Younger people could be the key to the social media market that agencies can’t afford to neglect. Marketing has become far more digital than ever, and what better way to diversify your team than with the younger generations, who grow up with the internet’s most indispensable tools.
In episode 10 of Word on the Street, Katie is joined by Anna Bravington, Digital and Community Engagement Manager at GAME, who divulges her experiences on both sides of the agency equation, and the patience she affords prospective clients as a result. She provides tips on the right and wrong ways to ‘pop up’ on LinkedIn, and how a relationship early in your career can pay dividends years down the line.
Anna also muses on the importance of young people’s screen time, and how it provides them with the diverse skill set required for a career in an increasingly digital workplace.
This episode covers
- The best and worst ways to attract new clients
- Keeping in touch with key contacts
- Personalising your prospective pitches
- How constructive feedback can benefit everyone
- Diversifying your skillset
- The benefits of hiring young, tech-smart staff
Word on the Street is sponsored by Just After Midnight, supporting your websites and applications 24/7. They provide managed cloud, 24hr monitoring and support and DevOps. Get a month free here: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/street
Links & references
Katie Street: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestreet/
Anna Bravington: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annabravington/
Get in touch: [email protected]
Episode highlights
“I do like people reaching out but the generic sales messages, they’ve got to stop.” – Anna, 07:45
“With LinkedIn, the shorter the message, the better. I get 10 paragraphs of basically their ‘About Us’ page which I haven’t got time to read through,” Anna – 9:20
“Don’t just keep pushing that message, you’ve got to think about the needs of your prospect in their own job and their business. If you don’t do that, then your message will get lost in those 30 other messages that Anna’s getting every day.” Katie – 11:23
“We have quite a small legal team at GAME that are very, very busy. If someone’s sent us a contract, it will get signed – it will get signed when they can do it. And we can’t push them because there’s only so many hours in the day. So we’ve had a couple where people have pushed so hard, I’ve almost told legal to stop the contract because they were messaging us daily. It really puts me off working with people.” Anna – 12:55
“I wish people did that more – giving constructive criticism – which sometimes feels really hard to take, it always hurts a bit. But it’s so important because we’re all in the business of business at the end of the day, and we all need to improve and get better.” Katie – 15:52
“There’s people I still call on now that I met 15 years ago, when I was a lot younger and a lot more junior. And I still call on them, they didn’t go over my head to someone higher up. They started that relationship early, and actually, we spend 50 or more years of our working lives. So if you get someone in early, you’ve potentially got 50 years worth of work from them!” Anna – 19:19
“And the thing I like about GAME is we’re quite agile, and we can move quite quickly, whereas some retailers are very corporate. They’re very ‘This is the brand’.” Anna – 36:16
“I read a really interesting article by a child psychologist at the end of last year, and it was talking about the different generations and how screen time means different things for us than it means for our children. A lot of jobs are going digital, and by restricting screen time, we can actually hinder their chances.” Anna – 47:53
“It’s so important to have young people in your team. They bring such a different view and they’ve had such a different exposure to digital and the world. I think that diversity is so important.” Katie – 50:54