Social media employee empowerment has become a business imperative – but why?
Because (as we have seen from previous posts – see below) brands do not have the social reach of all their employees combined and, more importantly, they do not have the trust and level of engagement employees can achieve. A recent story in Fortune magazine, Brands are using social media more than ever, and users are ignoring them more than ever, highlights the challenges of social media for brands. It points out that at a time when brands are using more social media than ever the percentage of posts that lead to user interactions keeps falling. The rates at which users interact with branded social media posts has always been low, but a 2014 study and a follow up study in 2015 by Forrester indicate the numbers are falling, the Fortune piece says. "Last year, Instagram posts from brands created interactions with 4.2 percent of a brand’s followers. This year, that number fell to 2.2percent," it says. "On Pinterest, interactions fell from 0.1 percent to 0.04 percent." It all adds up to brands doing more and getting less from social media. Citing Sprout Social research a recent Social Media Today piece, 7 in 8 Social Messages to Brands Go Unanswered, notes that more and more consumers expect a response to a social media inquiry on a brand's official social presence. Sprout’s research found "7 in 8 social messages go unanswered by brands in the first 72 hours," which Sprout likened to not answering your phone at your place of business. The author of the SMT piece, A. A. Currey (@AjaMaybe ion Twitter) is a content hacker at Social Media Today and says what makes a brand have a great response rate and a good rapport with the customer is having actual humans on the other end of social channels. "The way to a satisfied customer base is, yes, a quick and regular response rate, but there’s no faster way to a consumer’s heart than an authentic reply. “And that’s something only a brand who values human-to-human connection can provide," she says. A recent post on the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) website further explains why engagement matters for brands:
"With an engaged, loyal online group of followers, you’ll cultivate an audience that will want to buy from you," it says. "And, here’s an even bigger benefit—they’ll share information about your brand with their communities, too." The IABC then goes on to offer its 10 questions to jump-start social media engagement.
Among them are sparking a reader’s curiosity with a question and offering a single-question survey. So, if social media employee empowerment is important to the brand how can an organization encourage it? An example of how a brand encourages employees to engage on social media is found in Coca-Cola’s Social Media Principles:
The principles start with: "Countless conversations take place online about Coca-Cola every day, and we want our Company’s more than 150,000 associates in more than 200 countries to join those conversations, represent our Company, and share the optimistic and positive spirits of our brands." They go on to discuss company commitments (five key principles including transparency and monitoring), personal use of social media (including the admonition: "We encourage you to get online and have fun, but use sound judgment and common sense") and company spokespeople expectations. So, social media employee empowerment is clearly a business MUST in 2015 … will more companies get on board? Previous posts about SM employee empowerment
Social media "employee empowerment" is catching on in a wide variety of companies. It helps a brand leverage the social reach of its employees to talk to an audience that can be 10 times larger than the brand’s. Social media employee empowerment programs are proving highly successful at brands such as Lenovo, Oracle and Cisco where employees using their own social networks become brand ambassadors. Increased reach and engagement are just two of the often-cited benefits for brands. I recently became aware of just how widespread employee empowerment is thanks to Stephanie Dobyns who does marketing at Dynamic Signal in San Francisco and who, via a Twitter conversation, pointed out some great examples of employee empowerment going on in various companies. Her own boss, Russ Fradin, CEO at Dynamic Signal, has predicted that in the next 12 months a majority of top companies will be use employee advocacy (see image). So, how do companies implement a social media employee empowerment program? Social media employee empowerment resources: Inbound Marketing: What Comes After the Tipping Point? - (a Cisco blog post by Dr. Christine Bailey, Marketing Director, EMEA & Russia for Cisco) says five big changes are coming to marketing in the coming year and No. 5 is: "Employee advocacy will fuel marketing.” From Oracle: 4 Steps To Create A Culture of Employee Advocacy - looks at four key areas that companies and their employees need to learn to trust each other. Leveraging Employees through Social Media with Charlene Li (email address required to view) - In this 55-minute video of a Dynamic Signal webinar Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group, reports on research showing that a vast majority of companies are going through digital marketing transformations and that employee advocacy through social media is a key part of that change. Lenovo created an internal social network to improve employee engagement - talks about how the China-based computer manufacturer got a huge lift in its marketing efforts by encouraging a relatively small proportion of employees to first share information on an internal social network before sharing elsewhere. It also reports this interesting detail: "Studies have shown that employees who are encouraged to share stories about the company on social media tend to stay with the company longer and are more loyal." Employee Advocacy vs Social Selling & How to Drive Revenue Using Both - looks at the similarities of employee advocacy and social selling. Author Anna Stevens, Digital Marketing Manager at Recall, says brands can create long-lasting circles of trust. "Here's how. Your employees trust you >> Their social networks trust them >> So, your company's message, products, and events authentically reach new people." 5 Common Problems with Employee Advocacy - is an Oracle blog post that identifies some typical objections/hurdles to employee advocacy programs and offers solutions. So, is social media employee empowerment for you and your brand? I’d love to hear other examples. Related posts Employee empowerment drives massive social media results for brand 2015: The Year of SM #EmployeeEmpowerment and How to Create a Successful Program
Posts
