Episode 345: 11 Ways to Use Curated Content to Start Sales Conversations

Intro

Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast, featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman, Stan Robinson, Junior, and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies. Our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show. It’s time for Making Sales Social Live coming to you from the social sales link and virtual studios.

0:01:05 – (Brynne Tillman): Hello, everyone. Welcome to Making Sales Social Live. I’m Brynne Tillman and I’m here with Stan Robinson today. Hi, Stan.

0:01:15 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): How are you doing, Brynne?

0:01:16 – (Brynne Tillman): It’s a great. I am so good. Go ahead. What were you going to say?

0:01:20 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): I’m just going to say, oh, it’s a great day here in New Jersey.

0:01:25 – (Brynne Tillman): It is, it is. And I’m coming off the Outbound high, which was unbelievable. It was probably one of my most amazing career experiences. So anyone listening Outbound will happen again next year. Make sure you check it out. It was just amazing. So on the heels of that, we are going to Talk today about 11 ways to use curated content content to start conversations. I just want to say, you know, one of the things that so many people ask me at Outbound was, you know, we’re just, we’re salespeople, we’re not content people.

0:02:07 – (Brynne Tillman): It’s, you know, yes, our marketing gives us content, but mostly it’s products and services, features. It’s not really educational and it’s not really engaging my prospects. What do I do? And you know, hands down, curating content is one of the best ways to have fabulous content that engages your prospects. Ultimately, it’s about leading to your solution, not with your solution. The last thing I’ll say before I turn it over to you is that Anthony Inarino had a wonderful keynote that really emphasized something that we talk about a lot, but he called it Trading Resources for Time.

0:02:50 – (Brynne Tillman): And so I loved that. Right. We talk about mastering the ask offer ratio, that your value has to be greater than the time they invest in order to earn the right. But it was just so simply put, with trading resources for time, the resources are resources that they want to consume, not necessarily content we want them to know about. Often when we’re sharing our content too early in the sales Cycle. It feels like a pitch, even if we know it’s valuable.

0:03:22 – (Brynne Tillman): So curating a third-party piece of content is a powerful way to show up with value without anyone ever feeling like it’s a pitch.

0:03:36 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep, exactly. Exactly. And curated content. And you mentioned this Brynne just now, third-party content. So it’s someone else’s content that they’ve created that is relevant to your audience and you’re sharing it with your audience because you feel it would be of value to them. Of course, with full attribution to the person who created the content. And so yeah, I’m ready to dive in. Do you want to start with, with number one, and then we’ll go from there. We have 11, so we’re going to be going quick.

0:04:13 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. And one more thing and then we’ll dive in is if you’re, if you’re not sure where to curate content. I’m just going to share this for a moment because then we’re going to share how do we use that content to start conversations? There are a few things. Find an influencer that, that’s attracting your ideal buyer. Someone who happens to be sharing a lot of content that your buyers would care about but you’re not competing with.

0:04:40 – (Brynne Tillman): So for example, Jeb Blount shares content. He’s engaging salespeople. We engage salespeople. We’re non-competent, we’re actually partners in things. Right. Mark Hunter or Anthony Nerino or Victor Antonio or Amy Franco, all the people that I talked with on stage at outbound non-competitors that are attracting the right people. Those, those folks are creating content and sharing content that likely will attract and engage your buyers. So go out into the world and find those influencers, those magnets that are attracting your buyers.

0:05:20 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yes. And, and you can, well, let me, let me go ahead to point one and we can kind of weave this in as we go. But as Brynne mentioned that the key thing is thinking in terms of your buyer, your audience, what they’re interested in, not what you’re interested in. So number one, we have post curated content and mention the author and their organization and if necessary, the media outlet. So as Brynne mentioned, when you find content that would be of interest to your audience, you can share it in a LinkedIn post.

0:06:03 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): And one of the keys of course is to share your thoughts, let your audience know why you think this content will be of value to them. And it could be anything from a blog article to a recent research report, anything like that, news that is relevant to your audience. Because we’re so inundated with news today. It’s hard to keep up. So sometimes you can help people just by sharing something that’s relevant to you and very new.

0:06:35 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Anything you would add to number one. Brent.

0:06:38 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, so I’m going to. Yes, and what you just said. So mentioning the author, the organization, the for example, was it published on Forbes or HubSpot? That’s the media outlet. Why do we want to do this? Well, they will likely engage and then their network will start to see our content. So you know that curated content. So you know if you put out their brilliant perspective on Overcoming objections by Jeb Blount at Sales Gravy. Right. So I mentioned Jeb, I mentioned Sales Gravy. The people at Sales Gravy marketing will engage.

0:07:18 – (Brynne Tillman): Jeb will at least like it. Maybe he’ll even comment and then his network will see it. Right. So we then have exposure into other audiences. A quick one on this and you know I may end up jumping ahead on things, so I apologize if I do. But you can search even in the free LinkedIn who in your first-degree connections follow Jeb? So I say, oh, I have 172 people that follow Jeb. Likely they’re people I want a conversation with and I can look through them. But now because they are my first-degree connection, this is a great way to re engage them.

0:07:58 – (Brynne Tillman): Click on the send button, send it to them and say hey, I see we’re both big fans of Jeb Blount at Sales Gravy. Just put out this post around overcoming objections. I would love your perspective in comments. And so now I am engaging them around someone that we have in common and it will likely not only expand our reach because when they engage then their network sees it, but it will start a conversation and we’re back on the radar of folks that we’re probably ignoring.

0:08:37 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep, awesome. It’s such a great win, win, win situation because you’re sharing content that’s of interest to your first-degree connection. It amplifies the content of the person that produced it and as Brynne, you just mentioned, it helps increase your visibility as well.

0:08:59 – (Brynne Tillman): Yes, I love that. So I’m going to put a spin on two. Why don’t you run with two? And then because I kind of half-answered it, I’m going to give you a different half-answer.

0:09:10 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Very cool. So number two is finding content from influence and thought leaders and looking at who is engaging with that content and engaging with them. So in addition to engaging with the piece of content, you look at who’s already commented on it and engage with their content comments by of course, adding something of value to the discussion. So, Brynne, you have kind of another take on it.

0:09:43 – (Brynne Tillman): So I’m going to throw in kind of another yes. And we get to that post. So before we even share it, we could have actually done this as number one, even though it’s number two, we can start to engage with the people that are engaging on that content before we reshare it and mention them. Right? So let’s say there are 17 comments on that piece. How do we get their attention? Because most of them are probably not your first-degree connections that are commenting.

0:10:14 – (Brynne Tillman): So if you engage, you can simply react or even better, add a comment. But now if you wanted to connect with them, you can send a connection request and another piece of content. I tend to go to listen notes where I can find a podcast from that person because that’s like really outside the box thinking. And so maybe I find another. A podcast that Jeb is on around overcoming objections that I find on listennotes.com

0:10:45 – (Brynne Tillman): and I connect. I say, stan, I see we’re both big fans of Jeb Blend and sells gravy. I really loved the content. Now you’ve already seen my name because I engaged on your comment, right? And I, you know, I’m not sure if you’re a big podcast listener, but I recently came across one from Jeb that I think you’ll love. If you’re interested, let’s connect. I can send you a link. And now we connect around the influencer and we’re starting that conversation around an influencer.

0:11:16 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep, good deal. So a lot of this has to do with, as you just mentioned, starting conversations around an influencer. So it’s leading to your solution, not leading from it. The next point, we always talk about taking inventory of your connections so you can download your connections, have a look at them, go through them, and identify. Okay. Who maybe I haven’t talked to in a, in quite a while, but I need to talk to.

0:11:52 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): And one of the ways that you can re-engage with them, apart from just reaching out and saying, hey, it’s been a while, but you can also say, hey, I noticed that we’re both following this person, or I thought this particular piece of content would be of interest given what you’re doing now. Let me know if you’d like me to send you the link. So you’re asking permission, especially if it’s someone you haven’t been in touch with for a while, you’re asking permission before you just send the link.

0:12:24 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Brynne, anything you’d like to Add Yeah.

0:12:27 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s very powerful and I think it’s amazing that you’re throwing that in here because one of the things we might do, even though sending someone else’s content is not seen as much of the spam, if you haven’t talked to them in a while, I love the idea that we’re asking permission to send it. Now, the one time I probably don’t do that and I have to rethink it, but is my video message, If I send a video message, so I’m like, hey, Stan, I see we’re both followed. JetBlue Sales Gravy recently came across a podcast. I’m going to stick a link below.

0:13:07 – (Brynne Tillman): I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. So that’s. I. When I do that, I’m not asking permission, but maybe we should ab test that. But I’m wondering your thoughts. I’m going to pass it back to you. If it’s a video message, does that make it a little more personal and less spammy?

0:13:26 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): I think it makes it much more personal. And people respond well to video messages as long as they’re. And I’m kind of thinking out loud here, as long as they’re not promotional. So if someone you haven’t been in contact with for a while, your purpose is to reconnect. Okay. It’s not to reconnect and say, hey, I wanted to get back to you because we’ve got this great special offer. No, your purpose is just to reconnect.

0:13:57 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): And I think people respond well to, oh my goodness, Brent took the time to make a video because no one else is doing that, that adding the link, in that case, would be okay because I don’t.

0:14:12 – (Brynne Tillman): And especially when it’s curated content around an influencer, they follow.

0:14:16 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yeah, exactly.

0:14:17 – (Brynne Tillman): Okay. So based on. I love that, and I do, by the way, really agree with you so much that almost everything should be permission-based, especially when it’s your own content. I think maybe in this case, when you’re curating an influencer content that you know they follow, it might be an exception. Yeah, wonderful. All right, what’s number four?

0:14:43 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Now? Number four has to do with hashtags. And even though LinkedIn is not emphasizing hashtags, hashtags are still a way that people use to, in effect, organize and tag their content so it can be easily found. So you can take advantage of hashtags to find content around topics and engage with both, as we’ve been talking about, the person who produced the content and anyone who’s commented on it. And then if you choose, you can also use hashtags in your own content.

0:15:24 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): There’s nothing that says you can’t. And lastly. And then I’ll turn it over to you, Bryn. One thing about hashtags is you can also use them to make your own content easier to find by. Because a lot of times we may want to look at what we posted a few months ago and it’s like you’re scrolling forever. But if you come up with a unique hashtag, we use SSL Insights hashtag SSLInsights. It makes it easy for you to quickly find your content as well.

0:15:58 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Brynne, your thoughts in terms of the world of hashtag?

0:16:01 – (Brynne Tillman): I have nothing to add. I think that you covered that perfectly. And number five, I think I already gave away, so I’m going to have you just introduce that and then we’ll go on to number six.

0:16:14 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yes, because you did mention that with free LinkedIn, even with free LinkedIn you can see who is following different influencers and so you can identify an influencer, look at who else is following them, and then use that as a basis for engagement. You’re engaging around the influencer. And then you mentioned you can use something like Listens notes to find relevant content. So good. Let’s see, number six. Now, this is one of our favorites and that’s interviewing your prospects on Zoom or on a LinkedIn Live around.

0:17:00 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): It could be a trending topic, a topic that they are expert in and use that content, the curated content, as the main topic for discussion. So there are lots of ways that you can take this, but the idea is to interview your prospects. And Brynne, you know, this is something that you came up with in terms of this is a way that you can actually run a campaign.

0:17:30 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I mean, we can take this into some deep. It could be very superficial in interviews or we could go really, really deep, but interview your prospects on Zoom. It’s really this hybrid of original content slash curated. So it doesn’t have to be your thought leadership. So you are identifying other thought leadership, you’re curating insights, but done as an interview kind of changes that game. So big fan of that. And I also truly believe that the prospect by interview campaign is just a wonderful way to continue to create this hybrid of original and curated content.

0:18:13 – (Brynne Tillman): So I love that. So we are now on number seven.

0:18:17 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Number seven, use a trending article or topic that you can use to create questions for polls. And LinkedIn offers the ability for you to create polls, ask a question and then pick answers, three of which should be the ones that are most likely to come up and the most likely to surface the type of information that you’re looking for and that you think your audience would be interested in. And then the fourth poll question should always be an other and add in comments because some of the best nuggets that you’ll get in polls will be what people put in comments.

0:19:04 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Brynne, your thoughts on this one?

0:19:06 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I mean, I think that, I love that the big thing is if you are curating content that inspired the poll, link the content in the text. Now, a lot of people say, well, doesn’t that hurt the algorithm? Does it? I mean, you can definitely say link to original content and comments, but quite honestly, I really believe that the best way to use your content is to get it into the inbox of your, of your identified prospects and influencers.

0:19:39 – (Brynne Tillman): So I don’t really worry about the algorithm nearly as much as other people do because I feel like if you’ve got organic reach and you’ve got, you know, and a poll automatically will get some organic reach. Anyway, people love to the one-click vote, then make sure that, you know, you let your. You’re linking them back to the curated content content.

0:20:05 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep. Yep. All right, moving on to next number eight, which is newsletters. And you can create a newsletter with links to curated industry insights, content and other relevant content. So in addition to your own content, because you definitely want to use your, it’s your newsletter, so you can use it to talk about your events, what you have coming up, content that you’ve created. You can also use the newsletter to highlight curated content as well.

0:20:45 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, I love that. And we primarily have our original content, but you could curate events. So if you’re going to an event, you can curate events, you can create podcasts, curate podcasts, you can link people to interviews. Like, there’s so much that you can do inside a newsletter that really putting that newsletter together, is much easier than having to think of new content, original content every time.

0:21:19 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep. And that, that’s one of the golden things about curated content that we mentioned, is that you don’t have to spend the time creating it, which is what stops a lot of people from sharing content. They just think, I don’t have time to create this. But as we mentioned, just pick sources of third-party content and share them. Now, the next one is invite, say, content creators to a zoom interview or to LinkedIn lives, like we’re doing now, to talk about what they’ve published. And of course that’s kind of related to what we’ve talked about, but it’s another approach as well.

0:22:01 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. So often, you know, when we’re talking about interviews, it’s often prospects or influencers. In this case, while it is an influencer, but not inside of an organization, but the content creator. So inviting the person who wrote that content to talk about that content. Now, it used to be that, you know, if you didn’t have a podcast, it was hard. What do you do with this? But you can go live right into YouTube, which we do, and we have a couple people live on YouTube right now. You can go, you know, live into LinkedIn and other platforms which will also house that content. So you don’t have to have a podcast to interview even top content creators because it’s.

0:22:48 – (Brynne Tillman): There’s very. You don’t have to do editing work and submission work. It’s all live and it’s up there once you’re done. And it’s probably the least amount of work when it comes to interviewing. And you will engage their network. So it’s a. It’s a great win. Win.

0:23:06 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep. Good deal. Next, and number 10 is to use a LinkedIn audio room to discuss a topic. And it could be based on anything that’s trending, any topic that you choose. But you can also use LinkedIn audio rooms to do it. So I know we talk about LinkedIn lives all the time because we do them all the time, but you also have access to LinkedIn audio.

0:23:41 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. This is also a great place to interview that creator or bring in that creator. But what you’re doing is you’re actually creating discussions and you can bring the audience up on stage to talk with that creator. So often, you know, we talk about curating content for this. This is, hey, I found a great piece of content. Maybe I found it through using hashtags. And, you know, I really love the perspective of the original, you know, content producer.

0:24:12 – (Brynne Tillman): And so bringing them into an audio room is a great way to use curated content to start conversations. And you can invite your prospects to those conversations.

0:24:24 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep. Alrighty. And then number 11 is partnering with content creators who attract a similar audience to your audience. And Brynne, you alluded to this before when you talked about partnering with people who share the same audience as we do with Jeb and others, but you’re not competing against each other, and so you can support each other that way.

0:24:50 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. So I think this is a huge opportunity. Now, this is not resharing their content. It’s directly sharing their content. So, you know, normally what I would do if I found curated content on LinkedIn is I would reshare it. So it’s being posted by me. I’ll mention, you know, the author and the company and the media outlet. In this case, you’re swapping, right? Sharing. So I will use the little paper airplane at the bottom of somebody of their content and I will send it to 50 or 100 of my connections that I think will bring value. And you can do ten at a time and they can do the same.

0:25:35 – (Brynne Tillman): And so what happens is I’m attracting people to their content. It’s not about, hey, engage on my content. It’s hey, I found content I think you’d find valuable and they’re doing the same. So when you have those collaborations, expanding your network is just a fabulous way to get in front of more people.

0:26:00 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Yep. Super. Well, that was number 11. So we, we got through all 11 in record time.

0:26:10 – (Brynne Tillman): Love it and absolutely loved going through this. For everyone that’s watching. If you are looking for the ebook for [email protected] curated, that’s SocialSalesLink.com curated and we would love for you to download the ebook if you find that it would be helpful. The other thing is, and we’re doing this live so I’m going to throw at a date, but we do run this once a month. November 21st, we have a be our guest to Mastermind coaching.

0:26:46 – (Brynne Tillman): So if you go to social saleslink.com events, if it’s past November 21st, you’ll see the next one because we do put it up at that same link every single month. So come join us, and ask your questions. We’d love to have you as our guest. So Stan, any parting words?

0:27:07 – (Stan Robinson, Jr): Just take advantage of curated content, find some good sources that your audience will be interested in and share it. So Brynne, this has been awesome as always.

0:27:19 – (Brynne Tillman): I love doing these with you. So to our audience, when you are out and about, don’t forget to make your sales social. We’ll never get it right, but that’s okay. All right, have a good one.

Outro:

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