HubSpot social media strategy 101 (HubHeroes, Ep. 34)

[00:00:00] Liz Murphy:

Welcome back to another episode of the Hub Heroes Podcast. As always, I am Liz Murphy, therapist extraordinaire, hub heroes, Wrangler, and George. Yeah, I know you're here. I don't care because you know who, who is here. Yeah. We'll suck it.

[00:00:16] George B. Thomas:

Sheesh. That's a way to start the 

[00:00:18] Devyn Bellamy:

us know how you really feel.

[00:00:21] Liz Murphy:

Is that the voice I have been waiting for. Devin Buby, you're back.

[00:00:26] Devyn Bellamy:

happening? It's good to be back. It's so good to be

[00:00:30] Liz Murphy:

me, left me alone with these crazy 

[00:00:33] George B. Thomas:

yeah. 

[00:00:33] Devyn Bellamy:

full faith in your ability to manage the asylum In my absence. 

[00:00:37] George B. Thomas:

She wrangled without you. Don't let her get, like, don't get it twisted. She wrangled 
[00:00:42] Liz Murphy: I wrangled, but under duress. Anyway, how's it going, Jen? How you doing?

[00:00:48] George B. Thomas:

Wonderful. Now that I'm doing this because it's this, and then like one more meeting and it's the 

[00:00:54] Liz Murphy:

Ow, ow what you got going on this weekend.

[00:00:56] George B. Thomas:

Absolutely nothing. The wife and two daughters are gone, which means zero honey-do Uh, and it's me and my son, and I think we're gonna like eat a lot and watch a lot of movies and TV and stuff. That's what this 

[00:01:09] Liz Murphy:

I can send you a honey-do list if you'd 

[00:01:10] George B. Thomas:

No, I'm good. What? Wait, we're breaking up. I can't hear you.

[00:01:14] Liz Murphy:

Oh good. Now that George is gone. Just kidding. Devin, what are you doing this weekend?

[00:01:17] Devyn Bellamy:

I am watching all the shows that I have been neglecting for the past few weeks, starting with the Mandalorian. So hopefully by the time this episode drops, I'll know exactly what's gone on with the season. 

[00:01:30] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. You'll know that the one guy 

[00:01:32] Devyn Bellamy:

Stop it. Cut it out. I will go over there.

[00:01:36] Liz Murphy:

Spoiler alert, Pedro Pascal is still. Stupidly hot. That's really all you 

[00:01:41] George B. Thomas:

Wow. Okay. 

[00:01:43] Liz Murphy:

that's right. That's right. Liz. Liz is coming in here. That's fine. I don't need you to agree

[00:01:48] George B. Thomas:

I'm just saying 

[00:01:49] Liz Murphy:

decent. Okay, 

[00:01:51] George B. Thomas:

There's another mo uh, show, there's another show he uh, something about like zombie people and something 

[00:01:57] Liz Murphy:

last of us.

[00:01:58] George B. Thomas:

oh yeah, so good. So I loved 

[00:02:02] Devyn Bellamy:

all the kids.

[00:02:03] George B. Thomas:

Yep, yep. 

[00:02:03] Liz Murphy:

Good for 

[00:02:04] George B. Thomas:

That's what we do. We're doing, we're doing the Hub Heroes podcast. 

[00:02:07] Liz Murphy:

We're 

[00:02:07] George B. Thomas:

the kids. Yeah.

[00:02:09] Liz Murphy:

saving the

[00:02:09] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. Educating people. One child at a time. I don't know. I'm making stuff up right 

[00:02:13] Liz Murphy:

Connect that dot for 

[00:02:15] George B. Thomas:

I can't. 

[00:02:16] Devyn Bellamy:

Ooh, I can, I can. Don't forget coming May World Certification Week, you're gonna have an opportunity to earn certifications for a good cause, May 15th through 19th. Make sure you set aside time on your calendars to expand your professional horizon and for. Every certification that we get, we're going to be donating up to, I believe it's $50,000 to charities that in part are helping the kids.
I made the connection. Let's go.

[00:02:44] George B. Thomas:

There we go. You know, 

[00:02:45] Liz Murphy:

that's the kind of energy we have

[00:02:47] George B. Thomas:

I know. I'm just gonna serve up volleyballs, uh, for Devin to spike the entire rest of the episode.

[00:02:53] Liz Murphy:

It's not at my face. I wanna keep this perfect piece of art intact speaking. 

[00:02:58] George B. Thomas:

I said volleyball.

[00:02:59] Liz Murphy:

If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. Anyway. All right, cupcakes. Are we ready? We have stuff to talk about. We have stuff. we ready,

[00:03:07] Devyn Bellamy:

do it. 

[00:03:08] Liz Murphy:

All right. We're talking about social media this week. That's right. I don't care if you love it. I don't care if you hate it. I don't care if you hate to love it or you love to hate it. It does not matter because it is absolutely essential. Now, some of you may also consider it a necessary evil, considering we're all raging against the algorithms every single day of the week, but it does not matter.

Because social is that gateway to online conversations, which can inform all parts of your flywheel, right? Your marketing, your sales, your service, how you attract, how you engage, how you delight, and it's also how you can amplify the content you're creating. And you can foster relationships. There's just so much potential within social that I think gets lost in the narrative of why we're mad at Facebook this week, right?

Like that's the kind of stuff, the true purpose and the true capabilities behind what these platforms provide is lost in that negativity, which is why I wanted to have this conversation today because George, you created a piece of content not too long ago. About all of the different things about the HubSpot social media tool suite that most people don't even realize.

I mean, when I read it, I remember thinking, oh, I just thought it was a scheduling tool and nothing more. And I have never felt like such a big ding dong, which is why we are here today. We're talking about what social strategy actually looks like. We're not talking about social strategy. If you're like duo lingo or Coca-Cola, we're talking about what real revenue driving social strategies look like and how you use HubSpot to get it done.
do we think? 

[00:04:44] George B. Thomas:

I, I love it. And I will say one thing, Liz, that all of that stuff that you rattled off about, like distribution and like, the things, the pop. Positives out of it. this whole conversation, this whole conversation that we're moving forward with, all of that is true. If you make sure when you get ready to hit that submit button, that you are coming from a place of being a good human. 

[00:05:09] Liz Murphy:

Okay. 

[00:05:10] George B. Thomas:

go, right in the 

[00:05:11] Liz Murphy:

You know what? 

[00:05:11] George B. Thomas:

beginning of the vo done. I don't have to do it for the rest of the podcast episode. All right, let's go.

[00:05:16] Liz Murphy:

You know what, George New rule, when you actively insert it like a shoehorn into the intro going forward, that no
longer

[00:05:25] George B. Thomas:

Ah, dang it. Okay. All 

[00:05:27] Liz Murphy:

Nice try buddy. Nice try. 

[00:05:29] George B. Thomas:

do, I do what I can, but, but I am super excited to talk about this and what's crazy, Liz, and I think you mentioned to this, uh, to me when we were talking about like, what do we wanna bring to the audience is that we've done over 30 episodes. And haven't talked Yeah, and haven't talked about social media yet, which is crazy. Like it's 

[00:05:47] Liz Murphy:

Well, it makes sense. It makes sense quite frankly. This goes into my first question, which is like, what do most folks get wrong when they think about social media's role in their inbound strategy? I think the challenge is that there are so many platforms, right? And we see the duo lingo, owl duo lingo everywhere.

We see all of these big, robust social strategies. That. I think it can feel really daunting if you're in that more, maybe you're in b2b, maybe you're s an SMB sized organization. It, I think there's some sort of disconnect where social media is great for thee and not for me, and thus people tend to put at an arms length, they already struggle to calculate the ROI of their content. Imagine trying to calculate the ROI of social, which I know we get into. 

[00:06:33] George B. Thomas:

it, anyway, we'll get there. We'll get there. That's, that's easy with HubSpot. But, and I, I'm not talking about the content part cuz that's still somewhat kind of pseudo difficult, but social media wrapped into your content actually becomes really easy. I know we'll get there. so what was the original question again? Liz?

[00:06:48] Liz Murphy:

What do you think people are getting wrong when they think about the role of social media in their inbound strategy? Don't all jump in at once, 

[00:06:55] Devyn Bellamy:

Oh, I thought George was about to

[00:06:56] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. Well, I was, I was gonna try to give Devin some

[00:06:59] Liz Murphy:

doing his awkward pacing where he's glaring at me through the screen begging to give
him

[00:07:03] George B. Thomas:

Listen, we started, we started this podcast out that you were glad to hear Devin's voice. I was trying to give some space for Devin's voice to answer the question and actually just come in afterwards.

[00:07:16] Devyn Bellamy:

I got one in the chamber. I'm ready. Let's do 

[00:07:18] George B. Thomas:

Well then let's let, let's roll.

[00:07:20] Devyn Bellamy:

All right. 

[00:07:21] Liz Murphy:

bring it.

[00:07:21] Devyn Bellamy:

So people, I think when you look at like. Social media giants like Wendy's and how they manage their Twitter or how Ryan Reynolds, masterfully handles social media. you don't have to be that. If you look at some of my favorite influencer in this, in the space like Max Cohen, who is doing phenomenal job with the HubSpot related things that only HubSpot users will get. like the workflow, one that he just did was I was crying. but also you look at people who are just sharing information and thought leaders in that space, like, uh, Kyle Jepson or Sherry Otto who are talking about the why. Behind what it is that they're doing and the importance of what it is, to be, better at what you do.

The kinds of things that their audience will nerd out about. The, and, and I've said this a few times in this, uh, series that. Everybody nerds out about something and that thing that you're doing, someone's gonna nerd out about it. And you can go there and talk about the challenges, be more relatable, more human if you will, in your social media.
You don't have to be super witty posting all the time. the end of the day. If you are creating brand awareness, you're creating problem awareness, and you're driving people back, uh, through the occasional, not the heavy handed every time, go to our website, check the link in the bio links in the comments kind of thing.

You don't have to do that every time. can just be yourself and it'll, it'll drive traffic. So I think the thing that people get wrong about social media one. They think that they don't need it because of the vertical or industries that they're in. Completely false. You can sell toilet paper and you're gonna find somebody who's really excited about whether or not someone's gonna invent for ply that's not gonna destroy their plumbing system.
And you, you can just do that. You can, you can have fun and, and, and just speak to the handful of people. And, and the last thing, this is the last thing. I promise you don't. Have to have millions of followers to be successful on social media. Your audience ain't that big. Spoiler alert.

[00:09:37] Liz Murphy:

have to be for everybody. You just gotta be for the bright

[00:09:40] Devyn Bellamy:

There you go.

[00:09:40] Liz Murphy:

George, because I also love you equally. All jokes aside, what do you want to share with
everybody? 

[00:09:46] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, so I think people, and I love. Everything that Devin said, I think people have to realize that like you what Devin said, you gotta be you boo, right? Like, just go and be you. I don't think that they understand the idea of, scalable conversations. Over social instead of, tactics that they think they have to try to pull off.

it is about the humans. It is about connecting. It is about conversating. It is about, having a brain of curiosity. Earlier today, I literally put out a post that was like, Hey, in two lines, by the way, no big strategy. When you're talking to humans, what do you think the number one benefit that you talk about most is?
That's from a place of curiosity, right? I want to know why do people think HubSpot is valuable? but I also think that because of this, like thought of it has to be about a tactic, less about conversation, less about human. Um, I think too that they don't realize the power in which. Lies in their hand and the ability to actually track that power.

And I'm gonna like open up the kimono for a second here so people understand what I mean by this. If I go into HubSpot, And I go into my traffic analytics and I look at my traffic analytics. I can see the source of people coming to george b thomas.com, and I can see it by direct traffic, organic social, organic search referrals, email, paid search, and other campaigns.

And so, You have to be able to look in the see over time. Are my efforts in social media worth the weight that I'm putting in? Are the conversations that I'm having worth it? Is the brand that I'm building worth it? And I'll tell you right now, j actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, uh, put out a little thing. I'm curious, do you think that my organic search. My organic social or my direct traffic has created the most sessions on George B. Thomas over all time.

[00:11:50] Liz Murphy:

I can't answer that cuz I know the answer.
[00:11:53] Devyn Bellamy: I mean, anyone who knows George should know the answer.

[00:11:55] George B. Thomas:

Okay. Okay. Are you gonna go out on a limb?

[00:11:58] Devyn Bellamy:

gonna say your organic social, your LinkedIn jumps, bro. 

[00:12:02] George B. Thomas:

So, so it's interesting. Here's what's fun, um, because it's, it's somewhat shocking, but, uh, organic search, organic social, more than doubles the organic search, okay? in sessions. Now, here's what's fun in the amount of contacts created, organic social, triples. Organic search. Okay. Now in, in the amount of customers, in the amount of customers, organic social is at least eight times. The amount of organic search that brought me customers, so more customers from social, more contacts from social, more sessions from social than organic search. But here's the mind blowing thing. I won't even tell you how much more direct traffic does than organic social. But why is that? Because people know about me on social and just come to the site.

Right, because if I actually do like real self attribution, a lot of the direct traffic says that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, somebody sent me an email, whatever those types of things. So they don't understand the power. That great connection, great conversation, social media as a human instead of social media, as a robotic tactic has in store for their business.

[00:13:25] Liz Murphy:

That's freaking wild.

[00:13:26] Devyn Bellamy:

That is

[00:13:27] Liz Murphy:

I. What's interesting about that too is I think, you know, I, I don't want to divert us down the path of content too greatly, but this is where I think people can sometimes get tripped up with content ROI reporting, because the reason why people are coming to your site is because you have a robust social strategy to share your content.

[00:13:46] George B. Thomas:

Yep. 

[00:13:46] Liz Murphy:

That is the mechanism by which people are getting to you. Most of what you're sharing is not like, Here, come to this landing page for this thing. It's like, this is an article, this is a podcast. This is a thing, but you do it with such intention of how you share it.

[00:14:00] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, and what's funny is, I'll even take a, another crack at this. And again, not to go down that like rabbit hole around content that we could, but I'm not even really sharing it as part of a content strategy. I'm sharing it because I wanna help educate the humans to the things that they could be doing for their business.

It just so happens. That the world has wrapped that up into content marketing and a content strategy. Listen, businesses that realize they can use their social channels to be a dope educator, yo, off the charts.

[00:14:32] Liz Murphy:

Oh yeah, absolutely. So this segues in nicely to the question, right? So we've talked a bit about how people are getting social media wrong in terms of how they approach it with their strategy, most likely B2B to, depending on who's listening. How should inbounds and hubs spotters alike be thinking about social media?

Then if we're telling them, you're looking, you got this all wrong, right? George, you started tapping this vein a little bit with your last answer. What should they be thinking about instead? You two are so polite today. All right,

[00:15:02] Devyn Bellamy:

said, George, that's like he.

[00:15:07] George B. Thomas:

All right, I'll go. I'll go. Um, and it's gonna be like a real short, what might sound like a dumb answer, and then Devin can go right after that. But I, I've said it at the end of 90% of the videos that I've created on the internet. If you go to social a happy, helpful, humble human that is trying to add value into the world.

You will have dramatically more success than if you are trying to sell a product service. Sound smart, or think that you need to be the next freaking Oreo viral, blah, blah, blah.

[00:15:40] Liz Murphy:

Virality is not R roi. 

[00:15:41] George B. Thomas:

No, no, no. Don't go viral. Go value. I'm just gonna throw that out there.

[00:15:44] Liz Murphy:

Oh, I'm sorry. Say that one more time maybe add some fancy voice speaker effects behind that.

[00:15:49] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. Don't go viral. Go value.

[00:15:53] Liz Murphy:

Okay. That was

[00:15:54] Devyn Bellamy:

Not at all what we were expecting to happen.

[00:15:57] George B. Thomas:

You, you were expecting to be like, don't go, go viral. Go value.

[00:16:03] Liz Murphy:

The vibes are off, man. The vibes are off. 

[00:16:06] George B. Thomas:

I did it on purpose. You know, people 

[00:16:07] Liz Murphy:

I know that. Let's talk about the chaotic energy of this episode, shall we? Devin, you were meant to restore order. My sir. Actually, go ahead. What do you got to share,

[00:16:17] Devyn Bellamy:

nothing. That was it. That's what I would've said. He, he,

[00:16:20] Liz Murphy:

End of podcast. We

[00:16:21] Devyn Bellamy:

Boom. Mic drop. 

[00:16:23] George B. Thomas:

out for the day. 

[00:16:25] Liz Murphy:

All right, so then why don't we shift gears a little bit. So we've talked a little bit about how people are thinking about their social media strategy, maybe through a distorted lens. We've talked about what they should be thinking about and instead, now let's take a look. Let's pivot from strategy. Let's talk about the tool, because I think we have a similar.

Situation here, right? We, everybody's in a situation ship with HubSpot social media tools. They do not understand what it is. Let's fix this. Let's start with what they're thinking incorrectly about the tool. And I'll just be explicit this time. Either of you can jump in at any time.

[00:16:59] Devyn Bellamy:

Sure I'll go this time. People are stopping, with scheduling and treating it like it is 2012 Hoot Suite. And it is. So there, there, it's, it's significantly more robust than that. I mean, the scheduling tool is fire and it's fantastic and I love it. But there are, there are other things that you can do with it.

Some of these things I wish that the, the, that were, were more robust. but you, you can dive more into the features. like for instance, uh, the Twitter features. Our bananas, the social listening on Twitter is second to none.
[00:17:36] George B. Thomas: so first of all, um, it might not be in your portal. It might be in your portal. I don't know, but I was messing around with monitoring inside of my portal the other day, and there's now Instagram streams. 

[00:17:50] Devyn Bellamy:

Shut 

[00:17:50] George B. Thomas:

not only, not only can you do Twitter streams, but you can do Instagram streams. As long as it's unlocked in your portal. I don't know what's happening with it. Floating out there. Maybe ask your rep, ask somebody that knows or whatever, but I'm literally looking at it right now. Instagram streams inside the social tool. Here's the thing though, Devin,

I'm glad that you mentioned scheduling because the number one thing that I have like put a stake in the ground for years. Uh, ago to try to battle against is when even when people think about scheduling, they think that I have to log into HubSpot. I have to go to marketing, I have to go to social. I then have to hit the orange button on the right hand side. That is create social posts. I've had HubSpot employees me, until I watched your video on the HubSpot Social Chrome extension, I didn't know we had one.
And so I'm just gonna throw out there if you are rocking out HubSpot Social or not rocking out HubSpot Social because the barrier was you felt you had to log in. Go get the extension and be able to post from anywhere and we'll probably talk more about the extension as we move forward cuz there's some dope things.

But that's the thing. You've gotta make it easy for you to do the thing that you want to do. And whether you're inside of HubSpot or you're using the extension, again, I'm gonna tease out, we're gonna talk about how you can tie the ROI of social media to your actual business and what you're doing.

[00:19:16] Liz Murphy:

Mic drop. Kaboom. Well, let's dig in a little bit more here, Phyllis. Let's talk more about the different ways you can use and maximize HubSpot for social media. I want us to, I would, we've talked a lot in recent episodes about big, high level concepts and ideas, right? I want you guys to rattle off all of the different ways in which HubSpot is being neglected from a social media perspective.

[00:19:41] Devyn Bellamy:

I got one, a big one.

[00:19:42] Liz Murphy:

Let's do it

[00:19:44] Devyn Bellamy:

people, you share links on HubSpot, through the social media tool, it's automatically creating tracking URLs as a marketer. Even if you're not using HubSpot, every link you put out there, be it email, whatever it is, should have some sort of U T M tracking associated with it, and that is something that is native to HubSpot.

You're gonna keep kicking out these hubs, Lee links, and they allow you. To see exactly where, when, how people have come into your site. So you can have attribution and because all of your reporting is in one system, you're not able to not, you're not just able to see, oh, someone came in from my site.
You're able to look at the numbers that George was talking about, where he can talk about how many customers have come in from social, not just how many customers have come in from social, how many customers have come in from a specific post. On social, how much money you are making. And if you, if you get deep into conversion path analytics, you can do the math or you can just have it all in HubSpot, which just does the math for you. Um, that is one of the biggest things. Oh, here he goes. Here he goes.

[00:20:57] George B. Thomas:

put me in, coach. Put put me in. Coach. I'm, I'm ready to rock and roll. Devin. I'm so glad you mentioned that because you mentioned the Hubley link. one of the things that you can do too is you can actually, um, publish with custom short links, meaning you can get your own link and you can go into the settings and you can have the, whatever makes sense to have your brand, but still get those UTMs.
And then I'm glad that you started to talk about reporting and it just automatically happening because if you are using HubSpot, and you're using HubSpot campaigns and you're not making sure that you're actually associating your social posts to the campaigns that you're actually sharing around, shame on you.

Cuz that's where the ROI of social media comes from. Listen. You've got e-books, guides, checklists, each of those e-books, guides, checklist, RA campaign, each of those e-books, guides, checklists should have blog articles associated to them. When you're sharing out those blog articles associated back to the campaign, when you're sharing out that landing page associated back to the campaign, now you're literally gonna have a campaign's dashboard.

That you're gonna see what your, uh, articles did, what your emails did, what your workflows did, what your forms did, and. More importantly, what your freaking social media post did specific to those individual campaigns that you have. It's like the holy land of, oh my gosh. And by the way, you can't associate to a campaign in other social tools like Hootsuite or a Agora Pulse, or I could keep going, but with the HubSpot Chrome extension and doing it inside HubSpot, you can tie to those. Business focused lead conversion campaign areas,

[00:22:38] Devyn Bellamy:

Let me jump on that hype Train the campaign train real quick. The thing is, with campaigns that you also need to realize is that the important thing is you'll be able to see how much money that campaign made 

[00:22:49] George B. Thomas:

cha-ching. 

[00:22:50] Devyn Bellamy:

You'll be able to take and, and, and you won't need to do, you click, oh, there's a dollar sign.
That's it. That, that's it. You don't need to bust out a Google sheet or an Excel sheet. You don't need to do it. It just says it right there. All, all of it just lays out. Everything that's associated with this campaign, this is how much this campaign made this company. And if as a marketer you want to justify your existence in a sales org, all you gotta do is show 'em the money. That's it.

[00:23:21] Liz Murphy:

That's 

[00:23:22] George B. Thomas:

baby.

[00:23:24] Liz Murphy:

wait, I have a quick question. Do either of you care about HubSpot social media tool? I really just feel like you guys are not bringing 

[00:23:30] George B. Thomas:

Just, just a 

[00:23:31] Devyn Bellamy:

listen. The thing is, is that the social media tool, the problem with being a marketer is being able to show that if the sales team isn't winning, it's not just your fault. The thing is like the number one, and, and I'm actually, I'm, I'm gonna be in Wisconsin next week or when this episode drops. Gonna be this week at experience inbound.

And I'm gonna be talking about this exact topic U using financial metrics in the conversion path to justify your existence. To get that bigger budget. That's what all of this is about. So if you're telling your company, like let's say that George is mid-level manager@georgebthomas.com, right? And George is like, Hey, we, we need to get a social media manager.

They're like, ah, I don't know. That seems like we'll just get some kid to come in and post and memes and eh, but then if you're able to show the numbers and the percentage. Of the revenue that came in from this campaign, the significant amount of revenue that came in through social, then they're like, oh, we need to double down and get somebody with an MBA and a sense of humor who can do this.
That's the difference from getting an intern in, getting a specialist, being able to show them the R o Y. Of a particular channel. So with with the social media tool, it makes it so unbelievably easy because with HubSpot in general, one of the, the major superpowers is being able to track revenue from the moment it comes in the door.

Before it even is, is revenue. And you're able to say, okay, so this is where this money came from with the social media tool. It's that. On steroids with no additional effort on your part, as long as you're using the tool correctly. If you're not associating everything that you're putting out with a campaign, you're losing.

[00:25:19] George B. Thomas:

what I hear when I hear b a with creativity and social media in a campaign, I simply hear, oh, no. I simply hear, oh, o uh, anyway, I jacked that up. Whatever. I, it 

[00:25:33] Liz Murphy:

you want me to help you out, bud?

[00:25:34] George B. Thomas:

was so, it was so there. It was like I was just gonna be like,

[00:25:38] Liz Murphy:

George. I got you, George. I got you. Look at me. Do you know what? Tell me. Just say cue me up. What does that sound like,

[00:25:45] George B. Thomas:

Liz, what does that sound like when you hear that? There you go. See, we could just do that. 

[00:25:51] Liz Murphy:

Look at that. We're improving. We're doing great today, everybody. We're doing great. So what are the most powerful ways a company can start using HubSpot for social media and what I'm, I really wanna emphasize the starting peak. Like there, we've talked about a lot of different capacities and capabilities that you can maximize, but I could imagine walking in there and being like, where do I start? What do I do? What is 

[00:26:16] George B. Thomas:

yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we already starting. Point one is definitely, uh, download the Chrome extension. Did I mention that HubSpot has a social media. A Chrome extension anyway.

[00:26:24] Liz Murphy:

Wait, what for what? What was it again?

[00:26:26] George B. Thomas:

Social media, chrome extension. You should download that. Yeah. But, but here's the next thing. Here's, here's where I see people go wrong and they forget that they need to do a little research.

And put in some good information into a place in HubSpot social media tool, meaning before you get all excited and just start spreading your social media goodness all over the interwebs, you need to go into your platforms. And find out when are people actually active on the channels that you're going to be posting.

Is it Wednesdays and Fridays from 12 to four? Is it like Sundays and Tuesdays from 8:00 AM to noon? Like, what is it? Because when you first open up the HubSpot social settings, you're gonna have these dumb default times that they're gonna, like when you use the Chrome extension or try to schedule a post. Those times don't mean jack squat for your business or your community. So do some research and modify the schedule times in your HubSpot portal so that you're actually posting when your audience is gonna be most engaged.

[00:27:32] Liz Murphy:

I love that. I was trying to think of something quippy like, don't just ask where your bio, our personas are. Ask when are they? But that

[00:27:40] Devyn Bellamy:

Yeah. That, that was pretty quippy. I 

[00:27:43] George B. Thomas:

that was, 

[00:27:43] Devyn Bellamy:

yeah. That,

[00:27:44] Liz Murphy:

that's a little like for my doctor who people That's a little wibbly wobbly. Timey. Wimy. Like, it's kind of like, are
they? 
[00:27:50] George B. Thomas:

wow. We went

[00:27:50] Devyn Bellamy:

that registered on the quip meter. Definitely.

[00:27:52] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. 

[00:27:53] Liz Murphy:

Well, thanks

[00:27:53] Devyn Bellamy:

Yeah. Um,

[00:27:55] George B. Thomas:

she likes you to be around, by the way. Just that right there is, she's like, I need Devin 

[00:27:59] Liz Murphy:

what, is it really that bad that I get some sort of validation for what I bring

[00:28:04] Devyn Bellamy:

give the drummer some. 

[00:28:06] George B. Thomas:

Uh, you're good. Yeah. There you go.

[00:28:08] Devyn Bellamy:

yeah, definitely that. but I would also, uh, take a step back and think about your content strategy. Um, don't just be posting a post, uh, unless you are really in tune with the needs and the voice of your customer and you're able to speak directly to, like, basically, unless you're ready to get in that pulpit and preaching and you know that you're going to hit somebody with a message.

Start with the content, analysis and breakdown. Start repurposing what you have. think of ways to present your content in a way that fits, your social media. Cuz again, HubSpot social media tool is just that. A tool, not a magic wand. You can schedule crap all day and all you're gonna get back is crap if you come correct with content, putting out quality information, uh, and and adding value above all else, everything you should be doing should be adding value so that interaction, they're better, better people than before, are better people now than they were before when they met you.

So you should. Always just focus on that and then use the tool in order to make that happen and be able to handle your ROI and revenue attribution.

[00:29:25] George B. Thomas:

right. I need to double down on that. I need to double down on that. And I need to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, you are not the only human who provides value on the internet. And I wanna tie in to Devin. You mentioned strategy, and this is something by the way, that I've preached for a long time, but I'm relatively bad at, but I know moving forward I want to get better at.

So I'm. I am sharing my own shame on the podcast here, and that is you should have a happy mix of talking about yourself. And talking about other people. Now, of course, not direct competitors, but something in your space, one or two blogs, one or two podcasts, people that you learn from, that you admire, that you know are adding value to the world.

There should be a happy mix of those humans. And your content going out cuz nobody likes the guy or gal at the party that is just like all talking about themselves all the time and you're like, oh God, how do I exit stage left already? Don't be that person. Don't be that business on social. Take some time to figure out what else could we be sharing that our audience would find value.

Maybe it's like a 70, 30% type thing that you come up with. I don't know. You do your own math of what you want to do, yours versus theirs, but definitely don't always talk about yourself.

[00:30:35] Liz Murphy:

yeah, we don't wanna go to parties with them. We don't wanna be friends with those people. We don't wanna date from those people. But remember, I think I gave you, were there, George, when I gave that talk, uh, at a conference last year when I said there is a startling parallel between men I would never give a second date to, and businesses I would not buy from.

And one of those things are, do you just talk about yourself all the time? Like all the time. 

[00:31:00] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. 

[00:31:00] Liz Murphy:

No thank you. Or do you 

[00:31:03] George B. Thomas:

of which, that was the B2B forum last year that you spoke at. And uh,

[00:31:07] Liz Murphy:

that one and Rachel,

[00:31:08] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. And people should pay attention cuz maybe, uh, maybe they wanna, if you're a B2B business listening to this, of course, be it inbound, my gosh. But after inbound, there's the B2B forum that you might wanna check out as well.

[00:31:19] Liz Murphy:

after the party, it's the after after party.

[00:31:21] George B. Thomas:

yeah. It's just my second like, excuse to go to Boston because I love Boston so much, to be honest with 

[00:31:26] Liz Murphy:

Are you literally like going to Boston, coming back and then being like, well, gotta go kids, and then back to Beantown. You
go, 

[00:31:32] George B. Thomas:

That is my September. October is Boston. Boston,

[00:31:35] Liz Murphy:

outstanding.

[00:31:35] George B. Thomas:

which, and then I listen to the band Boston as I'm traveling to Boston both times I go to Boston. So, by the way, if you took a shot every time I said Boston in the last five minutes, you might be seeing Boston soon. Good luck.

[00:31:46] Liz Murphy:

drive, please. Thank you. What are we advocating on this podcast? All right. You know what? All right. We're, we're, we're landing the plane. Okay, guys, final. It's, it is. Yeah. We've been going. I, I know,

[00:32:01] George B. Thomas:

It can't be. That went too quick.

[00:32:03] Liz Murphy:

I know.

[00:32:04] George B. Thomas:

Holy crap. 

[00:32:05] Liz Murphy:

Moment 

[00:32:06] George B. Thomas:

much more to talk about social.

[00:32:07] Liz Murphy:

All right. You get, okay. Here's what we're gonna do. I have one more question. You each individually get. One more lane for a hot take of your choosing

Oh, just right out the gate. Just whatever our heart

[00:32:19] Liz Murphy:

right out the gate. Hot take.  Let's do it.

[00:32:21] Devyn Bellamy:

All right. Well, um, my big thing is, uh, spend more time focusing on what you need to do for your content strategy. the algorithms have changed, the landscape has changed. be ready to talk and add value. Don't just exist. On social. And also make sure you're leveraging social as a opportunity to interact, not just present. social is just that. It's social and it's supposed to be a two-way street. And feel free to. Do social listening, comment on things that are relevant to what you do. Don't just post into the ether. Respond to people who talk about things that are important to your customers. Note I didn't say things that are important to you and the problems that you solve.

Talk about the things that are important to your customers. Be available. You don't just have to be proactive with content. You can also be reactive with people's problems.

[00:33:22] George B. Thomas:

Yes, yes. I love so much of that, like put down the megaphone and actually have like valuable conversations for them. What's, what is it with them? What's in it for me? Like, That philosophy. here's what I'll say, uh, since you're talking about putting down the megaphone, is I would say also put in your hearing aids. One of the things that you need to do more with social media is actually shut up and listen. And so one of my wishlist items for HubSpot, and I got excited by the way, when I was talking about the Instagram. Instagram streams cuz I can't wait till there's like LinkedIn streams and Facebook streams and all the different streams that we can actually listen to.

Because the fact of being able to listen to the conversations and engage when appropriate to conversate and communicate when needed versus this just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, over and over, putting this stuff out I think is super valuable. So being able to listen. And then engaged The other thing, I am, I know you said one thing, but hey, it is what it is.

The other thing I would say is I wish more folks as I look around the social channels would understand the valuable, power at your mental ability to ask questions. Think about this. Social media is all about engagement. So maybe ask a question or two along the way so that they actually have something to engage around.

Because like not everybody's gonna be like, great post bro, amazing thoughts. You know, by the way, I know you could be listening to this and not be a bro or bro, ed or guy. Gal, whatever. I. Great post. They're not that you're not gonna get a ton of engagement, but if you actually harness the power of question, and also then when they actually answer or if they give you a mm, be careful George, a not so great answer.

Hit that reply and ask 'em for specifics. I, I I, great example of this. You can go look at a couple of my posts and I like engage with people and be like, well, what specifically do you mean? Or What's a layer below that? Or like, again, open-ended kind of statements based on the original question. Anyway, listen and ask more questions then.
There you go, Liz.

[00:35:30] Liz Murphy:

I love that. And you know what, you actually teased the final
question, 

[00:35:34] George B. Thomas:

jeez.

[00:35:35] Liz Murphy:

which is with you going back and forth to Beantown with, I know it's April right now, but I have this, the way this year is going. I feel like we're gonna blinken it September and we are there at

[00:35:46] George B. Thomas:

me because I gotta talk tore by the way. I,
yeah, I mean, it scares the crap how fast it's gonna go cuz I have to, I have to create my sales enablement talk that I'm giving it inbound 

[00:35:56] Liz Murphy:

I'm sorry, is this a, is this a, are you just low key, like sliding in a news flash?

[00:36:01] George B. Thomas:

Don't tell nobody I'm speaking it inbound this year.

[00:36:04] Liz Murphy:

I'm not supposed to tell anybody that you're talking about why their sales enablement strategies are

[00:36:08] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. Why? Six reasons. They're BS reasons. Yeah. Don't tell nobody.

[00:36:13] Liz Murphy:

Shit, Devin keeps us on.

[00:36:14] Devyn Bellamy:

I'm going to completely put under my hat that George is speaking at inbound this year. So if, if you know that, keep that to yourself. Don't tell everyone you know, so there
you go. 

[00:36:27] George B. Thomas:

It's top 

[00:36:28] Liz Murphy:

don't,

[00:36:28] Devyn Bellamy:

Thank you.

[00:36:29] Liz Murphy:

I mean, and let's not tell anybody, anybody that we're likely gonna have some sort of hub, hero shenanigans. We can't. We can't tell 

[00:36:37] George B. Thomas:

don't tell nobody. 

[00:36:38] Liz Murphy:

Okay. Don't tell nobody. In fact, why don't we do this instead? Let's divert attention away from us and throw it back to HubSpot. HubSpot, my boys, George, and Devin, they have some wishlist items for 

[00:36:48] George B. Thomas:

Oh yeah. 

[00:36:49] Liz Murphy:

What would we like to seek? Come to the whole HubSpot social media tool Suites.

[00:36:54] Devyn Bellamy:

Oh, I want stronger listening tools. That's, that's my big thing. That was the one

[00:36:58] Liz Murphy:

does stronger look like?

[00:36:59] Devyn Bellamy:

um, kind of like. Hootsuite, when I used to use it, had phenomenal tools for listening for demographics, and I understand the APIs have changed, especially post Cambridge Analytica. It's harder to do these things. but if we were able to, you know, glean more information from the platform, um, instead of, you know, just generic mentions and topics and stuff like that, I think that would be dope. Like prospecting stuff, you know,

[00:37:26] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. 

[00:37:27] Liz Murphy:

I love it.

[00:37:27] Devyn Bellamy:

but somebody's gonna ruin it as soon as that happens. So,

[00:37:30] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. So, um, I don't know if anybody has heard lately, but, well, video is kind of a real big thing on the internet.

[00:37:41] Liz Murphy:

Did you hear that in 2017, 80% of the content we consume will be video. That's one out there for all my inbound marketers. We know that statistic and they update it every 

[00:37:52] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. So, man, it really burns my butt, that, If I go into the app marketplace, then I can search for YouTube and I want to be able to connect YouTube to my HubSpot portal. and I, I get real excited cuz I see YouTube and I'm like, yeah, let's go party time. Cuz by the way, YouTube analytics are well kind of confusing to mere mortal human.

And so HubSpot has been really good at like taking confusing data and simplifying it, and then I go to install the app and I realize that I have to have an enterprise version. Come on. So can you, can you please bring YouTube reporting down to at least professional? Because video is important, right?

That's a wishlist item. But the other thing too is can I please be able to like, Upload my videos to my file manager and then disperse them out to like multiple locations with ease, like that would be great as well. Anyway, in other words, social media and video is more and more and more and more becoming important, and anything that you can do to like bring those two together in a very easy way.

Your boy, George B. Thomas is down with all of that.

[00:39:11] Devyn Bellamy:

Agreed.

[00:39:12] Liz Murphy:

Devin, you got?

[00:39:13] Devyn Bellamy:

Didn't I go first? 

[00:39:14] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, he started that party. Uh oh. Liz is, Liz has Friday brain.

[00:39:18] Devyn Bellamy:

cool. It's

[00:39:19] Liz Murphy:

What happened?

[00:39:20] Devyn Bellamy:

Hey, I just want to jump on

[00:39:21] George B. Thomas:

You had a Dr. Who moment.

[00:39:23] Liz Murphy:

I did have a, I went tiny wimy, wibbly wobbly. I literally have no idea how that happened. George, I'm blaming you. It's your fault.

[00:39:31] George B. Thomas:

my fault. What were you saying, 

[00:39:32] Liz Murphy:

know.

[00:39:33] Devyn Bellamy:

I was gonna say anyone who sees me on LinkedIn, uh, or social media, Or anyone who will see a screenshot from this recording, they know I love my video content. So anything to like, for, for the, you're, you're listening right now. You can't see it. I got a neon HubSpot sign in my office right now. Like I am living the dream and everything about my office.
It, it's about two things. well, technically three things. My personal comfort, my man, Deadpool. And making sure that everything is camera ready all the time. 

[00:40:05] George B. Thomas:

That's it. That's it. Camera ready At multiple like areas and. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I, anyway, I, I, I won't beat a dead horse video, please. Video.

[00:40:18] Liz Murphy:

I was about to make a joke, and George, what's your answer? But that's, that's a
little much. 

[00:40:22] George B. Thomas:

that's my answer. Yeah. You went all sorts of Dr. Hoo Wibbly. Wibbly.

[00:40:27] Liz Murphy:

have no, I literally was nodding along, going like, and what do you mean specifically by social listening? So I do not know where my brain went. You know what? Maybe I just haven't done enough shopping
today,

[00:40:39] George B. Thomas:

Liz, just so you know, just so you know, we still love you.

[00:40:42] Liz Murphy:

Oh good. I'm so glad. Didn't realize I had to worry about that. No, it's like when you go home and my husband's like, don't worry about the lamp. I wasn't worried about the lamp and now I'm worried about the lamp. Thank you, George. I am now, you know what? It has been an excellent episode of He Heroes. Devin, I am so glad you're back, because clearly this nonsense cannot continue.

I'm just kidding. I love you both. I love everyone listening if you love us. Leave us a review. We would love to hear from you. If you have ideas or you are still chafing from the giraffe issue from last week's episode, you can still reach George George
b thomas.com. 

[00:41:25] George B. Thomas:

thanks for that.

[00:41:26] Liz Murphy:

Well, I'm also, this is me trying to connect the dots between episodes.

So people are like, what giraffe thing? And then they go back and they listen. It's called content amplification and distribution. George, look it up.

[00:41:36] George B. Thomas:

job. Great job. 

[00:41:37] Liz Murphy:

Happy Friday everybody.

[00:41:39] George B. Thomas:

All right. We made it out without a poem or a limerick. Yes.