When I worked in corporate it used to amaze me what awful content I was given to share, it was nothing more than brochures and brochureware, where the message was "buy my product because we are great" which is what everybody says.  I knew my audience and network would hate it and actually think it funny if I shared it. It would show what a rubbish company I worked for to think that people who worked for that company, thought people wanted to read a post which was no more than a brochure. It was embarrassing. 

It was amazing talking to to the people who created it, because they themsleves wouldn't read content like that created by any brand, BUT, and it's a big but, they would seem it was OK to throw this stuff out on social, through their employees and we would all be "rich".

At the time, there were three things I didn't know and so couldn't challenge, there were 

1. People come to social media to be social and not read brochure and brochureware and that's not my opinion, it's backed by research.  Research from Telstra, here and research from Sproutsocial, here.

2. Content is not the output. What do I mean? Well so many people think that content is somehow what we do. We post content, end of.  Wrong, social media is about conversations, after all it's social on media and conversations create sales.  What you and I sell needs a conversation.  If you are posting on social media and that does not create a conversation, you are wasting your time.

3. The way algorithms  and people work. The way Linkedin works is if you post something and there is no engagement, then the algorithm learns you are posting content that does not engagement and therefore it won't promote you. The way people work, is we scroll through our timelines going "boring, boring, boring ...." we avoid and don't look at boring content. 

If you post boring content, brochures, brochureware, white papers etc, you teach the algorithm and your customers to ignore you. Simple as. 

Want to know more about social selling, check out my new book

"social selling techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition".

In this brand new edition, I have updated all the text, I have also got 15 practitioners, so people who are doing this already to explain how they are get (practical) business benefit. From the CEO that has been running a digital business for over 18 months to sales leaders who use social selling every day.  

Articles on how these business have and are implementing digital, from Mercer, Telstra Purple, Ring Central, Cyberhawk, Namos, Ericsson, Crux Consulting, DLA Ignite and more.

It's available on Amazon worldwide.  Link to Amazon.com here and Amazon.co.uk here.