Are you struggling to clarify AI know-how in a method that really connects together with your viewers for B2B entrepreneurs? Many entrepreneurs discover themselves caught between sustaining technical accuracy and creating participating content material that resonates with their viewers. The stakes are excessive in case your message is just too technical. You’ll lose engagement to simplify it, and also you would possibly lose credibility.
That’s precisely what’s unpacked within the recap of the episode of Social Pulse Podcast: B2B Version, powered by Agorapulse, the place our Chief Storyteller Mike Allton talks with Kristina Keene, the director of Model and Content material at Flip. Her expertise in model improvement and inventive path mixed along with her present position main content material technique for an AI-powered customer support platform makes her the proper information for this journey into humanizing AI by way of social media.
[Listen to the full episode below, or get the highlights of the Social Pulse Podcast: B2B Edition, powered by Agorapulse. Try it for free today.]
Share your journey into content material technique and the way you got here to focus on advertising AI know-how
Kristina Keene: Yeah. Actually, I fell into the AI facet of it. I began my profession in non-profit arts fundraising, and from there I noticed that to be an grownup who was not dwelling out of her automotive, I’ve to get into the personal sector. Non-profits have been nice, however I couldn’t make an excellent dwelling. It was through the Nice Recession again in 2009, and 2010, so budgets have been being slashed. It was troublesome to get a job. However being within the non-profit artwork area and being a grant author particularly, I used to be in a position to very simply translate that skillset into being a very nice copywriter.
In advertising particularly, I began as a copywriter, and I hate to say it, however I labored with a few not-so-great graphic designers, so I needed to train myself how to try this higher in order that the language might shine. And from there, you and I have been speaking about it within the prep for this name, I grew to become a little bit of a inventive octopus. So I do the entire broad vary of promoting. All the pieces from copy to design, to internet to social, it’s all me.
And the way I obtained to Flip, I used to be at one other firm, and it simply wasn’t chatting with my soul. So once I obtained the chance to come back right here, I stated, “Get me the f*ck outta right here.” And I had a half-hour name with our CEO, and I swore like a sailor the entire time. A couple of week later, I had a job supply. So it was like, “Okay, I feel that is the place to be.”
In order that’s how I obtained my begin. That’s how I landed right here. Yeah, let’s get into the weeds.
Kristina Keene: Flip is within the buyer expertise area, we reply assist, and we’re a voice. We reply assist requires retail and e-commerce manufacturers and transportation. And we’re about to launch a brand new vertical. If I utter it right here, our CEO may need my head. However buyer expertise is human. It’s probably the most human piece of the shopper journey when you already know you’re shopping for one thing.
If I purchase a sweater and that sweater doesn’t get delivered once I assume it’s going to, if I name and it’s a bot saying, “Press one for X, press two for no matter,” it’s not an excellent expertise, and sitting on maintain is actually not an excellent expertise both. So what we do is we plug right into a model’s techniques and now we have all the knowledge on a buyer. Once I name in and I’m questioning about the place my sweater is, Flip can say, “Your sweater was final seen in Soda Springs, Idaho. Right here. Would you want me to textual content you a hyperlink to trace it?”
And it’s a a lot better expertise, and it’s a way more human expertise as a result of it speaks like a human, it’s responsive like a human. It’s empathetic, not fairly as a lot as a human is, however—though I assume it is dependent upon the human—it’s useful.
And, for me, I don’t need to clarify what Flip is in complicated phrases as a result of fairly frankly, our viewers doesn’t give a sh*t. They provide a sh*t that the AI is working. They don’t care to get into the weeds of how it’s working. If we launch one thing tremendous technical, we’ll put out a white paper, however by and huge, these white papers are the least-performing content material that now we have on our web site. It simply doesn’t get engagement as a result of folks don’t care. They need to know that the AI can do the job. They don’t care past that, they don’t care concerning the tokens. They don’t care about what we’re doing with our LLM. It’s so ingrained now within the dialog about AI that.
The very last thing I need after we are to do one thing so human in answering buyer assist calls, I don’t need to complicate it, I don’t need to muddy the message with technical jargon. And as our CEO Brian says, “F*ck buzzwords.”
And I really feel like loads of the advertising within the AI area is loads of buzzwords. It’s loads of jargon bullsh*t, and your viewers simply doesn’t care. They need to know it may well do the job.
Mike Allton: Yeah, that’s completely proper. And I’ve began to see research about how—due to the best way that AI may be educated and the best way that AI makes use of pure language—it may well really appear much more empathetic than a human.
As a result of to your level, not all people may be empathetic. We’re going to imagine for the second that should you’re employed to be a buyer assist heart particular person, you’ve some empathetic abilities. However as people, it may be inconsistent. I can present totally different ranges of empathy relying on my temper and my skilled potential to show it on, no matter how I really feel. Whereas an AI goes to be flawless and constant each single time, they usually know to ask questions like how did that really feel? And so forth, relying on the appliance.
So that is fascinating to me the best way that you simply guys are empowering different companies to have that degree of not simply empathy ’trigger that’s vital—however to your level, most individuals, after they have a difficulty, they only need to get it solved as quick as potential.
With AI, there’s no wait time. It’s on the spot, you join and also you’re already into it. And getting that downside solved hopefully, I really like that look as to what Flip is and does and the way you’re serving to companies. However you talked about white papers and technical assist and that form of factor that it’s worthwhile to put on the market.
How do you steadiness having that degree of essential instructional content material versus participating storytelling?
Simply to provide you an instance from my background, I used to promote swimming swimming pools a very long time in the past. You promote swimming swimming pools, and it was the identical type of problem. I do know persons are like, “What? Swimming swimming pools?” Yeah, as a result of if you went to purchase a swimming pool. Sure, you would possibly need to know, “Okay, what filter does it include? What’s the horsepower of the pump? How tall are the partitions? How large is it?” That type of stuff. That’s the technical data I wanted to have the ability to present, however that wasn’t the story I offered.
What I offered was the background oasis that awaited you when you invested in a pool and that potential to create this area exterior your house the place you and your children might get pleasure from all summer season lengthy—with out having to get in a automotive and go wherever and pay membership charges. Yeah, no, that you simply’ve obtained your personal out of doors oasis.
So how do you do this with Flip?
Kristina Keene: Yeah, so we determined, gosh, nearly two years in the past now to do weekly product releases. And in doing that, our product is rising so quick. I get Slack alerts a number of occasions a day, if not a minimum of as soon as an hour, that our engineering crew has achieved one thing else that we might speak about in a product launch. And as a substitute of simply banking, all of that and doing one launch like a month or as soon as each six months, after we’ve obtained actually large issues to speak about with placing them into, with doing these weekly product releases.
What we’re doing is we’re reducing issues down into bite-sized items. If we do an replace to, let’s say, an integration with one of many assist desks that one among our retail clients is utilizing we all know that, so many different manufacturers are utilizing that assist desk, too. So let’s speak about it in easy phrases. You don’t have to know the ins and outs of the API. What it’s worthwhile to know as a buyer expertise skilled is, okay, now Flip can do that, that, and the opposite factor inside my assist desk. And I used to be advised about it in a very digestible format and I heard it from that lady Kristina who flies off the deal with and has swear phrases throughout her LinkedIn.
In order that’s how we did it. We simply took issues from large to little bite-sized items and common content material. Folks assume that constructing is a public concept. Persons are seeing the product develop because it’s growing, they usually’re seeing it in tremendous digestible content material.
Kristina Keene: Yeah, so once I began at this firm, I assumed it was actually vital to deal with group.
Our customer support, as you stated, it’s not the sexiest area however, yeah, buyer success and buyer expertise aren’t the sexiest issues a couple of retail model.
Nevertheless, they’re the issues that may maintain buyers engaged. So, in case your buyer expertise is admittedly strong, retention is simply baked in. In advertising, this software in some respects takes away among the human parts from a buyer success or customer support or buyer expertise division.
We’re additionally enabling them to, since they’re not answering primary questions, like “The place’s my order? When’s my return going to course of? Can I ask about my guarantee standing?” We’re giving time again to brokers and customer support professionals to reply extra complicated questions and points.
And I assumed, “We’re giving them time again to deal with issues the place their consideration is admittedly wanted, and we’re serving to on this group buyer expertise journey to assist pace issues alongside to assist improve the shopper expertise journey.”
My thought was, “Let’s make them superstars.” So, when they’re celebrating one thing like a brand new retailer opening, what will we do? We instantly repost. Once they get a promotion, what will we do? We remark, we repost, we like, and we do no matter we are able to. Once they have nice suggestions from a caller, what will we do? We rejoice them and we, we rejoice them as a complete, as an organization. We’ve this Slack channel referred to as the LinkedIn Flip Hive the place if one among our shoppers is celebrating one thing, we drop the hyperlink to the put up in there and all of us soar in and we rejoice them as a result of with out them we don’t exist. We’re telephones, so we’re tremendous hyper-niche.
Telephones are probably the most human channel for a model. E-mail isn’t a really human channel neither is chat. Social is a little more human. When you’ve a difficulty with a model, your first intuition to resolve it’s to name ’trigger it’s the quickest path to decision.
So, after we are ready to affect the telephone channel as we’re, it’s actually the folks which might be behind it, the folks which might be at our manufacturers are the place we must be celebrating, not, oh, Flip did this actually great point. That’s true, however it did it as a result of our manufacturers and the CX individuals who work at them are so stellar. Actually specializing in that group piece, that engagement, with what they’re placing out into the world as a primary precedence has been large for us.
Kristina Keene: Yeah, This comes again to the group piece. However we obtained the chance final summer season, summer season of ‘24 to have a billboard in Occasions Sq.. Certainly one of our distributors Brex stated, “Hey, we’ve obtained billboard area. Would you like a seven-second spot on it?” And [Flip] stated, “Sure, we do.”
And we settled on this concept of let’s name out our Flipping Legends. So what we did was we had a quite simple video the place you’re a Flipping legend, after which we simply cycled by way of a bunch of names for among the shoppers which have been with us for the longest or had a very large affect on our product and focusing it on the people that make our AI work. It was a kind of marketer moments the place I’m like “Oh, I’m doing a superb factor right here. I’m not promoting folks one thing they don’t want. We’re promoting them one thing that may very a lot assist and enhance their day-to-day operations. And we’re celebrating them and placing their title up on a billboard in Occasions Sq.. And their title is as large as a automotive. And we spent nothing on it.”
We didn’t spend something on the billboard. We spent, oh gosh, I feel two grand to have a photographer come and seize all people’s title that got here by way of in a nonetheless picture and a video of it that was excessive res, and he obtained some actually nice photographs of the crew in New York. And we threw all of it up on social and it blew up. Greatest engagement I’ve ever had. Greatest engagement. It was most likely the perfect marketing campaign of my profession so far.
And it actually was that as a result of we have been celebrating the folks. We weren’t celebrating what we have been doing.
We have been celebrating the folks on the coronary heart of it.
Mike Allton: I adore it. That jogs my memory of a marketing campaign we did right here at Agorapulse a few years in the past. We have been celebrating this girl Ingrid, who’s an adventurer. That’s most likely the title on her enterprise card. And we have been supporting her journey as she was biking throughout Europe on the time or one thing. It was simply so cool to rejoice her story.
Take a look at Agorapulse’s highlight on Ingrid Ulrich, one of many individuals who encourage us.
How do you measure the enterprise affect that social media efforts have—notably round AI and storytelling?
Kristina Keene: Yeah, that’s an excellent query and the reply I’ve for it’d shock some folks, however possibly not.
I depend on anecdotal proof we’re provided that we’re a voice product. Ours is an AI that has to hear and listen to callers. So for me, I can have a look at my LinkedIn Analytics, I can have a look at Google Analytics for our web site. I can have a look at so many different items of information.
However what tells the story of the success of our advertising for me is the anecdotal proof that I get. We’ve had closed loss offers which have come again after a 12 months and stated, “We have been watching the weekly product releases and we predict they’re actually humorous and we’re having fun with the content material, so let’s have one other dialog.”
So, on LinkedIn, I’ve my platform after all, however then I run our social for Flip, the corporate correct. And I made a decision once I took over doing every part on social that I needed Flip to be the cutest robotic on the planet. Our advertising was already very digestible, however Flip, the cutest robotic on the planet, simply actually drove that residence, and—along with all the crew going into folks’s feedback part and jazzing them up—Flip solely speaks in all caps, and Flip is simply foolish and humorous. It’s not unusual for me to see folks reply to it: “Flip, you’re the cutest robotic I do know.” or “Oh, Flip, thanks, I really like you.”
Or issues that you simply simply wouldn’t say to a different AI or one other bot. However folks do it for us as a result of now we have humanized it.
The anecdotal proof that I get from these varied totally different channels is simply “Yeah, okay. We’re doing it proper, we’re going to maintain going with this.”
Kristina Keene: Actually, I feel LinkedIn has a private vendetta in opposition to me. Its algorithm adjustments so quickly that I can’t sustain with it.
As a lot as there may be on the market about tendencies and every part that’s taking place on the planet of AI when it comes right down to it, I take note of engagement each on my posts and on our Flip firm posts and on the feedback that Flip or I are placing in all kinds of posts. It’s the octopus—and possibly I’m extra of a jellyfish usually because there are greater than eight tentacles—however I take note of the engagement once I discover that, one thing like our weekly product releases, their engagement is dropping and it’s “Okay, wait a second. That implies that I want to concentrate to one thing right here. The algorithms and other people’s consideration spans have modified. So I have to pivot.” It’s an odd science of placing your head to the bottom and feeling the beats. If the beats change, then it’s important to pivot.
If impulsively issues are rumbling, then it’s important to take your head out of the sand and actually take note of what’s taking place. I don’t know if that’s probably the most useful reply, however being in tune and never tuning out your viewers is the perfect recommendation I may give.
Mike Allton: I feel it’s very relatable. As a result of the issues that you simply’re describing, the challenges that you simply’re operating into are the identical challenges that each one of us as social media managers and entrepreneurs throughout all industries and spectrums are operating into on all of the platforms. I do have a couple of assets of my very own that I’ll throw out at, everybody listening.
First, should you’re not already following or following Annie-Mae Hodge on LinkedIn or Instagram, she does. I feel it’s a weekly put up the place she shares the social media updates for the previous week. So, should you’re struggling to maintain up with LinkedIn, algorithmic adjustments, or the rest, she’ll embody that in that free put up. All I’ve to do is observe her and you’ll tune in there.
I do advocate the Synthetic Intelligence present that’s placed on by the Advertising AI Institute hosted by Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput, that’s my weekly go-to for what’s occurred within the AI business over the previous week. Comes out each Tuesday morning, they document on Mondays they usually discuss concerning the developments, fashions, funding, what’s taking place throughout the business.
That’s the extent of what I might advocate. Most individuals take note of the business. Apart from that, you don’t really want to know what the newest fashions are from, Google or Open AI and that form of factor. And, after all, there’s my very own podcast, the AI Hat Podcast, the place I’m interviewing of us and speaking about how these developments in AI are impacting advertising enterprise leaders and so forth.
Study from main B2B consultants in each spotlight of Social Pulse: B2B Version.
For B2B entrepreneurs attempting to include generative AI, what recommendation would you give them?
Kristina Keene: I feel the recommendation I might give them is to make it as digestible as you possibly can to your viewers. Consider them first. Don’t produce one thing and assume, “Oh, they’re not responding to it.”
You need to consider them at the start, it’s important to make issues digestible. You need to make issues bite-sized. You need to make issues in a format that individuals need to have interaction with. Should you’re placing out a 45-minute video, nobody’s going to observe it. Nobody’s going to observe it. Preserve issues in a format that individuals need to eat. And should you’re unsure what that’s, take into consideration what you prefer to eat.
So in case you are like me and you might be on Instagram, every time you’ve time earlier than mattress, the place your head’s racing and we’re all ADHD now, I prefer to scroll earlier than I fall asleep. I take notes and I take into consideration, “Okay, what are these items of content material that I’m consuming, the place I’m staying for the entire thing? And what’s it that I like about that and the way can I translate that to what my viewers is fascinated with?”
That’s the place I might advocate folks beginning. Take into consideration your viewers. Take into consideration your self inside an viewers and the way you prefer to eat and take it from there.
And don’t overcomplicate it. You don’t must be on each channel. You don’t must be doing each kind of content material. If you’re a video and a duplicate individual, deal with video and replica. If you’re a designer, deal with design. If you’re a yapper, go discuss.
Yeah, that’s what I might recommend: focusing and fascinated with your viewers and fascinated with your self.
Don’t neglect to search out Social Pulse Podcast: B2B Version on Apple and drop us a evaluation. And take a look at different editions of the Social Pulse Podcast just like the Hospitality Version, Company Version, and Retail Version.
