Building Influence with Great Experiences — WistiaFest 2014

Mathew Sweezey is the Marketing Automation Evangelist at Salesforce, author of Marketing Automation for Dummies, a frequent writer for Clickz, and the co-founder of Eventide Brewing. He has demonstrated how marketers can do repeatable video in his “Smarter Marketing Series.” At WistiaFest, he spoke about how companies are building influence with great experiences, including video engagements.

Stepping into the shoes of whoever is consuming your content will help you identify the reasons why they trust you over others. Sweezey pinpoints specific aspects of content that create great experiences and build influence.

Content consumption spikes when a person is researching a topic. When thinking about content for supporting a sales cycle, this is a time when the things you put out make a huge impact. To followers of your brand, helpful content you share is 3X more important in their decision to buy from you than their trust in your employees.

People also care about authenticity of your content, and if they feel disappointed in any way, trust in your brand may be negatively affected. Sweezey notes volatility is a key factor easily forgotten in content creation.

According to Sweezey, there are three states of engagement: escape, research, and learn. People who want to escape will lean on self discovery and social channels to take a short break from their work, life, or job. The research state is dedicated time to search, learn, and solve for a problem. Lastly, the learn state involves people who are looking for ideas to do their job better.

Experience is the ruler by which your content is judged. You have an opportunity to establish a positive experience through your content for each type of engagement to build influence.

Watch Sweezey’s presentation to learn more about how to build influence with great experiences and what people define as helpful content.