Guest post: Power to your employees! But do brands have the guts?
Made Social on 06 August 2010 | View Comments
In advance of Social Collective, we have been inviting select people to guest blog and join the SoCol debate, hopefully offering a fresh point of view. We have been asking a range of people to contribute, including those working in social, client side, techies, journos etc with a view of building a wider picture. Any questions raised during this process will be addressed during a panel at SoCol in September.
The latest in the series is from Danny Whatmough, aka @dannywhatmough.
Power to your employees! But do brands have the guts?
By Danny Whatmough
Adam spoke previously on here about the need to get buy-in, company-wide, for social media initiatives and, as I’ve blogged recently about some work we’ve been doing on this for a client of ours, I thought I’d riff on these themes for my first blog post here!
The challenge
Anyone that comes into social media from a more traditional marketing background (as many of us do, me included) can find the idea of getting involvement from employees throughout an organisation really tough.
Those of us that are used to tightly controlled PR messaging or advertising campaigns that are focus-grouped to within an inch of their lives, can have real issues coming to terms with the fact that, in some cases, we are opening up our external communication to internal stakeholders that have never even heard of ‘media training’.
And this is not to demean these internal stakeholders because, if there is one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that often they are more engaging and more interesting than the official spokesperson or CEO!
If I consider when and why I’d engage with brands on Twitter or Facebook, I’d be much more likely, in most cases, to want to speak to someone in the product development team or a member of customer services than the PR manager (or agency) and/or the CEO.
It takes guts
And with social media this is possible, if the brand has the guts to do it. Recent social media research we conducted suggests they don’t!
Of course, there are safeguards that can be put in place. Things like social media guidelines, strategies and training, not to mention monitoring and measurement, all have their place, but it still takes guts and ultimate transparency for a company to take these steps.
A strategy like this begins to really put the ‘public’ back into PR. Building and developing these relationships between employees and customers (and/or prospective customers) has been proven to bring incredible results that, despite what you might read, can be measured.
Internal benefits
This ‘sustainable’ approach to social media not only brings commercial benefits, but internal morale can also be boosted. Giving employees the freedom to participate in online communities, and the efforts made in energising them to do this, can also be extremely beneficial. Bringing employees closer to customers and letting them interact in an open, ongoing way can really help deliver insights that just aren’t possible otherwise.
It’s time for companies that are really serious about social media to throw off the old marketing mindsets of the past, get stuck in, and empower their employees to actually use social media channels to engage.
Are they brave enough? Some are, and they are reaping the results.
About Danny Whatmough
Danny Whatmough is a technology PR consultant at Wildfire. He can be found on Twitter and blogs at dannywhatmough.com and the Wildfire Tech PR Blog.
Danny’s background is not typical. He is a professional trained classical musician with a music degree, but has always had an interest in technology and, more specifically the internet – with self-taught web development skills – launching his first website c. 14 years old! He ran a e-commerce start-up whilst working in his first (on and offline) marketing job, which let him to forge a career in marketing.
View other posts in our guest blog series:
Helping clients better understand and engage in social media by Jonny Stark
The social media strategy series: Getting Buy In by Gemma Went
The tall and the long of it by John V Willshire
Social Media in the 21st Century – Deja Vu all over again by Paul Smith
The Secrets of Pitching Social Media by Paul Sutton
The social media strategy series: Is social media right for your business? by Gemma Went
Talk is cheap by Peter Bouvier
Show social or show business by Chris Hall
Back to the future… by Adam Vincenzini
Managing Client Expectation in Search by Chris Hyland
Get Excited And Make Things by Stuart Witts
