Oil and Gas Social Media: Your Customers Really Don’t Care About You

The Oil & Gas Digital Marketing Podcast

Reading Time: 5 minutes

“We’re predicting oil and gas social media can convert leads. Story at 11.”

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Do you have any friends or family members who call you up and only talk about themselves? Does that annoy you? Are you treating your customers and prospects the same way on social media?

Let’s talk about oil and gas social media, and what you can do online to move prospects along the buyer journey and through your marketing funnel.

Oil and Gas Social Media Transcript

Let’s talk about oil and gas social media.

Before we do that, let’s talk about your family! Everyone wants to do that! Especially, here on LinkedIn, hopefully, you’re seeing this over there or on YouTube or wherever… Facebook and so forth.

Let me ask you, do you have any family members who when you see their phone number pop up on your caller ID…

And you youngsters who don’t know what it’s like to answer a phone call and not know who’s on the other line, you just don’t know the struggle…

Do you have any family members who if you see their number on the caller ID, you know exactly what to expect? You look at the number and know if you pick up that phone, for the next 45 minutes you’re about to get an ear full of them, and nothing but them. What they have going on and how exciting all of that is until they’re bored or get another phone call and jump off the call.

Do you have any family members like that? I think you might! How about friends?

When these people show up on that caller ID of yours, are you very excited to take that call? Do you even want to hear from these people? No! Of course, you don’t.

Why?

Because all they do is talk about themselves. They’re not adding any value, they’re not building you up, they’re not asking you questions, they’re not developing a relationship. They’re just talking incessantly about themselves.

So what does any of this have to do with oil and gas social media?

Can You Spot My Target Keyword?

Well, as the title of this video says “Oil and Gas Social Media: Your Customers Really Don’t Care About You”. But, we are not quite getting that message because I went out there and I pulled up a dozen or more exhibitor’s social accounts that are coming for OTC…

And, actually, happy OTC Wednesday! If you’re seeing this next week, or in 2035…

I pulled up a handful of exhibitor Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages and wrote down the first few words on the very first status I saw. Just roll with me here and ask yourself, do you want to hear from these people?

Congratulations to our…
We are delighted…
Join us at OTC, booth number…

I saw that a lot.

Since our employees, or since “insert year” our employees have…
Congrats to our…
We are pleased to announce…

This one was pretty funny. 2012? They haven’t posted to their Facebook page since 2012 and yet they still have it linked on their website.

We aid in…
Learn more about our…
We are honored…
Our product is…
We’re celebrating…
We are now part of…
Our partners…

Ooh! You mentioned somebody else, congratulations!

Then another one from 2014. Actually, one tweet from 2014. Again, not sure why this is linked on your website. And then…

[Insert company name] is honored…

Because, oh we are often times very honored to talk about ourselves in oil and gas social media.

Driving Customers Away

Again, do you want to hear from any of these people? No! No!

It doesn’t add value. It doesn’t do anything to do what we are here to do in marketing, which is what? Right here. Leads!

We’re here to convert leads. Marketing is about converting leads. Sales is about closing those leads.

So, if we are all about leads than what the hell are we doing out here on social media only talking about ourselves?

But, I’m not just going to rant about what we’re doing wrong. Let’s talk about how to do it right.

How could we turn these different topics around to not be about us, but to be about you? You, as in the customer. You, as in the prospect. You, as in the person looking to solve a problem in the marketplace.

Oil and Gas Social Media in the Buyer Journey

First, before we talk about this we have to talk about the three stages right here next to my Mr. Rohn quote that does not move. The three stages in the buyer journey that are all part of this funnel.

Awareness. Consideration. Decision.

Awareness; I have a problem. Consideration; who can help me solve this problem? Decision; here’s how we’re going to decide what vendor to work with to solve the problem.

All of these are topics that can add value. That can build relationships. That can start a conversation and help people through these different…

Sorry, I’m learning my weatherman language. Or, body language… Whatever. Forget that.

Awareness. Consideration. Decision.

Anyone of these topics could help your prospects push through any of these stages and convert to a lead.

Aligning Content with Buyer Journey Stages

For instance, let’s say you won an award. Let’s say you won a technical award and you were up against a lot of really great competitors. Well, this might be something for the Decision stage.

This could be something that is not overtly selling but talking about who you were up against and how you thought you might have been outmatched. But you could write a piece that discusses, “This vs. This… Here’s our product vs. that one over there.”

Not trashing anybody. Not saying anything negative. Just talking about the options out there in the marketplace…. which, builds trust. If you just openly talk about your competitors, you build trust.

Because your customers, even if you want to pretend they’re not, are talking to your competitors. So you can talk about your competitors and have that conversation in your house, on your website, or you can pretend that doesn’t happen.

Anyway, you could talk about that as part of this award that you won. Or, maybe you could turn it into a sort of internal thought leadership piece that talks about “3 (or 5) Pivotal Moments in Company History That Led to This Innovation”. Something that tells a story. Something that engages me and draws me in.

Because once I’m engaged and I’m drawn in, then I might be open to a sales conversation. Because this is all about sales. I cannot say it enough. This is all about sales!

Earning History

But what we don’t understand is that by doing what I found on these company’s accounts is this:

You do not have the right to sell to your audience. You earn the right to sell to your audience.

And you do that by consistently adding value. By developing content that shares valuable insights that help people through these Awareness, Consideration, and Decision stages. That’s how you start to build relationships and close sales through oil and gas social media.

Question for You…

If you look at your social media accounts, do you want to hear from you?

And if you don’t, what the heck are you gonna do about it?

I hope that you stop talking about yourself and start adding value.

Call to Action

If you enjoyed this video or if you hated it, either way, I hope another thing that you will do is leave a comment below. Whether it’s Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, all those other places. And, if you enjoyed the video, share it with your family and friends. Especially those family members who keep talking about themselves.

Or, hey. Maybe I’m way off base and you’re just gonna delete this and move on. Whatever the case might be, I hope whatever you’re doing out there in oil and gas, you go out there and consistently apply the basic fundamentals.

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