#50 - Elaine Walsh McGrath - I’m not Sarah Connor, BUT focusing on human nature not bots = Content that Converts

The guest to this episode is Elaine Walsh McGrath, you can find her on Linkedin  and she has a gift for you - A Linkedin to leads checklist you can find here.

Based in Ireland, Elaine is marketing maven who helps her clients gain more leads on platforms like LinkedIn. With a career that includes working with agencies and large clientele, she has witnessed and navigated the ever-evolving communication landscape on professional platforms.

Here is the presentation:

Here is the video from the conference:

I'm not Sarah Connor, BUT focusing on human nature not bots = Content that Converts - Elaine Walsh McGrath, Elaine Walsh-McGr from DigiMarCon on Vimeo.

During this episode, Elaine shares her wisdom on making the most out of social media, emphasising the need to humanize your business's approach and content. She discusses the significance of personal branding, the increasing growth of LinkedIn, and the necessity of having human nature compel your content conversion.

She provides practical guidance on content creation, focusing mainly on how to empathize with your audience, understand their needs, and respond to these effectively. Elaine advises businesses to be more symptom-focused rather than solution-focused while communicating with cold traffic, for example, in a DM on social media.

Elaine underscores the paramount importance of standing out in an ever-growing sea of LinkedIn users. To do this, she advocates for clear messaging filled with personality and using the right language that would resonate with your ideal clients for businesses of every size.

Finally, Elaine addresses the latest developments in social media platforms, like the rising popularity of TikTok for B2B sales, and clarifies that it is not the platform that matters, but rather how successfully businesses can engage and connect with their audience using the appropriate platform's algorithm.

To connect with Elaine and tap into more insights, visit her website at www.elainewalshmcgraw.com or find her on LinkedIn. She also has some excellent resources available for download on her website.

Get ready to take notes on how to humanize your online marketing strategy significantly in our enriching podcast conversation with Elaine Walsh McGrath.

Here is the transcript:

You've got to act like a kind human. So throw any element of narcissism away
and really work on that human part of your content.
Music.
This is Time for Marketing, the marketing podcast that will tell you everything
you've missed when you didn't attend the marketing conference.
Hello and welcome to the time for marketing the podcast
that brings you the best marketing conference speakers and
allows them to sum up their presentation in five minutes
my name is peter and i'll be your host today this is
episode number five zero so the big
50 we're finally here and i'm very
glad that we have an excellent guest joining us
from the island that moved
away from from the eu the whole thingy elaine walsh
mcgrath hello and welcome to the podcast oh thank
you so much but don't worry i'm still in the eu as i'm in
ireland you're still there you're right oh my
goodness 50 i'm so excited because
it was meant to be because it's my
50th year in june so how cool is that see that was really something that made
this podcast happen thank you for being here how are you doing how is Ireland
oh good a bit rainy but your friend isn't so you know that's why we have so
much greenery around us you know.
Yeah you need that to you know do all of the all of the agriculture that you
do up there right yeah for sure for sure Peter that is so true Elaine you are
helping people to get more leads on LinkedIn and other places.
Tell me, what do you do and what is your favorite part about that?
Well, I help my clients to land more clients. That's what I say to them.
It keeps it simple, doesn't it? I work with service-based businesses and businesses
who really do work with clients and need to understand what their needs are.
So generally speaking, they might have a muddy message before they meet me and they need more.
They need more clients or they need to adjust maybe the pricing and the quality
communication of their offer.
Because I work with really, really talented people and organizations to just
make sure that their marketing reflects how amazing they are.
Okay. You have a big history in working.
Big history. You worked a lot in agencies and with big clients.
And how is the LinkedIn communication or the communication between people that
would like to start working together?
How has that changed in the last 10, 15 years?
Well, LinkedIn has had massive growth, but aside from the tech,
let's come back to what I always think is important.
There's more humanity there than there was before.
In my opinion, it's important to show up in a more, let's use some marketing speak, 360 way.
These days, personal branding has really
grown and it's so important
whether you're there for professional reasons representing
your company or looking for clients.
In terms of you're a coach or a service based business
it's so important to stand out because
guess what there are a billion users on
LinkedIn now which is flipping flopping
mad that's where it's seen massive growth
but it's still important to have
that human side to you and I think that that has
is made the main for me
is the main difference you know because quite often
like you still do get some of that
nonsense about like why is this on linkedin but
but increasingly there are more people
who wouldn't have you know seemed linkedin
appropriate 10 years ago and thankfully we
have a more a more diversified and
inclusive view of humanity professionalism
these days which is great you know and that
allows us to really communicate with people even on linkedin
as you know people to people i invited
you to the podcast because you were a speaker at the digimark
on 2023 in ireland this is a conference that tells everything in its name right
digital marketing conference 2023 how was the conference how did you enjoy your
time there it was a great conference conference lovely people great speakers
well i would say that that was amazing no i'm kidding.
But there were really inspiring companies other than my lovely self there and
you know there was a great networking opportunity and it was in a lovely location
in the center of dublin so it was it was great and i certainly would check it
out if they're back visiting next year all right All right. Excellent.
Well, we talked about you, about the conference.
Now there's nothing else to let you
take your five minutes to sum up your presentations. Here you go, Elaine.
Well, it had an interesting title, which is that it was called I'm Not Sarah Connors.
If you remember, she was lead strong female in the Terminator.
And she really had an issue with AI, okay?
So the title was I'm Not Sarah Connors, but like human nature,
not bots will really make your content convert. verse.
So my whole thing, no matter how big your business is,
is that you need to lean into feelings and emotional cues in your content if you want it to converse.
So in actual fact, what I spoke to everybody about was that,
you know, if you want your organic content to build your visibility of your business with ease,
then in actual fact, you have to act like a human in social media and not just any old human.
You've got to act like a kind human. So throw your any element of narcissism
away and really work on that human part of your content.
In actual fact, if you really want to be successful, you need to make sure that's
about 60% of your content and that 20% of your content should just be the transactional aspect.
Okay. So, and then 20% should be the value, the, you know, and I'm not talking
about like transactional value.
I'm talking about your organization or your personal brand's values.
Okay. Your value sets, you know?
So for example, in my business, I have a lot, I am a carer, my daughter has
additional needs, and that does come across in my content, okay?
So what about your business's value?
So just think about it, think about your people and how you want for others
who want to work with you, perceive you.
Then the second part was how to sell on social, right?
Because quite often, Often we get to LinkedIn and LinkedIn is so,
you know, connection friendly, but never mind LinkedIn, any social media,
you know, there is potential to sell and there's, there's pretty much DMs on all social media.
And there is a potential to have that strategy in place.
And I don't mind if you use bots, I don't mind because like I say,
I'm not Sarah Connors, But what I do want you to do is in your content or your
ads to make sure that you're symptom focused and not solution focused when you're
talking to cold traffic.
OK, so make sure that you're talking to the symptoms, that you're talking to
the desires, the dreams of your clients and not like the solution,
because otherwise they may say no, because sure, they don't know necessarily that they need you.
Okay and then the third thing was if you want to be successful on social media
if you want your content to convert then please just you know you don't have
to drain your resource to do it okay.
But you need to just make sure your messaging is
clear that you've got lots of personality in your
content so that you know you stand out
and that it is aligned with you and your business no
matter what size your business and then systemize
it like I'm all about using tech but just
make sure that there's heart and soul in your
messaging that there is enough personality and that you're using enough of the
right language that your ideal client will hear and then yeah absolutely after
that systemize everything and that was basically the crux of my my 45-minute
presentation in five, right?
The big message is, my big message is, forget B2B.
It's human to human. And it doesn't matter what size your business is.
It's still got to be human to human, particularly now with the growth of AI.
You've got to make sure that you come back to basics.
Yeah, it's probably, you know,
in the last year, the messaging on LinkedIn has probably changed a lot.
But I like how you speak about, we should be talking about, we should be symptom
focused and not solutions focused.
Can we give an example of how that would be done right and how that would be done wrong? wrong?
Sure, of course. Now, listen, I'm going to take it from like a smaller business
perspective because that's, you know, I work predominantly these days,
even though I used to work with
like big, you know, million dollar clients when I was working in media.
These days I work with smaller businesses, coaches, consultants,
and yeah, find small organizations and mainly the social entrepreneur space.
So I will, I will absolutely give you an idea. So
let's say someone has a a
program okay and offer a framework and
they know that this is really going to help their clients
here's the thing quite often your
ideal client doesn't identify what the actual crux of their problem is but they
have symptoms so they might say let's just take social media as an example they
might think they need more followers to make more sales but like we all know
that you can you You can sell high ticket,
like you can sell like big solutions.
Costly solutions with a small amount of followers if they're the right followers. Okay.
So the key is to make sure that your content delivers to the symptoms.
So, you know, because they may not know that they may think,
oh, I need loads of followers, but actually what's the issue? They don't have sales.
So you need to talk to the symptoms. Like, do you need to sell more?
You know, are you overwhelmed?
Is your sales department under pressure? To figure out like where the actual
pain point is and just tease the symptoms for them so that they put their hands up.
And when they put their hands up and they're on a call with you or they get
to know you better, they're in your list, then you can ask them more questions and get to the issue.
You and that's then where the solution comes in not
not out of the cold traffic side of the
equation you know all right excellent that was
a nice example that shows how we should change our thinking in our messaging
there are new of course there are new social medias popping up all the time
around i see a lot of b2b sales starting to happen on tiktok working with.
When should we start thinking about TikTok and moving away from LinkedIn?
Or when should we start adding TikTok to LinkedIn as a channel for our communication?
Listen, here's the thing.
It actually doesn't matter what channel you're on. That is the truth of the
matter. There is enough traffic. There are enough eyeballs.
There is enough demographics on every single solitary platform.
Platform so what I say to my clients is
there's no silver bullet sometimes my
clients arrive and go oh what do you mean there's no silver bullet
but honestly you need an algorithmic um
platform and you need an algorithmic platform and that's
what I recommend so make sure you've got an algorithmic algorithmic
platforms so instagram facebook linkedin
in your and to an extent tiktok
but tiktok also kind of comes across into evergreen
because it is increasingly searchable and
we're seeing with the evolution of tiktok in in
terms of their change to landscape that they're putting it
up to youtube they're moving to a slightly longer
format and they just moved to
vertical will they be successful in that i
don't know they're trying to do a lot at the same time at the moment
but basically my big message peter is
you've got to do what's right for you so if
it's a podcast and something that's on
the algorithm do that if it's a blog and something that's
on the algorithm do that but just be strategic come back to why are you doing
it you know that's that's what i always advise my clients all right excellent
i think that's it elaine where can people find you if they want to talk to you
more and do you have other conferences set up to where people can listen to you?
So come on over to my website, which is elainewalshmcgraw.com.
Drop me a line to hello at elainewalshmcgraw.com.
I am pretty much everywhere at elainewalshmcgraw.
So Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
I even think I'm on YouTube, but mainly I hang out on LinkedIn.
So come and connect with me. I'd love to meet you.
All right. I'll add all these links into the description so that people can find you easily.
And yeah, there's some great resources on your website.
I've seen that stuff that you can download that people can start using.
So I would really encourage people to go and check that out.
Elaine, thank you very much for being on the podcast and bringing us the idea
that bots are great, but of course we should be human while using them.
Thank you for being here and have a great weekend.
Thank you so much, Peter. My pleasure. Bye.
Music.