Part one of the Social Academy discussed the foundation needed for a social culture within your business. However, a few enthusiastic employees with Twitter accounts is not going to cut it.
The voices of a social business are key to creating the tone, the service level and the expertise that you want to share. Not everyone will have a desire to jump on social and represent their company or shout about their experience of a brand. You can’t force it.
My experience with the clients we have worked with has lead to the discovery that there are certain social voices that businesses should utilise, and partner with, to ensure reach, tone, organic growth and a more holistic social outcome.
We call this “social partnership”. Social partnership connects together six key voices in the social sphere:
Employees
Natural social media users will be hidden in your business. Many may even have company accounts. The fundamental role of these people is to provide a natural and human face to the company, to share organically the content provided by the business and to offer support and insight into the company.
Community managers
These are the strategic arm of your team, they need to be detached from the politics of your business but have an understanding of what it offers. They should be ensuring your strategies are adhered to. They should also provide you with a “filler” voice when business is busy and social media begins to fall by the wayside. They are your gurus and your backup.
Brand advocates
These are people who already love your brand. They could be customers, third party bloggers, people who follow you and are interested in what you have to say but may not necessarily be on the buyer journey. These are important people to interact with. Talk to them, and share what they have to say. The bigger the platform you give to share their thoughts on your business the better.
Key social media influencers
These are the big names in your sector. Key influencers have a huge reach and massive influence. Eventually you want your social strategy to see you as one of these people but before you get there make sure you engage with these people. They may not notice you at first but relevant and engaging conversation with them and their followers will help you to remain on their radar.
Sales teams
These guys are the ones who want the leads through the door. Social media can only go so far. Training and encouraging sales to lend their expertise can go a long way to taking the sales people to the customer in a direct and less formal way. No one is going to buy space in a datacenter on Twitter so it’s a “safe” place to engage, answer questions and develop a relationship with your customer without the hard sell.
C-suite
These guys and girls are gold! A truly engaged and prolific c-suite social media user is both relatively rare and hard to find. Most are too busy, many will have people doing the social media posts for them. If they’re accessible though they give your business an incredible transparency that allows all the above access to the people/person who can really answer those big questions or take note of those ideas you’re desperate to share. Like I say, these people are gold.
Creating a network of these people ensures that you can have several engaging streams of conversation happening at one time. You can keep a wider range of people, at varying stages of interest, involved in your feeds. Quite simply more people, more voices, more interest!
In part three of The Social Academy we will look at what strategies and content are working for innovative social businesses.
To find out more about a business focused social strategy contact First Base Communications here.
