WORKWEEK

A few lessons I learned from my quest to find a binge-worthy TV show this weekend

I spent most of Saturday after my morning long run laid out on my couch, not moving an inch.

Well, besides getting up to go grab the sushi I had delivered.

I needed something to watch to pass the time. And honestly, I’m not good at keeping up to date with popular shows. I usually opt for a YouTube video or podcast.

But I was trying my best to keep my business mind off for the better part of the next 48 hours, so I wanted a show or movie to put on.

So naturally, I opened Twitter.

And funny enough, I landed on this tweet from Shaan Puri within a few scrolls of opening my timeline:

Friday night – need a great show or movie. What’s good right now?

Just finished hijack (loving it so far) – what’s next?

— Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) July 15, 2023

I start to sift through the replies, one by one, tallying up the show recommendations as I go.

Blackberry…

The Bear…

Silo…

Jack Ryan….

Silo again…

Silo 3x…

Huh. There must be something to this Silo show.

So I head to Google, type in ‘silo show’ and come across the description:

“In a ruined and toxic future, a community exists in a giant underground silo that plunges hundreds of stories deep; there, people live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them.”

Dystopian sci-fi. Nice.

So I toss it on.

Fast-forward 10 hours, I’m up at 3AM for no reason finishing up the final episode of Season 1.

My TV show selection process is a perfect example of how your customers use social media to make product purchase decisions — whether it’s a TV show, a pair of jeans, or a SaaS for their ecommerce store.

Conversations about your product are happening every day on social media.

And the role of a successful social media presence is to make sure your brand is top of mind in as many of those conversations as possible.

Taking this one step father — you want your customers to be the ones recommending your product in the Twitter replies or TikTok comments.

You want your company to be the Silo in whatever product-related discussions are happening.

This starts with the product itself. Is it something worth recommending.? Do you give your customers a world class experience?

Silo did that in the form of giving me (and several others) something binge-worthy to watch on a Saturday night.

If you’re selling a SaaS, this would look like giving your customers a top-tier customer experience and getting them an undeniable ROI on their investment.

If you’re selling apparel, this would look like making sure the quality of the material is second-to-none, shipping product to customers at rapid speeds, etc.

World-class products get amplified on social media. Bottom-tier products get critcized.

Assuming your product and positioning are dialed in, here are a few levers you can consider pulling to stay top of mind in social media conversations:

Lever 1) Be active where your customers are.

You want to be top of mind where your customers are having these conversations. Pick 1-2 platforms and focus your content + community efforts there.

I’ll make a separate edition on platform selection at some point.

Lever 2) High posting frequency

This take might ruffle a few feathers.

If you’re an early stage company, you need to be posting often. You need to have your logo popping up on the timeline daily — even multiple times per day.

You need to be increasing the amount of times your customer sees you during their day.

You don’t have the luxury of being ultra-curated with your posting cadence.

More touch-points → more mindshare → more times getting brought up in conversations

Once you are an industry incumbent, you can be a bit more selective about posting cadence. But early on, let it rip.

A quick note: this is also why it’s important to prioritize 1-2 platforms. Doing so will allow you to ramp up frequency without burning your content team out.

Lever 3) Proactively insert yourself into conversations your customers are having.

You can do this from the brand account — but it’s arguably more effective if the founder or other team members are active on social.

This will depend on company size. But even as you scale, it is helpful for the team to have boots on the ground.

A great example of this is Shopify. Their President, Harley Finkelstein, is active on Twitter in conversations with users daily. If he has the time to do it, so does your leadership team.

Lever 4) Reward positive interactions

Too many companies only respond on social media when customers complain.

The example that comes to mind here is airlines. They only seem to respond when a customer lost their luggage or had an incident on an aircraft.

Yes, crisis comms are important.

But you also need to reward people who show you love! Reply to their comments, share them (if appropriate), even consider sliding into their DMs with a gift. A simple ‘surprise and delight’ can create a lifelong brand advocate.

These actions don’t always ‘scale’ but building that 1:1 relationship with your customers via social media is the way to mold these people into brand advocates that passionately recommend you product to others.

You’ll even see these people hop in to defend your product when criticisms are made. Having this community is a cheat code.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got today. Hope this helps.