Entrepreneur Sabaa Quao discusses the importance of social media in branding
When it comes to reaching consumers, an effective social media strategy is imperative. In 2017, a strong presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram is the best way to communicate with your client base, although surprisingly this is still news to some firms. At the WP Summit: Leadership & Tech Toronto on May 30, 2018, entrepreneur Sabaa Quao will offer financial advisors guidance on how to optimize social media for their own practices.
The founder of /newsrooms, a content provider specializing in marketing and social media coverage for brands, Quao has strong opinions on what it takes to succeed in the digital age.
WP: What inspired you to start /newsrooms?
SQ: I've worked in marketing for 25 years and saw a pattern emerge as technology and social media shaped the web. About five years ago, every client I had faced an identical problem: how to engage with their audiences continuously.
There are very few entities that are able to operate on an “always on” basis. The more I thought about it, the more I came to appreciate the “always on” capability of the news, publishing, and broadcast industries. That was the inspiration to build a marketing company upon the same operating infrastructure and principles as a news network — and voilà, /newsrooms was born.
WP: Do you think financial services firms are lagging behind in optimising social media?
SQ: Most financial services firms fall short on the opportunity to engage their audiences on a continuous basis. For example, there used to be a frequent, casual, and valuable relationship between banks and their customers built around interactions at a bank branch. As transactions became digital and bank branches disappeared, a relationship ‘deficit’ formed.
The social media presence of a company provides an opportunity to bridge that gap between a brand and customers. Most financial services firms are only “always on” in a functional way. While I can complete many financial service transactions anytime and anywhere, that doesn't mean that I have a relationship with that institution. If we take the "social" part of social media seriously, that suggests the need to build some proxy relationship.
Financial services firms, like many other businesses, come and go with their advertising and marketing campaigns. That campaign thinking falls far short given the frequency at which we use our financial services and infrastructure. Starbucks has a better relationship with their customers than probably any bank and yet Starbucks only interacts with most of their customers once or twice a day. Compare that against how many times you use your debit or credit card in a day. Are all those interactions with zero engagement a missed opportunity? Probably.
WP: Are there particular platforms that work best for financial services firms trying to reach consumers?
SQ: For reach, I'd say any of the major platforms are valid. It really comes down to the assessment the firm needs to make about which platforms their consumers are using and why. Facebook is central to many lives in terms of casual discovery of news or new ideas. But if I'm specifically looking for information, many customers immediately switch to search mode, and Google or Twitter come to the fore as being the most useful. If I'm going to engage in a customer service type of situation, then Facebook Messenger, to me, is the obvious choice. And while I have no clients that need to be on Snapchat at the moment, I could argue that Snapchat has had a major influence on how social media looks and feels today.
WP: What are the most common mistakes firms make with their social media strategy?
SQ: The most common mistake firms make is to engage in social media as some casual, low-value activity. How many times is social media handed off to the entry-level marketer or employees? Firms, as well as their marketing agencies, are both guilty of this.
What if I were to say the opposite: social media and online engagement are most valuable activities. Why? Every digital and social media interaction provides one or many data points. What's that data worth when you combine the transaction, location, time, motivation, sentiment, frequency, and social data? For the first time, you can actually walk away from a transaction with more insight than a face-to-face interaction. Ignoring that data is a mistake. Ignoring that data for a long time compounds a firm's blind spot over time.
WP: What industries do you serve most and what do they request from /newsrooms?
SQ: We have done our best work in high value and regulated industries: professional and financial services, tech and telecom, energy, automotive, education, health and wellness, and travel. For one, it's easier to prove the ROI on a high value service. Lower value goods, like consumer packaged goods, are well served by mass advertising.
For /newsrooms, the best customers will have some kind of digital conversion that they are pursuing. We won't do all of a client's social media or content. Instead we narrow down to the handful of topics they need to dominate to achieve a credible presence that ultimately drives towards some kind of digital conversion.
WP: What advice would you give to any budding entrepreneurs thinking of setting up their own business?
SQ: Start early, before you have any responsibilities that keep you up at night. I started my first little venture at 16, and my first venture with employees at 26. I almost lost everything during the dot.com meltdown in 2001, but I was still young enough (or resilient enough, or optimistic enough) to just pick myself up and start again.
The other piece of advice is simply a reality check. Even with all the leveling of the playing field that technology has enabled, there has been a long-term decline in entrepreneurship – new ventures are actually starting at half the volume of a generation ago. Big firms got bigger – how much startup energy is absorbed by Google and Facebook? Big firms also became more entrepreneurial, because they had to. The start-ups being initiated within tech, financial, and health services firms suck up a lot of ordinary startup energy.
I'll also point out that the side hustle is not entrepreneurship. The Uber drivers will be replaced overnight by driverless cars, and renting out your unit via AirBnB is their venture, not yours. I'm not a fan of the gig economy passing itself off as entrepreneurship.
And I'll end with a surprising upside about where some innovation will come from. Given the absolute need for innovation in so many industries, the entrepreneurship opportunity may now also be found inside existing businesses. The budding entrepreneur should not overlook the intrapreneurial option. Many of us start more than one business in a lifetime, so a stint of intrapreneurship might just be one of your ventures within your overall career.
Sabaa Quao will present a keynote session at Leadership & Tech Toronto entitled: Attracting, retraining and servicing clients via social media
Related stories:
Wealthsimple CEO opens up on challenges of being a young leader
Are you up-to-date with Canada’s web laws?
The founder of /newsrooms, a content provider specializing in marketing and social media coverage for brands, Quao has strong opinions on what it takes to succeed in the digital age.
WP: What inspired you to start /newsrooms?
SQ: I've worked in marketing for 25 years and saw a pattern emerge as technology and social media shaped the web. About five years ago, every client I had faced an identical problem: how to engage with their audiences continuously.
There are very few entities that are able to operate on an “always on” basis. The more I thought about it, the more I came to appreciate the “always on” capability of the news, publishing, and broadcast industries. That was the inspiration to build a marketing company upon the same operating infrastructure and principles as a news network — and voilà, /newsrooms was born.
WP: Do you think financial services firms are lagging behind in optimising social media?
SQ: Most financial services firms fall short on the opportunity to engage their audiences on a continuous basis. For example, there used to be a frequent, casual, and valuable relationship between banks and their customers built around interactions at a bank branch. As transactions became digital and bank branches disappeared, a relationship ‘deficit’ formed.
The social media presence of a company provides an opportunity to bridge that gap between a brand and customers. Most financial services firms are only “always on” in a functional way. While I can complete many financial service transactions anytime and anywhere, that doesn't mean that I have a relationship with that institution. If we take the "social" part of social media seriously, that suggests the need to build some proxy relationship.
Financial services firms, like many other businesses, come and go with their advertising and marketing campaigns. That campaign thinking falls far short given the frequency at which we use our financial services and infrastructure. Starbucks has a better relationship with their customers than probably any bank and yet Starbucks only interacts with most of their customers once or twice a day. Compare that against how many times you use your debit or credit card in a day. Are all those interactions with zero engagement a missed opportunity? Probably.
WP: Are there particular platforms that work best for financial services firms trying to reach consumers?
SQ: For reach, I'd say any of the major platforms are valid. It really comes down to the assessment the firm needs to make about which platforms their consumers are using and why. Facebook is central to many lives in terms of casual discovery of news or new ideas. But if I'm specifically looking for information, many customers immediately switch to search mode, and Google or Twitter come to the fore as being the most useful. If I'm going to engage in a customer service type of situation, then Facebook Messenger, to me, is the obvious choice. And while I have no clients that need to be on Snapchat at the moment, I could argue that Snapchat has had a major influence on how social media looks and feels today.
WP: What are the most common mistakes firms make with their social media strategy?
SQ: The most common mistake firms make is to engage in social media as some casual, low-value activity. How many times is social media handed off to the entry-level marketer or employees? Firms, as well as their marketing agencies, are both guilty of this.
What if I were to say the opposite: social media and online engagement are most valuable activities. Why? Every digital and social media interaction provides one or many data points. What's that data worth when you combine the transaction, location, time, motivation, sentiment, frequency, and social data? For the first time, you can actually walk away from a transaction with more insight than a face-to-face interaction. Ignoring that data is a mistake. Ignoring that data for a long time compounds a firm's blind spot over time.
WP: What industries do you serve most and what do they request from /newsrooms?
SQ: We have done our best work in high value and regulated industries: professional and financial services, tech and telecom, energy, automotive, education, health and wellness, and travel. For one, it's easier to prove the ROI on a high value service. Lower value goods, like consumer packaged goods, are well served by mass advertising.
For /newsrooms, the best customers will have some kind of digital conversion that they are pursuing. We won't do all of a client's social media or content. Instead we narrow down to the handful of topics they need to dominate to achieve a credible presence that ultimately drives towards some kind of digital conversion.
WP: What advice would you give to any budding entrepreneurs thinking of setting up their own business?
SQ: Start early, before you have any responsibilities that keep you up at night. I started my first little venture at 16, and my first venture with employees at 26. I almost lost everything during the dot.com meltdown in 2001, but I was still young enough (or resilient enough, or optimistic enough) to just pick myself up and start again.
The other piece of advice is simply a reality check. Even with all the leveling of the playing field that technology has enabled, there has been a long-term decline in entrepreneurship – new ventures are actually starting at half the volume of a generation ago. Big firms got bigger – how much startup energy is absorbed by Google and Facebook? Big firms also became more entrepreneurial, because they had to. The start-ups being initiated within tech, financial, and health services firms suck up a lot of ordinary startup energy.
I'll also point out that the side hustle is not entrepreneurship. The Uber drivers will be replaced overnight by driverless cars, and renting out your unit via AirBnB is their venture, not yours. I'm not a fan of the gig economy passing itself off as entrepreneurship.
And I'll end with a surprising upside about where some innovation will come from. Given the absolute need for innovation in so many industries, the entrepreneurship opportunity may now also be found inside existing businesses. The budding entrepreneur should not overlook the intrapreneurial option. Many of us start more than one business in a lifetime, so a stint of intrapreneurship might just be one of your ventures within your overall career.
Sabaa Quao will present a keynote session at Leadership & Tech Toronto entitled: Attracting, retraining and servicing clients via social media
Related stories:
Wealthsimple CEO opens up on challenges of being a young leader
Are you up-to-date with Canada’s web laws?
