robust CRM system to track the players we work with. We invested in not only configuring the software but also enhancing the data we’re capturing. Not just the opportunity data, but the clinical data, meaning we need a system which is HIPAA compliant, patient privacy law compliant, and we needed to educate our salespeople and clinicians on how to use the system. In addition, we continue to invest more and more in direct to patient marketing. We’re finding social media and Google AdWords is a great way to reach patients.

     

    JC: How do you measure your social media?

    CC: When we advertise on social media, we drive all the clicks back to our own site, rather than an O&P. That way, we know who clicks through, and we can follow the patient through the qualification process. In some cases, if the patient went directly to an O&P, we could lose track of the patients and not know what ads are performing. We have a pre-qualification that we do on the phone. If somebody clicks through on the website from an ad, Facebook ad or a Google ad, we call that patient and do a brief pre-qualification on the phone to make sure they’ll be medically qualified.

     

    JC: Why is a genuine commitment to social responsibility an important aspect of marketing? Is Myomo doing any initiatives?

    CC: Our whole mission is to conquer upper limb paralysis. And that in itself is social good. This is the first company where I can actually see, one patient at a time, how the product changes people’s lives. We had a young woman, 26 years old, who suffered a stroke and couldn’t use her arm. She left a message on our website and said, “I watched your videos and I cried.” That is moving. Not just to her, but to us. We are doing our best to contribute to society by the very product that we sell.

     

    JC: What differentiates Boston as a tech hub and how do you see that evolving over the next five years?

    CC: Boston as a tech hub has pros and cons. On the downside, it’s hard to find good people as they’re in demand and we have to pay a lot more for good people. But on the plus side, there are many good people in Boston. How it will change depends on what companies like Amazon do. If Amazon really wants to hire thousands more engineers, it’s going to make it tougher for companies like Myomo to find people.

     

    JC: What content works best for you when marketing your product?

    CC: The content that works for us is patient stories. So, videos, case studies, when we do PR, it’s all about telling a patient story. We’ve had very good luck getting patients’ videos on local news channels here in Boston, we’ve had WBZ, Chronicle , NBC Boston, we’ve been on TV in Cleveland and Kansas City, and it’s all about patients. That’s our content.

     

    JC: What KPIs are most critical to your executive team and board? How are you being asked to measure the effectiveness of your marketing and PR programs?

    CC: The KPIs that are critical to us in marketing are the same as they are in sales. We have a tight relationship between marketing and sales. What we measure sales and marketing on is how many patients are moved into the insurance reimbursement process. So, it’s actually not revenue that we’re measured on directly in sales and marketing, because revenue comes later in the process when the insurance company actually accepts the claim and pays for it. But in terms of sales and marketing, we’re measured on what we call an “add to insurance”. That means finding patients who are medically qualified and want the device, an O&P that wants to deliver it, and we just need insurance to pay for it. So, putting them into that process is our primary KPI for sales and marketing.

    Jesse Ciccone

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