Are you struggling to elucidate AI expertise in a means that really connects along with your viewers for B2B entrepreneurs? Many entrepreneurs discover themselves caught between sustaining technical accuracy and creating partaking 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 growth and artistic route mixed together 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 via 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 expertise
Kristina Keene: Yeah. Truthfully, I fell into the AI facet of it. I began my profession in non-profit arts fundraising, and from there I spotted that to be an grownup who was not residing out of her automotive, I’ve to get into the personal sector. Non-profits have been nice, however I couldn’t make a terrific residing. It was throughout the Nice Recession again in 2009, and 2010, so budgets have been being slashed. It was tough to get a job. However being within the non-profit artwork house 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 educate 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 turned a little bit of a inventive octopus. So I do the entire broad vary of promoting. Every little thing from copy to design, to internet to social, it’s all me.
And the way I bought to Flip, I used to be at one other firm, and it simply wasn’t talking to my soul. So once I bought the chance to come back right here, I mentioned, “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 few 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 bought my begin. That’s how I landed right here. Yeah, let’s get into the weeds.
Kristina Keene: Flip is within the buyer expertise house, 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 a terrific expertise, and sitting on maintain is actually not a terrific expertise both. So what we do is we plug right into a model’s techniques and we’ve the entire 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 suppose it depends 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 offer 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 enormous, these white papers are the least-performing content material that we’ve on our web site. It simply doesn’t get engagement as a result of individuals 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 a variety of the advertising within the AI house is a variety of buzzwords. It’s a variety of jargon bullsh*t, and your viewers simply doesn’t care. They need to know it could actually do the job.
Mike Allton: Yeah, that’s completely proper. And I’ve began to see research about how—due to the way in which that AI will be educated and the way in which that AI makes use of pure language—it could actually really appear much more empathetic than a human.
As a result of to your level, not everyone will be empathetic. We’re going to imagine for the second that when you’re employed to be a buyer assist middle particular person, you will have 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 means 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 applying.
So that is attention-grabbing to me the way in which that you just guys are empowering different companies to have that degree of not simply empathy ’trigger that’s necessary—however to your level, most individuals, once they have a problem, they only need to get it solved as quick as attainable.
With AI, there’s no wait time. It’s on the spot, you join and also you’re already into it. And getting that drawback 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 you want to put on the market.
How do you steadiness having that degree of crucial academic content material versus partaking storytelling?
Simply to offer 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 sort of problem. I do know persons are like, “What? Swimming swimming pools?” Yeah, as a result of once 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 sort of stuff. That’s the technical info I wanted to have the ability to present, however that wasn’t the story I bought.
What I bought was the background oasis that awaited you when you invested in a pool and that means to create this house outdoors your property the place you and your youngsters might take pleasure in all summer time lengthy—with out having to get in a automotive and go anyplace and pay membership charges. Yeah, no, that you just’ve bought your personal out of doors oasis.
So how do you do this with Flip?
Kristina Keene: Yeah, so we determined, gosh, virtually 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 instances a day, if not a minimum of as soon as an hour, that our engineering workforce has completed one thing else that we might speak about in a product launch. And as an alternative of simply banking, all of that and doing one launch like a month or as soon as each six months, after we’ve bought actually large issues to speak about with placing them into, with doing these weekly product releases.
What we’re doing is we’re slicing 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 prospects 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 must know the ins and outs of the API. What you want 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 informed about it in a very digestible format and I heard it from that woman 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. Individuals assume that constructing is a public concept. Persons are seeing the product develop because it’s creating, they usually’re seeing it in tremendous digestible content material.
Kristina Keene: Yeah, so once I began at this firm, I believed it was actually necessary to deal with neighborhood.
Our customer support, as you mentioned, it’s not the sexiest house however, yeah, buyer success and buyer expertise aren’t the sexiest issues a couple of retail model.
Nonetheless, they’re the issues that may preserve consumers engaged. So, in case your buyer expertise is actually strong, retention is simply baked in. In advertising, this device in some respects takes away a number of 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 fundamental 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 believed, “We’re giving them time again to deal with issues the place their consideration is actually wanted, and we’re serving to on this neighborhood 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 will. Once they have nice suggestions from a caller, what will we do? We have fun them and we, we have fun them as an entire, as an organization. Now we have this Slack channel referred to as the LinkedIn Flip Hive the place if one among our purchasers is celebrating one thing, we drop the hyperlink to the publish in there and all of us bounce in and we have fun 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. Electronic mail isn’t a really human channel neither is chat. Social is a little more human. When you will have a problem with a model, your first intuition to resolve it’s to name ’trigger it’s the quickest path to decision.
So, after we are able to influence the telephone channel as we’re, it’s actually the individuals which might be behind it, the individuals which might be at our manufacturers are the place we must be celebrating, not, oh, Flip did this actually great point. That’s true, nevertheless it did it as a result of our manufacturers and the CX individuals who work at them are so stellar. Actually specializing in that neighborhood 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 neighborhood piece. However we bought the chance final summer time, summer time of ‘24 to have a billboard in Occasions Sq.. One in every of our distributors Brex mentioned, “Hey, we’ve bought billboard house. Would you like a seven-second spot on it?” And [Flip] mentioned, “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 via a bunch of names for a number of the purchasers which were with us for the longest or had a very large influence on our product and focusing it on the people that make our AI work. It was a type of marketer moments the place I’m like “Oh, I’m doing an excellent factor right here. I’m not promoting individuals 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 everyone’s title that got here via in a nonetheless picture and a video of it that was excessive res, and he bought some actually nice photographs of the workforce in New York. And we threw all of it up on social and it blew up. Largest engagement I’ve ever had. Largest engagement. It was in all probability the perfect marketing campaign of my profession to this point.
And it actually was that as a result of we have been celebrating the individuals. We weren’t celebrating what we have been doing.
We have been celebrating the individuals 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 lady Ingrid, who’s an adventurer. That’s in all probability 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 have fun 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 influence that social media efforts have—notably round AI and storytelling?
Kristina Keene: Yeah, that’s a terrific query and the reply I’ve for it’d shock some individuals, 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 website. I can have a look at so many different items of knowledge.
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 yr and mentioned, “We have been watching the weekly product releases and we expect 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 thing on social that I wished Flip to be the cutest robotic on this planet. Our advertising was already very digestible, however Flip, the cutest robotic on this planet, simply actually drove that house, and—along with the entire workforce going into individuals’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 individuals reply to it: “Flip, you’re the cutest robotic I do know.” or “Oh, Flip, thanks, I really like you.”
Or issues that you just simply wouldn’t say to a different AI or one other bot. However individuals do it for us as a result of we’ve 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: Truthfully, I feel LinkedIn has a private vendetta in opposition to me. Its algorithm modifications so quickly that I can’t sustain with it.
As a lot as there may be on the market about developments and every thing that’s occurring on this 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 signifies that I would like to concentrate to one thing right here. The algorithms and folks’s consideration spans have modified. So I must pivot.” It’s an odd science of placing your head to the bottom and feeling the beats. If the beats change, then it’s a must to pivot.
If rapidly issues are rumbling, then it’s a must to take your head out of the sand and actually take note of what’s occurring. 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 can provide.
Mike Allton: I feel it’s very relatable. As a result of the issues that you just’re describing, the challenges that you just’re working into are the identical challenges that each one of us as social media managers and entrepreneurs throughout all industries and spectrums are working into on all of the platforms. I do have a couple of sources of my very own that I’ll throw out at, everybody listening.
First, when you’re not already following or following Annie-Mae Hodge on LinkedIn or Instagram, she does. I feel it’s a weekly publish the place she shares the social media updates for the previous week. So, when you’re struggling to maintain up with LinkedIn, algorithmic modifications, or the rest, she’ll embrace that in that free publish. All I’ve to do is comply with her and you’ll tune in there.
I do suggest the Synthetic Intelligence present that’s placed on by the Advertising and marketing 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 report on Mondays they usually speak concerning the developments, fashions, funding, what’s occurring throughout the business.
That’s the extent of what I might suggest. Most individuals take note of the business. Aside from that, you don’t really want to know what the most recent 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.
Be taught from main B2B consultants in each spotlight of Social Pulse: B2B Version.
For B2B entrepreneurs making an attempt 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 may to your viewers. Consider them first. Don’t produce one thing and assume, “Oh, they’re not responding to it.”
It’s a must to consider them firstly, it’s a must to make issues digestible. It’s a must to make issues bite-sized. It’s a must to make issues in a format that folks need to interact with. In the event you’re placing out a 45-minute video, nobody’s going to look at it. Nobody’s going to look at it. Preserve issues in a format that folks need to devour. And when you’re unsure what that’s, take into consideration what you wish to devour.
So in case you are like me and you’re on Instagram, at any time when you will have time earlier than mattress, the place your head’s racing and we’re all ADHD now, I wish 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 serious about?”
That’s the place I might suggest individuals beginning. Take into consideration your viewers. Take into consideration your self inside an viewers and the way you wish to devour and take it from there.
And don’t overcomplicate it. You don’t have to be on each channel. You don’t have to be doing each sort of content material. In case you are a video and a replica individual, deal with video and duplicate. In case you are a designer, deal with design. In case you are a yapper, go speak.
Yeah, that’s what I might recommend: focusing and fascinated by your viewers and fascinated by your self.
Don’t overlook to search out Social Pulse Podcast: B2B Version on Apple and drop us a overview. And take a look at different editions of the Social Pulse Podcast just like the Hospitality Version, Company Version, and Retail Version.
