Episode #4: Social Media

Computers now have primary control of critical vehicle functions. Welcome to the IBM Keep It Simple Technology Podcast, where each episode we discuss technology but in a simple way. We keep the explanations simple, but what we spend our time on is emphasizing what this technology means to you and how you can best utilize this technology for you and your business. Your host, as always, Thomas Anglero. Welcome to the IBM Keep It Simple technology podcast. Thank you again for joining us on another exciting episode. I am your host, Thomas Anglero, the Nordic Director for Innovation for IBM, and I am always hunting for the best people in IBM and outside IBM to bring to you to explain technology in a very simple way. Today I have a friend of mine in the Nordics. He has a wonderful name because his first name is Thomas as well. His name is Thomas Patterson. Thomas, say hello to everybody.

Hello, everybody.

Thomas, Thomas, my man, is the head of social media for IBM in the Nordics. And this area, yeah, and this area, social media, is another one of those areas. Just the word social media itself is sometimes confusing for a lot of people. I know the older you are, the stranger social media is for people. Am I right, Thomas?

Well, I hear that all the time, yeah.

So what we're going to do is Thomas is the social media expert at IBM for all the Nordic countries, so he is the man. So Thomas, let's get into social media. Let's explain what it is, how, why is it important, right? That's really important for people to understand. And why should they pay attention to it? And then how can they benefit from social media? I think this is one of the most important conversations because, and I guess I'll jump to the, the very end. With social media, you can get global attention and it'll cost you nothing. So I hope I just got everybody's attention. Thomas, why don't you break down what is social media and let's take it from there, please.

Sure thing. So, well, nearly, you can say it like this, nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives is actually touched in some way by social media. And that is where the value lies for us as a company. And therefore I actually also find it fairly strange that a lot of activities in large organizations, um, are still not utilizing these possibilities. And I, um, I don't know if you know this guy, Scott Cook, which is part of the, part of the board of directors of eBay. He said it actually pretty good at some point: a brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is, it is what the consumer tells each other what it is, you know. So it's word of mouth, and that is actually what social is all about. It's how we can actually showcase our portfolio and have people actually talk about that free.

Okay, let me stop you right there because this is really important to highlight what has changed, and this is a monumental change. Before, companies brands would send out a press release and it was a message of, this is who I am, this is what I've done. And it was a one-to-many type of marketing or communications approach. And what you just said now with the gentleman from eBay is that the world has shifted and changed. Now that method of communication, that mindset, that style does not work. Now is what one consumer says to the other consumer. So the company is left out of that communication in a way. So the world of social media has replaced the old press release. That whole mindset doesn't work. So, Thomas, what is social media? What is it made out of? Let's make it as simple as possible for everybody out there. Who knows the word social media but doesn't know what are the bits and pieces in it. Let's make it as simple as possible.

I will actually start from a very high-level approach and say that in the end it's all about relationships. And to actually create those relationships, um, it's very important that we have certain tools, and these tools can be these social platforms. Social platforms as we know it today is everything from Reddit, as a lot of people know, it's Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, it's newcomers as TikTok, for example, or if we talk images, it's Pinterest or Instagram, for example. So we have a lot of platforms that we're able to utilize to actually create those relationships with our customers. So that's, that's essentially what social media is. That is people meeting on platforms where we as companies can get in touch with these people and create those relationships.

I think you listed a lot of companies out there, and some people may be a bit confused or maybe a bit overwhelmed because that was a long, long list. And I think some of them are thinking, where do I start when it comes to social media? Just keep that in mind, and somewhere along in this talk, we'll talk about that. But the reason why I interrupted you is because everyone's list of where they should begin is probably different, right? It's not just one platform for everybody. Am I correct?

You're very correct. Yes.

So I just wanted to highlight in everybody's head, because at least that's what jumped into my head. So I can't be the only one thinking. So please continue on your wonderful high-level explanation of social media. But I want to make sure everybody understands that it's not just like, you know, one for everybody. So good. I'm sorry, Thomas Anglero.

Apologize. That is very correct. Because one of the first things as a company, or as a personal brand, you actually have to consider is which platform is fit for me and my message. And that all depends on who is your target group, and that's all who it come— what it come down— comes down to. What is my target group? Who am I to target with this message? So for instance, from a business-to-business company, as for example IBM, Microsoft, Apple, or whatever, it's, um, it's very important that you select a platform that supports your idea of go-to-market. And LinkedIn, for example, is often referred to as the Facebook for business, and essentially it began as a recruitment platform, but is more and more turning into, or is combined with, the possibility for companies of social selling, which is another term we might get into later on. Um, so essentially, it's extremely important that you have your target group in mind when you select your platform of use.

Now, now this is important. You just said the word target group and you said it so nonchalantly, but I wanna, I want people to understand how specific you can target in social media. And again, I'm gonna go back old school. When you issued, when, when the people listening, everybody probably has issues, sent out a press release once in their life if they're over 40 or 50, a press release really wasn't targeted, right? You matter of fact, if you're super old, you probably sent it out as a fax. And when's the last time anybody heard the word fax, right? And that was used again, it was a one-to-many. It wasn't targeted at all. How targeted and I mean, I mean, is, can social media be versus the world we came from, which was basically a bullhorn announcement and you hope to God somebody was listening. How targeted can social media be?

Let me try to put it up against, for example, how if you're gonna buy a TV commercial, for example, a TV commercial, uh, you're able to target your audience via the channel, via a region, via a date, for example, and for how long do you want it actually be shown, and you just hope that you reach the correct audience for you.

Right.

Right.

So, so, so let me, so let me clarify. So I have a beer commercial, I want to buy it for, let's say, a 30-second slot at a very specific time of day, shown in this very specific region or town or city. And that's my one shot for 30 seconds. And I hope somebody's tuned in at that time. Correct?

Correct.

Okay, cool.

For social media, we have a huge amount of data, which means that we're able to actually buy ads at the certain point of our target group being active. That means that you're able to target not only the demographics of gender, age, um, where they live, uh, how, and, and, but also, for example, what type of content do they like, what are they reacting to, how are they reacting, are they commenting, are they actually liking, are they, you know, you can actually target down to people that have interacted with some of your competitors' posts in there.

Amazing.

So it has so many possibilities for companies to actually dig into target audiences that they actually didn't thought they needed, but actually investigate and further develop their own target group.

So let's break it down even again, right? Let's keep it super simple. So you're saying this is like laser, laser type focus, right? That you can target if your demographic that you want to target, you could target specifically a person's age, a person's sex. So maybe you want to go for females who are between 20 and 25, who live in a certain area, who are interested in specifically, um, I don't know, let's say, uh, candy, and who buy your competitor's candy, right? I mean, you could get to that point where you almost can say every time somebody buys your competitor's candy in a candy store in this part of town, that's the person I want to talk to, correct?

Correct.

That is huge because we've never had those capabilities before. Before, we hope somebody had the TV on when our 30-second commercial went on, right? Or somebody had their fax machine on. Now you're talking about being able to know exactly what people are doing and whoever did it, and then communicate with that person one-to-one. Please go ahead, Thomas.

Of course, you have to remember that there are some GDPR rules that need to be considered when we are talking data collection, because all these people using the social medias, when you and I use social medias as personal profiles, we share a lot of information about ourselves. And those, not the data about us, but the information about us as a unity, as a group,, is sold by, for example, Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter to advertisers that would like to target us as audience. So if you and I were to be targeted, a company like IBM, for example, would then buy our demographics, our information, and just actually target us as, as persons. But that, of course, depends on how much information do we actually put into the social platforms. So that's a whole different discussion about GDPR and ethics within data, um, which I don't think we have time for today, but that's, that's 4 episodes of a podcast by itself.

Yeah, but where, where I want to focus our time now is so that we don't intimidate people and make them understand how easy it is to use this service. Is, um, so hopefully at this point people understand what social media is and that the ability to get people's attention or identify specific people. So they're saying, this is interesting. The next question they probably have is, how do I use it? And with so many social media platforms out there, which ones should I be looking at? So why don't we go— why don't we start with some of the top 5 social media platforms and which people should be using it and why?

Yeah, so I would say that the top 5 at the moment would be LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Let's start off with LinkedIn. Who should be using LinkedIn? Why, and then we'll move to the other platforms. That list will make it as simple as easy, easy as possible for people who are new to social media. So that way they know where to use their time versus trying to go after all 5 at the same time. So let's start off with LinkedIn.

Yeah. So LinkedIn is essentially, as I said before, the Facebook for business. And the reason why I say that is because Facebook, most of us already know, and therefore also are able to actually kind of come back, come compare those two. Um, for a company, LinkedIn is essential because that is where all the— well, you might say it— business people are. All the decision makers are present. Most of people in larger companies have a profile on LinkedIn, which means that they are having a feed of different work-related content. And that is where you want to target people. You want to target people with work-related content in their work-related situation.

Let me interrupt you for a second, Thomas Anglero, and have one thing just to add a picture. For those of you out there who are old school like myself, think of LinkedIn as an online Rolodex. Now you really gotta be old school to know what the hell a Rolodex is, right? So the Rolodex was where you wrote the person's name and phone number and a little note about who they are. But LinkedIn, every person who's on LinkedIn has put in that information about them from, from themselves to LinkedIn. And all of that information is there. So we're talking about the who's who in business, even down to the people who are trying to be somebody, somebody right out of school. It's a living Rolodex of business people. So that's that platform. Go ahead, Thomas. I just want to simplify it for some people.

And the good thing about LinkedIn, and that was a very good description. I know these from my dad's office back in the days.

How old am I?

And yeah, LinkedIn is very good because as you said, people want to showcase their skills and therefore they actually fill out all this information about themselves, where they worked, what are their skills within that work, and we can actually rate people within certain areas of expertise, meaning that when we then as a company wants to target people on LinkedIn, we're able to actually dig into very specific target groups. And LinkedIn, for example, is the only place where people actually say that they are CEOs and they are C-suite level, you know, because that's some, there's some status within that on LinkedIn. That means that of course we're able to target CEOs if that is our target group. You know, a lot of the other company, the other platforms like, so like Facebook or Twitter don't have that feature because it's not work-related. So if you want to target a C-suite level of, of decision makers in, in the company, you can target the company, you can target that specific CXO, CTO, whatever, um, and, and within that demographics that you want. So, so that's why LinkedIn is extremely important for us as, as, as large organizations, organizations in general.

So let me clarify again, because what you said there was monumental. Before, to target a CEO, it was very difficult. You would, you would, you would make phone calls, you would beg, scream, steal to try to get the contact information of a CEO. Now in the world of social media, the CEOs have put their information out there online. But it's not what you're talking about. Using social media for targeting is not about blasting them with emails because that's a whole other discussion, how people don't read emails anymore. We're not going to touch that one on this episode. But let's talk about how would you— how would you, Thomas Anglero, how would you target these CEOs? Because now that you got everybody's interest, they're saying, wow, I can actually target all the different CEOs out there that I've been— could not get a hold of. I could go bypass their secretary or their executive assistant, whatever you want to call them. I can actually go directly to them. And also when they're in on the weekends and they're relaxing and they're on their PC, I can actually communicate with them. Thomas, explain, how does someone do that on using LinkedIn?

It's all about content, actually. Um, if you create content that are created specifically towards a target group, like for example, CEOs, you can create the content based out of knowledge, out of experience, out of the data that shows us what our CEO, C-suite level actually reacting to online. It could be, for example—

What do you mean by the word content? You're saying, break that down. What is content? Be specific, please.

Content is an image, is a white paper, is a, an asset. You can say ad, yes, but you can also— because ad defines that it has to be very targeted, very paid media, you know, an ad is a paid media in this specific sense. And you can also do this organically, less targeted, but also again, it's very much about the content. And in general, content is an asset you want to share out there. It's something you want to share and show people and have them react to that piece of content. So that could be a picture of a cat, for example. Again, maybe that's not— if it's not really a cat person, you know, this, you cannot really target that. So you might have to actually target the C-suite for this instance with a white paper around the best possibilities within cloud at the moment, why you should choose a public cloud, why you should— 10 reasons why public cloud is the best solution for your company. Something like that. Um, something we know that C-suite actually knows, uh, have, have an, um, a liking for.

So let me give an example to, to make it easy for people. Uh, let's say there are a bunch of companies who are thinking about moving their infrastructure, data infrastructure, to the cloud. So what you're saying is you can specifically target the CEOs the CTOs, right? Chief technical officer, the data people in the company via LinkedIn, and you could push to them your company's white paper as to why your solution is superior to your competitors in the cloud, specifically at the time when they're about to make a decision as to who to go with, correct?

Uh, well, yeah, more or less. Yes.

Okay. Keep going, Thomas.

And essentially, if you really do your homework and actually dig into the likings of a C-suite in your target group, you can create this content that really works. And of course, there are media companies out there, agencies that actually have specialized this element. So there's a lot of knowledge out there you can actually dig into, but there are also possibilities to actually use social listening where you can actually dig into what are people actually talking about, about this product. So let's say for instance, I want to share 10 reasons for public cloud, to choose public cloud for your— from which is your product in your company. You can then actually dig into what are people writing about from, for example, Twitter, and what are people actually writing about this specific product, what are the pros and cons about the product out there. And you can then actually do some analytics and actually decide on which focus should I have in this ad or this organic post, this piece of content, this asset that I actually have. Because listening on what people already talking about, and that's the keyword here, listening. If you listen to what people have to say, you can create or form or adopt your asset to speak in the same direction.

That's amazing. I'm blown away. That's amazing, right? Um, so you, you mentioned a moment ago, and I thought that was important, that you said there are companies out there who could actually assist a lot of the people who are listening to this podcast and doing this, right? So what I'm trying to say, and I'll be more direct, is the people listening to this podcast, this is of course incredibly interesting and relevant to what they're doing, but they don't have to become social media experts like you are, Thomas., right? There are people out in the market who could assist them to help them to accomplish all these things. Correct?

Correct.

Yeah. And I think I just wanna emphasize that because people can be getting excited and they're probably going, well, this seems to be overwhelming. How many months or years it'll take me to get there? No, there are people and companies specifically out there who can make this incredibly simple for you. Thomas, we spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. Um, we need to cover the other social medias, but real quick on LinkedIn, which type of people or companies or leaders should be using LinkedIn? You know, just a general high-level description so people know where to put themselves in which box.

Well, all companies and all sorts of people actually using LinkedIn at the moment. So you have a very large potential target group on LinkedIn. So I cannot— both business to consumer or business to business, um, is very much able to, to gain, uh, uh, uh, well, a larger audience on— to actually find the large audience on, on LinkedIn. So everybody actually, I would say. Um, of course, if you have a very specific business to consumer product and you're not looking for business connections or partners within this, it might be another platform that would be suitable for you. Um, but essentially, you know, you got to see it like this.

You go—

we're talking business to business, business consumers, but social media in general is more people to people. Because when you're talking business consumer— business to business, sorry, you, you, it's, you know, it kind of imitates that you have to— you're speaking to a company, to a, uh, to a large building, you know, but you're actually speaking to the people behind the company, in charge of the company. So that's why it's actually called people-to-people on social media, or at least some do, where I'm one of those. And because I, when I write my post or when I create content, I write it to people not to companies. Exactly. So essentially it's all about who is your target group and is that target, that decision maker in the target group, is actually, is that which platform is he using, you know, and then target it like that.

Excellent, Thomas. And you know what we forgot to say at the very beginning of this podcast is that most of all these social media platforms are free to use.

All of them are free to use. All you gotta know is that to target very specifically, to actually push your, uh, let's call it ad content towards the correct audience, you'll need to invest some money. You know, it's free to actually get into it. It's, it's free and easy to get started with all these different platforms. But when you start to actually want to dig into your very specific niche audience, you'll have to pay the platform to get your— the information that you need to actually push the content to the, to the target group. And so that's just very important. There's a huge opportunity within social media with, with organic because that keeps interest, that keeps— that is what building the relationships. But when you have used organic for some time and actually—

Thomas, wait, you have to explain what the word organic means.

Yeah, so you kind of divide the two, the platforms in organic and in paid. And the paid one kind of self-explanatory, you pay them for showing the correct audience your specific product or content or asset or whatever. In organic, you create awareness. It's more in the higher level. You create awareness about your product, your asset, and, and push it to all of your followers, all that are actually interested in your company. Meaning that if you create content that people feel are interesting, are shareable, something that they would actually see more of? They engaged with the content. When they engage with content, you know that if I create more content of this that they engage with, then they would come back to me as a company. And then I will start building my follower base, I will start building my, um, my, my engagements on my, on my platform. And, and then paid can support all of that.

So, but to be specific, so paid, I get paid is sort of just paying for to push my stuff out there. That's almost like the normal advertising model. Let's not insult it, but that's generalize it there. The organic, that's me just putting up a post and then monitoring the metrics around who's clicking on that post and who's liking that post. Is that more?

Well, yeah, but again, you can use social listening to actually form all your content to actually target your audiences, you know. So if you know who are my audience, you can listen into that specific audience with social listening, which also is available out there in the market. And you can then see, okay, this specific type of persons with this title, you know, is engaging with that sort of content. I should make content that supports that but from my side of the business, my side of the organization.

Got it. And is organic free, going down the organic road?

Organic is free.

And that's important for people to understand, right?

Yeah.

For those two models. Thomas Anglero, you know, I think we are going to do a social media, uh, follow-up episode on this because, um, you know, we've been talking now for almost 30 minutes and I feel like we, we really are just scraping the surface of this stuff. And we're keeping this discussion simple, but it's important to keep it simple. This is important stuff. This is a major shift because this isn't a trend. This isn't something— we're not going back to the fax machine, you know.

The—

this is the— as you said wonderfully, this is people talking to people. And I think the people listening to this, uh, podcast, especially this episode, want to know more of how to better communicate their message, their product, their brand to other people. Um, Thomas, so let's do a part 2 of this in the very near future. Do you want to leave anything else? You want to say some last words, um, in the area of social media in general, and also anything you want to leave in the area of LinkedIn?

Well, well, for both of the two questions you just asked me is value. You know, value for the listener is the most important thing on social media. If you do not add value to your listeners, to your viewers, to your followers, to your audience in general, they won't react to your content. They won't react to your asset that you share with them. They won't react to your company or your portfolio in general. So you have to think about how you add value, how you add thought leadership within your business, how you give something that people can take away from that interaction with your company. And by adding value, you will create those relationships long term.

That's huge. And that's, you know, so right now I took some notes and I'm gonna tell everybody, I'm gonna get everybody excited. This is a teaser for future episodes. So for future episodes, you hear a lot from me, Thomas, and my other Thomas on that side. So you get it, the Thomas and Thomas show, because you touched on so many important things that need more time and more emphasis. And I wrote down 3, this, it was a lot more, but 3 that's really important. And that is 1, we could do a whole episode and people wanna know how to add value on social media that deserves its own time. That alone. Number 2, social listening. We need to break that down some more. Because that's critical. Because to me, social listening is like me hiring a team of people to help narrow down my target focus people. That's, that used to, you said before I had to hire an entire marketing team. Now you don't have to bring anybody in-house. Yet there are people out there that'll do it for you quicker, faster, more professional, and it'll save you a fortune. And then the third thing that is really important is personal brand. What is a personal brand? And how to build a personal brand. So we have a lot more great content coming to all you listening to this podcast. But for now, uh, for Thomas Petersen, social media expert for IBM in the Nordic countries— woo, woo, woo, go Thomas! And for me, Thomas Anglero, head of innovation for IBM, we thank you very much for your time. We really appreciate it. Um, stay tuned for more future episodes The Thomas and Thomas Show and other great guests, because we promise one thing: we promise to keep it simple when it comes to explaining technology. Take care, and until the next time.