HubSpot Social Media Strategy 101
Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack? Lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt, knowledge.
Intro:Never fear, hub heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the league of extraordinary inbound heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute. Hub Heroes, it's time to unite and activate your powers. Before we begin, we need to disclose that Devin is currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode's recording.
Intro:This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin during the show are that of his own and in no way represent those of his employer.
Liz Moorhead:Welcome back to another episode of the Hub Heroes podcast. As always, I am Liz Murphy, content therapist extraordinaire, Hub Heroes Wrangler. And, George, yeah, I know you're here. I don't care because you know who is here. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:We'll suck it.
George B. Thomas:Sheesh. That's a way to start
Devyn Bellamy:the podcast. Really feel.
George B. Thomas:Yeah, man.
Liz Moorhead:Is that the voice I have been waiting for, Devin? Bubby, you're back.
Devyn Bellamy:What's happening? It's good to be back. It's so good
George B. Thomas:to be back.
Liz Moorhead:Left me alone with these crazy people.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Devyn Bellamy:I have full faith in your ability to manage the asylum in my absence.
George B. Thomas:She wrangled without you. Don't let her get, like,
George B. Thomas:don't get it twisted. She wrangled with I wrangled, but under duress.
George B. Thomas:Anyway, how's it going?
Liz Moorhead:Anyway, how's it going, gents?
George B. Thomas:Fair. How
Devyn Bellamy:you doing? Stick.
George B. Thomas:Wonderful. Now that I'm doing this because it's this and then, like, one more meeting, and it's the Ow.
Liz Moorhead:What do you got going on this weekend?
George B. Thomas:Absolutely nothing. The wife and two daughters are gone, which means zero honey and it's me and my son, and I think we're gonna, like, eat a lot and watch a lot of movies and TV and stuff. That's what this week
Liz Moorhead:I can send you a honey do list if you'd like. No.
George B. Thomas:I'm good. What? Wait. We're breaking up. I can't hear you.
Liz Moorhead:Oh, good. Now that George is gone. Just kidding. Devin, what are you doing this weekend?
Devyn Bellamy:I am watching all the shows that I have been neglecting for the past few weeks, starting with The Mandalorian. So hopefully, by the time this episode drops, I'll know exactly what's going on with the season.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. You'll know that that one guy did the
Devyn Bellamy:Stop it. Cut it out. I will go over there.
Liz Moorhead:Spoiler alert. Pedro Pascal is still stupidly hot. That's really all you need to do. Okay. That's right.
George B. Thomas:I mean That's right. Let's He he's decent.
Liz Moorhead:That's fine. I don't need you to agree.
George B. Thomas:I'm just saying Decent. Yeah. Okay. There's another five shows. There's another showy, something about, like, zombie people and something.
Liz Moorhead:Last of Us.
George B. Thomas:Oh, yeah. So good. So good. I love it.
Devyn Bellamy:All the kids.
George B. Thomas:Yep. Yep.
Liz Moorhead:Good for him.
George B. Thomas:That's what we do. We're doing we're doing the Hub Heroes podcast, all the kids.
Liz Moorhead:Children?
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:We're saving the children.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Educating people one child at a time. I don't know. I'm making stuff up right now.
Liz Moorhead:Connect that dot for me.
George B. Thomas:I can't. Oh, I can. I can. Don't forget, coming May, World Certification Week, you're gonna have an opportunity to earn certifications for
Devyn Bellamy:a good cause. May, make sure you set aside time on your calendars to expand your professional horizon. And for every certification that we get, we're going to be donating up to, I believe it's $50,000 to charities that in part are helping the kids. I made the connection. Let's go.
George B. Thomas:There we go. You know?
Liz Moorhead:See, that's the kind of energy we needed.
George B. Thomas:I know. I'm just gonna serve up volleyballs, for Devon to spike the entire rest of the episode.
Liz Moorhead:It's not at my face. I wanna keep this perfect piece of art intact.
George B. Thomas:Well, it's not dodgeball. I said volleyball.
Liz Moorhead:If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. Oh, there you go. Anyway. Alright, cupcakes. Are we ready?
Liz Moorhead:We have stuff to talk about. We have stuff. Are we ready? Yeah.
Devyn Bellamy:Let's do it.
Liz Moorhead:Gentlemen. Let's do it. Alright.
George B. Thomas:Let's do it.
Liz Moorhead:We're talking about social media this week. That's right. I don't care if you love it. I don't care if you hate it. I don't care if you hate to love it or you love to hate it, it does not matter because it is absolutely essential.
Liz Moorhead:Now some of you might also consider it a necessary evil considering we're all raging against the algorithms every single day of the week, but it does not matter because social is that gateway to online conversations which can inform all parts of your flywheel, right? Your marketing, your sales, your service, how you attract, how you engage, how you delight. And it's also how you can amplify the content you're creating. And you can foster relationships. There's just so much potential within social that I think gets lost in the narrative of why we're mad at Facebook this week.
Liz Moorhead:Right? Like that's the kind of stuff. The true purpose and the true capabilities behind what these platforms provide is lost in that negativity which is why I wanted to have this conversation today because George you created a piece of content not too long ago about all of the different things about the HubSpot social media tool suite that most people don't even realize. I mean, when I read it, I remember thinking, oh, I just thought it was a scheduling tool and nothing more. And I have never felt like such a big ding dong, which is why we are here today.
Liz Moorhead:We're talking about what social strategy actually looks like. We're not talking about social strategy if you're like Duolingo or Coca Cola. We're talking about what real revenue driving social strategies look like and how you use HubSpot to get it done. What do we think?
George B. Thomas:I I love it. And I will say one thing, Liz, that all of that stuff that you rattled off about, like, distribution and, like, the things, the positives out of it, this whole conversation this whole conversation that we're moving forward with, all of that is true if you make sure when you get ready to hit that submit button that you are coming from a place of being a good human.
Liz Moorhead:Okay.
George B. Thomas:There we go.
Liz Moorhead:Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Right in the You know what? Beginning of the done. I don't have to do it for the rest of the podcast episode. Alright. Let's go.
Liz Moorhead:You know what, George? New rule. When you actively insert it like a shoehorn into the intro going forward, that no longer counts.
George B. Thomas:Dang it. Okay. Alright.
Liz Moorhead:Nice try, buddy. Nice try.
George B. Thomas:I do I do what I can. But but I am super excited to talk about this. And what's crazy, Liz, and I think you mentioned to this, to me when we were talking about, like, what do we wanna bring to the audience is that we've done over 30 episodes. Wow. And haven't talked yeah.
George B. Thomas:And haven't talked about social media yet, which is crazy. Like, it's just crazy.
Liz Moorhead:It makes sense. Quite frank this goes into my first question, which is, like, what do most folks get wrong when they think about social media's role in their inbound strategy? I think the challenge is that there are so many platforms, right? And we see the duolingo owl, duolingo ing everywhere. We see all of these big robust social strategies that I think it can feel really daunting if you're in that more maybe you're in b2b, maybe you're an SMB sized organization.
Liz Moorhead:I think there's some sort of disconnect where social media is great for thee and not for me, and thus people tend to put it at an arm's length. They already struggle to calculate the ROI of their content. Oh. Imagine trying to calculate the ROI of social media. Easy.
George B. Thomas:It anyway, we'll get there. We'll get there. That's that's easy with HubSpot. But and I'm not talking about the content part because that's still somewhat kind of pseudo difficult. But social media wrapped into your content actually becomes really easy.
George B. Thomas:I know we'll get there. So what was the original question again, Liz?
Liz Moorhead:What do you think people are getting wrong when they think about the role of social media in their inbound strategy? Don't all jump in at once, fellas.
Devyn Bellamy:Oh, I thought George was about to start. Yeah. But yeah.
George B. Thomas:Well, I was I was gonna try to give Devin
Liz Moorhead:some space. His awkward pacing where he's glaring at me through the screen begging to give him a landing.
George B. Thomas:Listen. We started we started this podcast out that you were glad to hear Devin's voice. I was trying to give some space for Devin's voice to answer the question and actually just come in afterwards.
Devyn Bellamy:I mean, I got one in the chamber. I'm ready. Let's do it.
George B. Thomas:Well, then let's let's roll.
Liz Moorhead:Devin. Alright. Bring it.
Devyn Bellamy:So people I think when you look at, like, social media giants like Wendy's and how they manage their Twitter or how Ryan Reynolds masterfully handles social media. You don't have to be that. If you look at some of my favorite influencer in this in the space, like Max Cohen, who is doing phenomenal job with the HubSpot related things that only HubSpot users will get. Like, the workflow one that he just did was I was crying. But, also, you look at people who are just sharing information and thought leaders in that space, like, Kyle Jepsen or Sherry Otto, who are talking about the why behind what it is that they're doing and the importance of what it is to be better at what you do, the kinds of things that their audience will nerd out about.
Devyn Bellamy:The and I've said this a few times in this, series that everybody nerds out about something. And that thing that you're doing, someone's gonna nerd out about it. And you can go there and talk about the challenges, be more relatable, more human, if you will, in your social media. You don't have to be super witty, posting all the time. At the end of the day, if you are creating brand awareness, you're creating problem awareness, and you're driving people back, through the occasional, not the heavy handed every time, go to our website, check the link in the bio, links in the comments kind of thing.
Devyn Bellamy:You don't have to do that every time. You can just be yourself and it'll it'll drive traffic. So I think the thing that people get wrong about social media, one, they think that they don't need it because of the vertical or industries that they're in. Completely false. You can sell toilet paper, and you're gonna find somebody who's really excited about whether or not someone's gonna invent four ply that's not gonna destroy their plumbing system.
Devyn Bellamy:And you you can just do that. You can you can have fun and and and just speak to the handful of people. And and the last thing, this is the last thing I promise, you don't have to have millions of followers to be successful on social media. Your audience ain't that big. Spoiler alert.
Liz Moorhead:You don't have to be for everybody. You just gotta be for the bright people.
Devyn Bellamy:There you
Liz Moorhead:go. George, because I also love you equally. All jokes aside, what do you want to share with everybody?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So I think people and I love everything that Devon said. I think people have to realize that, like, you what Devon said, you gotta be you, boo. Right? Like, just go and be you.
George B. Thomas:I don't think that they understand the idea of scalable conversations over social instead of tactics that they think they have to try to pull off. It is about the humans. It is about connecting. It is about conversating. It is about having a brain of curiosity.
George B. Thomas:Earlier today, I literally put out a post that was like, hey. In two lines, by the way, no big strategy. When you're talking to humans, what do you think the number one benefit that you talk about most is? That's from a place of curiosity. Right?
George B. Thomas:I wanna know why do people think HubSpot is valuable. But I also think that because of this, like, thought of it has to be about a tactic, less about conversation, less about human. I think too that they don't realize the power in which lies in their hand and the ability to actually track that power. And I'm gonna, like, open up the kimono for a second here so people traffic analytics, I can see the source of people coming to Georgebthomas.com. And I can see it by direct traffic, organic social, organic search referrals, email, paid search, and other campaigns.
George B. Thomas:And so you have to be able to look and see over time, are my efforts in social media worth the wait that I'm putting in? Are the conversations that I'm having worth it? Is the brand that I'm building worth it? And I'll tell you right now actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna, put out a little thing. I'm curious.
George B. Thomas:Do you think that my organic search, my organic social, or my direct traffic has created the most sessions on George b Thomas over all time?
Liz Moorhead:I can't answer that because I know the answer.
Devyn Bellamy:I mean, anyone who knows George should know the answer. Okay.
George B. Thomas:Kevin.
George B. Thomas:Okay. Are you gonna go out on a limb?
Devyn Bellamy:I'm gonna say your organic social. Your LinkedIn jumps, bro.
George B. Thomas:So so it's interesting. Here's what's fun, because it's it's somewhat shocking. But organic search organic social more than doubles the organic search, k, in sessions. Now here's what's fun. In the amount of contacts created, organic social triples organic search.
George B. Thomas:Okay? Now in in the amount of customers, in the amount of customers, organic social is at least eight times the amount of organic search that brought me customers. So more customers from social, more contacts from social, more sessions from social than organic search. But here's the mind blowing thing. I won't even tell you how much more direct traffic does than organic social.
George B. Thomas:But why is that? Because people know about me on social and just come to the site. Right? Because if I actually do, like, real self attribution, a lot of the direct traffic says Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Somebody sent me an email.
George B. Thomas:Whatever. Those types of things. So they don't understand the power that great connection, great conversation, social media as a human instead of social media as a robotic tactic has in store for their business.
Liz Moorhead:That's freaking wild.
Devyn Bellamy:That is nuts.
Liz Moorhead:What's interesting about that too is I think, you know, I I don't wanna divert us down the path of content too greatly, but this is where I think people can sometimes get tripped up with content ROI reporting because the reason why people are coming to your site is because you have a robust social strategy to share your content.
George B. Thomas:Yep.
Liz Moorhead:That is the mechanism by which people are getting to you. Most of what you're sharing is not like, here come to this landing page for this thing. It's like, this is an article. This is a podcast. This is a thing, but you do it with such intention of how you share it.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. And what's funny is I'll even take, another crack at this. And, again, not to go down that, like, rabbit hole around content that we could, but I'm not even really sharing it as part of a content strategy. I'm sharing it because I wanna help educate the humans to the things that they could be doing for their business. It just so happens that the world has wrapped that up into content marketing and a content strategy.
George B. Thomas:Listen. Businesses that realize they can use their social channels to be a dope educator, Yeah. Off the charts.
Liz Moorhead:Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So this segues in nicely to the question. Right? So we've talked a bit about how people are getting social media wrong in terms of how they approach it with their strategy, most likely b to b to depending on who's listening.
Liz Moorhead:How should inbounders and HubSpotters alike be thinking about social media then? If we're telling them you're looking you got this all wrong. Right? George, you started tapping this vein a little bit with your last answer. What should they be thinking about instead?
Liz Moorhead:You two are so polite today. All
Devyn Bellamy:right. Said George. That's like
George B. Thomas:alright. I'll go. I'll go. And it's gonna be, like, a real short what might sound like a dumb answer, and then Devin can go right after that. But I I've said it at the end of 90% of the videos that I've created on the Internet.
George B. Thomas:If you go to social as a happy, helpful, humble human that is trying to add value into the world, you will have dramatically more success than if you're trying to sell a product, service, sound smart, or think that you need to be the next freaking Oreo viral blah blah blah.
Liz Moorhead:Virality is not ROI.
George B. Thomas:No. No. No. Don't go viral. Go value.
George B. Thomas:I'm just gonna throw that out.
Liz Moorhead:Oh, I'm sorry. Say that one more time and maybe add some fancy voice speaker effects behind that.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Don't Go viral. Go value.
Liz Moorhead:K. That was not
Devyn Bellamy:Not at all what we were expecting to happen.
George B. Thomas:No. You you were expecting to be like, don't go go viral. Go value.
Liz Moorhead:The vibes are off,
George B. Thomas:man. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:The vibes are off.
George B. Thomas:I did it on purpose. You know, people will talk about
George B. Thomas:it maybe.
Liz Moorhead:Let's talk about the chaotic energy of this episode, shall we? Devon, you were meant to restore order, my sir. Actually, go ahead. What do you got to share, Devon?
Devyn Bellamy:Nothing. That was it. That's what I would have said. He he
Liz Moorhead:End of podcast.
Devyn Bellamy:Yeah. Boom. Mic drop. Clock out for the day.
Liz Moorhead:Alright. So then why don't we shift gears a little bit. So we've talked a bit about how people are thinking about their social media strategy, maybe through a distorted lens. We've talked about what they should be thinking about it instead. Now let's take a look.
Liz Moorhead:Let's pivot from strategy. Let's talk about the tool because I think we have a similar situation here, right? We, everybody's in a situationship with HubSpot social media tools. They do not understand what it is, let's fix this. Let's start with what they're thinking incorrectly about the tool.
Liz Moorhead:And I'll just be explicit this time. Either of you can jump in at any time.
Devyn Bellamy:Sure. I'll go this time. People are stopping with scheduling and treating it like it is 2012 Hootsuite, and it is so there there it's it's significantly more robust than that. I mean, the scheduling tool is fire, and it's fantastic, and I love it. But there are there are other things that you can do with it.
Devyn Bellamy:Some of these things, I wish that the the that were were more robust, but you you can dive more into the features. Like, for instance, the Twitter features are bananas. The social listening on Twitter is second to none. So first
George B. Thomas:of all, it might not be in your portal. It might be in your portal. I don't know. But I was messing around with monitoring inside of my portal the other day, and there's now Instagram streams.
George B. Thomas:up. Not only not only can you do Twitter streams, but you can do Instagram streams, as long as it's unlocked in your portal. I don't know what's happening with it floating out there. Maybe ask your rep, ask somebody that knows or whatever, but I'm literally looking at it right now, Instagram streams inside the social tool. Here's the thing, though.
George B. Thomas:Devin, I'm glad that you mentioned scheduling because the number one thing that I have, like, put a stake in the ground for years, ago to try to battle against is when even when people think about scheduling, they think that I have to log in to HubSpot. I have to go to marketing. I have to go to social. I then have to hit the orange button on the right hand side that is create social posts. I've had HubSpot employees tell me, dude, until I watched your video on the HubSpot Social Chrome extension, I didn't know we had one.
George B. Thomas:And so I'm just gonna throw out there. If you are rocking out HubSpot Social or not rocking out HubSpot Social because the barrier was you felt you had to log in, go get the extension and be able to post from anywhere. And we'll probably talk more about the extension as we move forward because there's some dope things. But that's the thing. You've gotta make it easy for you to do the thing that you wanna do.
George B. Thomas:And whether you're inside side of HubSpot or you're using the extension, again, I'm gonna tease out. We're gonna talk about how you can tie the ROI of social media to your actual business and what you're doing.
Liz Moorhead:Mic drop. Kaboom. Well, let's dig in a little bit more here, fellas. Let's talk more about the different ways you can use and maximize HubSpot for social media. I want us to I would we've talked a lot in recent episodes about big high level concepts different ways in which HubSpot is being neglected from a social media perspective.
Devyn Bellamy:I got one, a big one.
Liz Moorhead:Let's do
Devyn Bellamy:it. Attribution. People when you share links on HubSpot through the social media tool, it's automatically creating tracking URLs. As a marketer, even if you're not using HubSpot, every link you put out there, be it email, whatever it is, should have some sort of UTM tracking associated with it. And that is something that is native to HubSpot.
Devyn Bellamy:You're gonna keep kicking out these Hubsly links. And they allow you to see exactly where, when, how people have come into your site so you can have attribution. And because all of your reporting is in one system, you're not able to not you're not just able to see, oh, someone came in from my site. You're able to look at the numbers that George was talking about, where he can talk about how many customers have come in from social. Not just how many customers have come in from social, how many customers have come in from a specific post on social.
Devyn Bellamy:How much money you are making. And if you if you get deep into conversion path analytics, you can do the math or you can just have it all in HubSpot which just does the math for you. That is one of the biggest things. Oh, here he goes. Here he goes.
George B. Thomas:Put put me in, coach.
Liz Moorhead:Georgie.
George B. Thomas:Put me in, coach. I'm ready to rock and roll. Devin, I'm so glad you mentioned that because you mentioned the Hubsly link. One of the things that you can do too is you can actually, publish with custom short links. Meaning, you can get your own link, and you can go into the settings, and you can have the whatever makes sense to have your brand, but still get those UTMs.
George B. Thomas:And then I'm glad that you started to talk about reporting, and it's just automatically happening. Because if you are using HubSpot and you're using HubSpot campaigns and you're not making sure that you're actually associating your social posts to the campaigns that you're actually sharing around, shame on you. Because that's where the ROI of social media comes from. Listen. You've got ebooks, guides, checklists.
George B. Thomas:Each of those ebooks, guides, checklists are a campaign. Each of those ebooks, guides, checklist should have blog articles associated to them. When you're sharing out those blog articles, associate it back to the campaign. When you're sharing out that landing page, associate it back to the campaign. Now you're literally gonna have a campaign's dashboard that you're gonna see what your, articles did, what your emails did, what your workflows did, what your forms did, and more importantly, what your freaking social media post did specific to those individual campaigns that you have.
George B. Thomas:It's like the holy land of, oh my gosh. And by the way, you can't associate to a campaign in other social tools like Hootsuite or Agorapulse or I could keep going. But with the HubSpot Chrome extension and doing it inside HubSpot, you can tie to those business focused lead conversion campaign areas.
Devyn Bellamy:Let me jump on that hype train, the campaign train real quick. The thing is with campaigns that you also need to realize is that the important thing is you'll be able to see how much money that campaign made you.
George B. Thomas:Cha ching.
Devyn Bellamy:You'll be able to take and and you won't need to do you click, oh, there's a dollar sign. That's it. That that's it. You don't need to bust out a Google Sheet or an Excel sheet. You don't need to do it.
Devyn Bellamy:It just says it right there. All all of it just lays out everything that's associated with this campaign. This is how much this campaign made this company. And if as a marketer, you want to justify your existence in a sales org, all you gotta do is show them the money. That's it.
Liz Moorhead:That's
George B. Thomas:Yeah, baby.
Liz Moorhead:So wait. I have a quick question. Do either of you care about HubSpot social media tool? I really just feel like you guys are not bringing it
George B. Thomas:to us.
George B. Thomas:Just a little.
Devyn Bellamy:Listen. The thing is is that the social media tool the problem with being a marketer is being able to show that if the sales team isn't winning, it's not just your fault. Thing is, like, the number one and and I'm actually I'm I'm gonna be in Wisconsin next week or when this episode drops. It's gonna be this week at experience inbound, and I'm gonna be talking about this exact topic. You using financial metrics in the conversion path to justify your existence, to get that bigger budget.
Devyn Bellamy:That's what all of this is about. So if you're telling your company, like, let's say that George is mid level manager at Georgebthomas.com. Right? And George is like, hey. We we need to get a social media manager.
Devyn Bellamy:They're like, I don't know. That seems like we'll just get some kid to come in and post and memes and but then if you're able to show the numbers and the percentage of the revenue that came in from this campaign, the significant amount of revenue that came in through social, then they're like, oh, we need to double down and get somebody with an MBA and a sense of humor who can do this. That's the difference from getting an intern and getting a specialist, being able to show them the ROI of a particular channel. So with with the social media tool, it makes it so unbelievably easy because with HubSpot in general, one of the the major superpowers is being able to track revenue from the moment it comes in the door before it even is revenue. And you're able to say, okay.
Devyn Bellamy:So this is where this money came from. With the social media tool, it's that on steroids with no additional effort on your part, as long as you're using the tool correctly. If you're not associating everything that you're putting out with a campaign, you're losing.
George B. Thomas:You know what I hear when I hear MBA with creativity and social media in a campaign? I simply hear, oh, no. I simply hear, oh, oh, it's anyway, I jacked that up. Whatever. I it was so
Liz Moorhead:help you out. It was so
George B. Thomas:it was so it was so there. It was like, I was just gonna be like
Liz Moorhead:George, I got you. Anyway George, I got you. Look at me. Do you know what tell me just say queue me up. What does that sound like, Liz?
George B. Thomas:Liz, what does that sound like when you hear that?
Liz Moorhead:Cha ching.
George B. Thomas:There you go. See, we could just do that.
Liz Moorhead:Look at that.
George B. Thomas:Who
George B. Thomas:needs a sound board?
Liz Moorhead:Topping. We're doing great today, everybody. We're doing great. So what are the most powerful ways a company can start using HubSpot for social media? And what I'm I really wanna emphasize the starting piece.
Liz Moorhead:Like, there we've talked about a lot of different capacities and capabilities that you can maximize, but I could imagine walking in there and being like, where do I start? What do I do? Oh, yeah. What is happening?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we already starting point one is definitely, download the Chrome extension. Did I mention that HubSpot has a social media Chrome extension?
George B. Thomas:Anyway Wait.
Liz Moorhead:What so what what was it again?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Social media Chrome extension. You should download that. What? Yeah.
George B. Thomas:But but here's the next thing. Here's here's where I see people go wrong, and they forget that they need to do a little research and put in some good information into a place in HubSpot social media tool. Meaning, before you get all excited and just start spreading your social media goodness all over the interwebs, you need to go into your platforms and find out when are people actually active on the channels that you're going to be posting. Is it Wednesdays Fridays from twelve to four? Is it, like, Sundays and Tuesdays from 8AM to noon?
George B. Thomas:Like, what is it? Because when you first open up the HubSpot social settings, you're gonna have these dumb default times that they're gonna like, when you use the Chrome extension or try to schedule a post, those times don't mean jack squat for your business or your community. So do some research and modify the schedule times in your HubSpot portal so that you're actually posting when your audience is gonna be most engaged.
Liz Moorhead:I love that. I was trying to think of something quippy. Like, don't just ask where your buyer personas are. Ask when are they. But that just Yeah.
Devyn Bellamy:That that was pretty quippy. I Yeah.
George B. Thomas:That was yeah.
Devyn Bellamy:That But
Liz Moorhead:that's a little, like, for my doctor who people, that's a little wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. Like, it's kinda like Oh. Are they yeah. Yeah.
Devyn Bellamy:We got got registered on the Quip meter. Definitely.
Liz Moorhead:Well, thanks, buddy.
Devyn Bellamy:Yeah.
George B. Thomas:That's why she likes you to be around, by the way. Just that right there is she's like, I need Devin back.
Liz Moorhead:Was it really that bad that I get some sort of validation for what I brain to the fullest?
Devyn Bellamy:Give the drummer some. That's it.
George B. Thomas:You're good.
Devyn Bellamy:Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Definitely that, but I would also, take a step back and think about your content strategy. Don't just be posting a post, unless you are really in tune with the needs and the voice of your customer and you're able to speak directly to, like basically, unless you're ready to get in that pulpit and start preaching and you know that you're gonna hit somebody with a message, start with a content analysis and breakdown.
Devyn Bellamy:Start repurposing what you have. Think of ways to present your content in a way that fits your social media. Because, again, HubSpot social media tool is just that, a tool, not a magic wand. You can schedule crap all day and all you're gonna get back is crap. If you come correct with content, putting out quality information, and and adding value, above all else, everything you should be doing should be adding value.
Devyn Bellamy:So that interaction, they're better better people than before or better people now than they were before when they met you. So you should always just focus on that and then use the tool in order to make that happen and be able to handle your ROI revenue attribution.
George B. Thomas:Alright. I need to double down on that. I need to double down on that, and I need to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, you are not the only human who provides value on the Internet. And I wanna tie into, Devin, you mentioned strategy. And this is something, by the way, that I've preached for a long time, but I'm relatively bad at.
George B. Thomas:But I know moving forward, I wanna get better at. So I'm I am sharing my own shame on the podcast here, and that is you should have a happy mix of talking about yourself and talking about other people. Now, of course, not direct competitors, but something in your space, one or two blogs, one or two podcasts, people that you learn from, that you admire, that you know are adding value to the world. There should be a happy mix of those humans and your content going out because nobody's should be a happy mix of those humans and your content going out. Because nobody likes the guy or gal at the party that is just, like, all talking about themselves all the time, and you're like, oh god.
George B. Thomas:How do I exit stage left already? Don't be that person. Don't be that business on social. Take some time to figure out what else could we be sharing that our audience would find value, and maybe it's like a 30% type thing that you come up with. I don't know.
George B. Thomas:You do your own math of what you wanna do, yours versus theirs, but definitely don't always talk about yourself.
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. We don't wanna go to parties with them. We don't wanna be friends with those people. We don't wanna date from those people. Remember, I think I gave you were there, George, when I gave that talk, at a conference last year when I said there is a startling parallel between men I would never give a second date to and businesses I would not buy from.
Liz Moorhead:And one of those things are, do you just talk about yourself all the time? Like Yeah. All the time. Yeah. No.
Liz Moorhead:Thank you.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Speaking of which speaking of which, that was the b to b forum last year that you spoke at. And, people should pay attention. Yeah. And people should pay attention because maybe, maybe they wanna if you're a b to b business of course, be at inbound.
George B. Thomas:My gosh. But after inbound, there's the b to b forum that you might wanna check out as well.
Liz Moorhead:After the party, it's the after after party Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Dorm hat? It's just my second, like, excuse to go to Boston because I love Boston so much, to be honest with you.
Liz Moorhead:Are you literally, like, going to Boston coming back and then being like, well, gotta go kids and then back to Beantown you go?
George B. Thomas:Exactly. That is my September, October is Boston, Boston.
Liz Moorhead:That's outstanding.
George B. Thomas:Which and then I listen to the band Boston as I'm traveling to Boston. Both times I go to Boston. So by the way, if you took a shot every time I said Boston in the last five minutes, you might be seeing Boston soon. Good luck.
Liz Moorhead:Don't drive, please. Thank you. What are we advocating on this podcast? Alright. You know what?
Liz Moorhead:Alright. We're we're we're landing the plane. Okay, guys? Is it time for you? It's it is.
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. Wow. We've been going.
George B. Thomas:What? I
Liz Moorhead:know. I know.
George B. Thomas:It can't be. That went too quick.
Liz Moorhead:I know.
George B. Thomas:Holy crap. There's so much more to talk about social.
Liz Moorhead:Alright. You get okay. Here's what we're gonna do. I have one more question. You each individually get one more lane for a hot take of your choosing.
Devyn Bellamy:Oh, just right out the gate. Just whatever our hot take is.
Liz Moorhead:Right out the gate. Hot take. Let's do it.
Devyn Bellamy:Alright. Well, my big thing is, spend more time focusing on what you need to do for your content strategy. The algorithms have changed. The landscape has changed. Be ready to talk and add value.
Devyn Bellamy:Don't just exist on social. And also, make sure you're leveraging social as a opportunity to interact, not just present. Social is just that. It's social, and it's supposed to be a two way street. And feel free to do social listening.
Devyn Bellamy:Comment on things that are relevant to what you do. Don't just post into the ether. Respond to people who talk about things that are important to your customers. Note, I didn't say things that are important to you and the problems that you solve. Talk about the things that are important to your customers.
Devyn Bellamy:Be available. You don't just have to be proactive with content. You could also be reactive with people's problems.
George B. Thomas:Yes. Yes. I love so much of that. Like, put down the megaphone and actually have, like, valuable conversations for them. What's what is it with them?
George B. Thomas:What's in it for me? Like, that philosophy. Here's what I'll say. Since you're talking about putting down the megaphone is I would say also put in your hearing aids. One of the things that you need to do more with social media is actually shut up and listen.
George B. Thomas:And so one of my wish list items for HubSpot, and I got excited, by the way, when I was talking about the Instagrams Instagram streams because I can't wait till there's, like, LinkedIn streams and Facebook streams and all the different streams that we can actually listen to because the fact of being able to listen to the conversations and engage when appropriate, to conversate and communicate when needed versus this just blah blah blah blah blah blah blah over and over putting stuff out, I think, is super valuable. So being able to listen and then engage. The other thing I am I know you said one thing, but, hey, it is what it is. The other thing I would say is I wish more folks, as I look around the social channels, would understand the valuable power at your mental ability to ask questions. Think about this.
George B. Thomas:Social media is all about engagement. So maybe ask a question or two along the way so that they actually have something to engage around. Because, like, not everybody's just gonna be like, great post, bro. Amazing thoughts. You know?
George B. Thomas:By the way, I know you could be listening to this and not be a bro or bro ad or guy, gal, whatever. Right? Great post. They're not then you're not gonna get a ton of engagement. But if you actually harness the power of question, and also then when they answer or if they give you a be careful, George.
George B. Thomas:A not so great answer, hit that reply and ask them for specifics. I I I a great example of this. You can go look at a couple of my posts, and I, like, engage with people and be like, well, what specifically do you mean? Or what's a layer below that? Or, like, again, open ended kind of statements based on the original question.
George B. Thomas:Anyway, listen and ask more questions. There you go, Liz.
Liz Moorhead:I love that. And you know what? You actually teased the final question.
George B. Thomas:Oh, jeez.
Liz Moorhead:Which is with you going back and forth to Beantown with I know it's April right now, but I
George B. Thomas:have this the way this year is going,
Liz Moorhead:I feel we're gonna blink in September, and we are there
George B. Thomas:Scares the crap out
Liz Moorhead:of now.
George B. Thomas:Because I gotta talk to create, by the way. I What? Yeah. I mean, it scares the crap how fast it's gonna go because I have to I have to create my sales enablement talk that I'm giving it inbound this year.
Liz Moorhead:Sorry. Is this a is this a are you just low key, like, sliding in a news flash?
George B. Thomas:Don't tell nobody I'm speaking it inbound this year.
Liz Moorhead:So I'm not supposed to tell anybody that you're talking about why their sales enablement strategies are failing?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Why? Six reasons. They're BS reasons. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Don't tell nobody.
Devyn Bellamy:Alright. Hey.
George B. Thomas:Devon, keep it safe.
Devyn Bellamy:I'm going to completely put under my hat that George is speaking at inbound this year. So Yeah. If if you know that, keep that to yourself. Don't tell everyone you know. So Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Don't There
Devyn Bellamy:you go. Don't. Top secret. Thank you.
Liz Moorhead:I mean and let's not tell anybody, anybody that we're likely gonna have some sort of hub hero shenanigans. You can't. You can't tell anybody.
George B. Thomas:Don't tell nobody.
Liz Moorhead:Okay. Don't tell nobody. In fact, why don't we do this instead? Let's divert attention away from us and throw it back to HubSpot. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:HubSpot, My boys George and Devin, they have some wish list items for you.
George B. Thomas:Oh, yeah.
Liz Moorhead:What would we like to see come to the host HubSpot social media tool suite?
Devyn Bellamy:Oh, I want stronger listening tools. That's that's my big thing. That was the one thing What
Liz Moorhead:does stronger look like?
Devyn Bellamy:Kind of like Hootsuite, when I used to use it, had phenomenal tools for listening, for demographics. And I understand the APIs have changed, especially post Cambridge Analytica. It's harder to do these things. But if we were able to, you know, glean more information from the platform, instead of, you know, just generic mentions and topics and stuff like that, I think that would be dope. Like, prospecting stuff, you know?
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. Love it.
Devyn Bellamy:But somebody's gonna ruin it as soon as that happens. So
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So, I don't know if anybody has heard lately, but, well, video is kind of a real big thing on the Internet.
Liz Moorhead:Did you hear that in 2017, '80 percent of the content we consume, you know, video? Yeah. That's one out there for all my inbound marketers. We know that statistic, and they update it every year.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So, man, it really burns my butt that if I go into the app marketplace that I can search for YouTube, and I wanna be able to connect YouTube to my HubSpot portal. And I I get really excited because I see YouTube, and I'm like, yeah. Let's go. Party time.
George B. Thomas:Because, by the way, YouTube analytics are, well, kind of confusing to mere mortal humans. And so HubSpot has been really good at, like, taking confusing data and simplifying it. And then I go to install the app, and I realize that I have to have an enterprise version? Come on. So can you can you please bring YouTube reporting down to at least professional?
George B. Thomas:Because video is important. Right? That's a wish list item. But the other thing too is can I please be able to, like, upload my videos to my file manager and then disperse them out to, like, multiple locations with ease? Like, that would be great as well.
George B. Thomas:Anyway, in other words, social media and video is more and more and more and more becoming important. And anything that you can do to, like, bring those two together in a very easy way, your boy George b Thomas is down with all of that. Agreed.
Liz Moorhead:Devin, what you got?
Devyn Bellamy:Didn't I go first?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. He started that party.
Devyn Bellamy:Uh-oh. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Liz is Liz is Friday, brain.
Devyn Bellamy:It's cool. It's Friday.
George B. Thomas:What happened?
Devyn Bellamy:Hey. I just wanna jump on the video.
George B. Thomas:Doctor who moment.
Liz Moorhead:I did have it. I went timey wimey wibbly wobbly. I literally have no idea how that happened. George, I'm blaming you. It's your fault.
George B. Thomas:Always my fault. What were you saying, Damon?
Devyn Bellamy:I was gonna say anyone who sees me on LinkedIn, or social media or anyone who will see a screenshot from this recording, they know I love my video content. Content. So anything to, like, for for the you're you're listening right now. You can't see it. I got a neon HubSpot sign in my office right now.
Devyn Bellamy:Like, I am living the dream. And everything about my office, it it's about two things. Well, technically, three things. My personal comfort, my man Deadpool, and making sure that everything is camera ready all the time.
George B. Thomas:That's it. I love it. That's it.
Liz Moorhead:I love it.
George B. Thomas:Camera ready at multiple, like, areas. And Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:I anyway, I I I won't beat a dead horse. Video, please. Video.
Liz Moorhead:I was about to make a joke. And, George, what's your answer? But that's Yeah.
George B. Thomas:That's a little bit less.
George B. Thomas:That's that's my answer. Yeah. You went all sorts of doctor hoo hoo, wibbly wibbly wibbly wobbly wobbly
Liz Moorhead:wobbly wobbly wobbly. I literally was nodding along going like, and what do you mean specifically by social listening? So I do not know where my brain went. You know what?
George B. Thomas:It's all good.
Liz Moorhead:Maybe I just haven't done enough
George B. Thomas:shopping to work. Liz, just so you know. Just so you know. No. We still love you.
Liz Moorhead:Oh, good. I'm so glad. Didn't realize I had to worry about that. No. It's like when you go home and my husband's like, don't worry about the lamp.
George B. Thomas:I wasn't worried about the lamp, and now I'm worried about the lamp.
Liz Moorhead:Thank you, George. I am now you know what? It has been an excellent episode of HUB Heroes, Devon. I am so glad you're back because clearly this nonsense cannot continue. I'm just kidding.
Liz Moorhead:I love you both. I love everyone listening. If you love us, leave us a review. We would love to hear from you. If you have ideas or you are still chafing from the giraffe issue from last week's episode, you can still reach george@georgebthomas.com.
George B. Thomas:Oh, well, thanks for that.
Liz Moorhead:Well, I'm also this is me trying to connect the dots between episodes. So people are like, what giraffe thing? And then they go back and they listen. That's called content amplification and distribution, George. Look it up.
George B. Thomas:Great job. Great job.
Liz Moorhead:Happy Friday, everybody.
George B. Thomas:Alright. We made it out without a poem or a lyric. Yes. Okay, hub heroes. We've reached the end of another episode.
George B. Thomas:Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community, or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make sure you head over to the hubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the league of heroes. FYI, if you're part of the league of heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox, and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend.
George B. Thomas:Leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag, hashtag hub euros podcast on any of the socials, and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human, and, of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.
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