This is how you create compelling expert content for social media and stand out from competitors in the service industry

Service sector companies and organizations such as consulting firms, law offices, technology companies, or healthcare providers live on the professional expertise of their employees. But how can a company's expert knowledge be highlighted and leveraged into compelling marketing communications?

In this article, we delve into why social media offers an effective marketing channel for expert companies, as well as ways to enlist your own experts as the face of your brand. What concrete benefits can continuous content production on social media achieve? In this article, we explain what compelling social media marketing in service sectors requires to succeed.

Read how Esperi Care leverages its experts on social media

Why should expert companies invest in social media?

Social media is traditionally viewed as a consumer marketing channel, yet it reaches virtually all Finns. According to eMarketer's research, as many as 60% of international B2B marketing decision-makers see social media marketing as their most important marketing channel for business growth. According to Statistics Finland's research as well, entrepreneurs and office workers spend their time on social media channels. Through various social media channels, you can reach both business decision-makers and other stakeholder groups important to the company, such as potential employees. 

Social media offers expert companies a unique opportunity:

• Reach the right decision-makers: Social media platforms such as LinkedIn, YouTube, and Meta offer marketers effective targeting capabilities, allowing companies to reach exactly those decision-makers and businesses that need their services.
• Build trust: Social media enables the distribution of expert content, through which a company demonstrates its capabilities and builds trust and thought leadership among current and potential new customers.
• Increase awareness: An active presence on social media increases company visibility and awareness among the desired target audience. Social media's role as a search engine is also growing, so expert companies have the opportunity to reach experts right when they are seeking information on the subject. 
• Interact: Social media enables interaction with customers and other stakeholders. Continuous interaction helps understand customer needs and build long-term relationships.
• Create competitive advantage: Companies that effectively leverage social media stand out from competitors and strengthen their market position and top-of-mind awareness among potential decision-makers when they need services. Social media serves as a window into the company's world, through which potential customers discover new business partners. 

Experts and employees as the face of the brand

An expert company's greatest asset is the expertise of its professionals. By enlisting your own experts as the face of the brand, a company can:

• Humanize the brand: According to research, people trust other people and peers more than brands. When experts share their knowledge and views, the company's brand becomes more human and, on the other hand, more approachable to potential customers.
• Strengthen expert perception: Active presence of experts on social media, as well as sharing content that provides added value to the target audience, strengthens the company's expertise and knowledge. When experts share content in their own networks, it provides the company with an opportunity for significant earned visibility, for example on LinkedIn.
• Increase credibility: When experts share their knowledge, it increases the company's credibility and trustworthiness. On the other hand, it brings the company and customers closer to potential customers. 
• Attract new talent: Strong personal branding also attracts new talent to the company. Social media offers an effective channel for building employer image and recruitment marketing. 

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What business benefits does continuous presence on social media bring? 

Continuous and high-quality content production on social media brings many concrete business benefits to service sector companies:

• Increase customers: High-quality content attracts potential customers and increases the number of leads. Expert companies stay top-of-mind with their target audience when a purchasing decision becomes relevant to them. 
• Strengthen brand perception: Through continuous content production, you can strengthen the company's brand image, awareness, and market position. This requires that the content produced on social media is aligned with the brand strategy and business objectives. So invest in strategy! 
• Improve customer retention: Social media enables interaction with customers and gathering feedback, which helps improve customer retention. On the other hand, it helps create community around the company's brand and experts, and deepen relationships with them.
• Save marketing costs: Social media is often a more cost-effective marketing channel than traditional marketing methods. Engaging and target audience-relevant content marketing also enables earned media. Content should also be distributed with paid advertising so that you can maximize the returns from the content. 

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What does successful social media marketing require?

Successful social media marketing doesn't happen by itself. It requires investment in both planning and production. 

• Strategy: A clear strategy that defines objectives, target audience, channels, and the content to be produced. The strategy should also take into account multi-channel approaches and the role of paid advertising so that content serves the target audience at all touchpoints and you can maximize returns from the content. Especially in B2B business, it's also worth leveraging your experts' own channels, such as LinkedIn.

• Conceptualization: A content concept ensures a clear template and narrative thread for continuous content production that guides content creation. A working content concept facilitates content production and makes it distinctive, cost-effective, and responsive to target audience needs. Through conceptualization, you know what you're doing and content doesn't need to be planned from scratch every time. On the other hand, it's also easier for experts to independently follow a ready-made plan if you want to involve them in content planning and production. 

• Content planning: In order for content to serve the target audience's needs, it also requires careful content planning. Through content planning based on strategy and concept, you ensure that the content is high-quality, relevant, and regular. When content has a clear direction, it also gives the target audience a reason to follow the brand's social media channels, as the content doesn't jump from one topic to another. Of course, there is also a place for reactive and trend-based content in the modern social media landscape.
• Content production: On social media, you no longer stand out with just phone-produced content or hastily written social media posts. Successful presence requires high-quality content production. In content production, you should leverage Big Rock thinking. In a single production session, you can produce longer video content, short videos (YouTube Shorts, Meta, TikTok), image posts, and articles, for example. This way, you can maximize the returns from your content marketing investments. 
• Distribution: Content shouldn't just be left on the company's YouTube channel or website gathering dust. It should be optimized and distributed across multiple social media channels and websites. To enable content to reach the target audience as effectively as possible, we recommend also leveraging paid advertising in content distribution.
• Community management: When a brand creates engaging content, it should also build community around it through clever community management. Encourage the audience in content and copy text to comment and interact with the brand. This requires active response to comments or, for example, content production around questions that arise in the comments. 

Allocate sufficient resources to content marketing planning, production, and distribution

A successful social media presence rarely emerges from a single person's efforts. It requires strategic expertise and the ability to create distinctive and target audience-relevant concepts. The ability to involve your own experts in content planning and a skilled team for content production. In addition to creative experts, you also need the ability to analyze content performance and distribute it through paid advertising. 

The best results actually come from combining the capabilities of different marketing communications and content production professionals. By investing in high-quality and brand-aligned content, the content's lifespan also grows and serves the company's business objectives in the long term. 

Summary

Social media is an indispensable marketing channel for the modern expert company, offering numerous opportunities for business growth and brand building. By enlisting your own experts as the face of the brand and continuously producing high-quality content, a company can build trust, reach the right target audience, and achieve significant business benefits both in the short and long term. However, successful social media marketing requires strategy, concepts, content planning and production, and sufficient resources.

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Are you ready to take your expert company's social media marketing to the next level? Get in touch, and we'll help you create an effective strategy and implement impactful content that delivers results.