Social Media Spotlight - Andy Lambert

Welcoming Andy Lambert of ContentCal to the Social Day Social Media Spotlight. 👏🏼

Tell us about your history in marketing?:

Over 10 years’ experience of creating markets, building profitable businesses and leadership roles in industry-leading SaaS organisations.

One of the Founding Team of ContentCal, a Social Media Marketing technology software, that since launching in January 2017 has achieved:

- March 2017, won the award for the 'best newcomer in B2B Marketing'

- April 2017, raised £400,000 of investment

- August 2017, expanded our user base into the US, Europe and Asia

- November 2018, Crowned Content Management Tool of the year

- Today, ContentCal is used by over 35,000 companies in over 140 countries and continues to grow at 100% YoY

How did you get involved with ContentCal?:

In a previous start-up software business, I worked with an incredibly inspirational serial entrepreneur called Colin Smith. When that business was sold to Oracle, Colin introduced me to Alex, who he was mentoring, who had an idea of building a social media software business, called Content Calendr. I liked the idea of the business and having struggled personally to find a solid platform for social media content planning, I decided to get involved.

So, you're the Director at Content Cal, what do you love most about doing this?:

I've always wanted to say 'I built this', which is hard to do when you're working for someone else. It was on my bucket list to create a business whose values and the outcomes for customers were something I was proud of.

How important is planning content during a crisis?:

A crisis truly shows the capability of a team. In a crisis, you can not get away with poorly thought-through marketing.

You need a clear plan, the collaboration of a team and most of all - creativity.

In a crisis, there's no room for error and the 'we've always done it this way' approach goes out of the window.

Communication plans need to be built from scratch and you need a really clear plan and strategy to do that.

Following on from planning during a crisis, do you feel many brands prepare for crisis'? And if not, how can they?:

From a marketing communication perspective, in my experience, businesses are underprepared.

To prepare for a crisis, marketing teams need to assign a core team, agree on roles and responsibilities and have total visibility of all external communication to be able to make a strategic call on next steps.

So Content Cal is all about planning ahead, do you have a strategy behind planning, or a tried and tested method for planning?:

Yes, we have the 'VOICE' Framework, a 5-step plan to manage content in a crisis, or in any remote team, for that matter:

V - Visibility - Being able to see what's happening

O - Organization - Take appropriate next steps

I - Ideation - Gain creative input from a wider team

C - Collaboration - Get a second pair of eyes

E - Execution - Delivery of your message

What are the biggest content management mistakes you often see, and how can they be fixed?:

Lack of planning. Solved by having a clear and agreed-upon plan. (And using ContentCal ;) )

Which companies are getting it right with content in your opinion right now?:

As much as I should not say it, as they are competitive, but AgoraPulse is doing a great job with the educationally focussed content. Also, Hubspot giving some core functionality away for free is a nice touch

What is the best way for brands/agencies to create content and think outside the box when creating campaigns?:

To realise that a small marketing team can not come up with all the ideas. The best content is created together, so ideas should come from all across the business. This is especially pertinent at the moment as we're all operating in a heightened emotional state, so getting more input gives a temperature-check on tonality.

If you could give yourself 3 pieces of advice back when you started in Social Media what would it be?:

Get started posting on LinkedIn earlier

Focussed on creating a group/community earlier

Not been so ad-hoc in my approach - more strategy was required

Finally, how do you spend your time unwinding outside of ContentCal?: (We know you used to be in a band!):

Playing and writing music Racing cars (I have a racing driver licence).

Connect with Andy:

@andy_r_lambert

@Contentcal_io