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Social media marketing is about people not logos

Author's avatar By Danyl Bosomworth 17 Jun, 2011
Essential Essential topic

How to overcome company resistance to social media marketing?

I read the title of this blog somewhere in the Now Revolution (a great book by Jay Baer & Amber Naslund) and it occurred to me again recently on train journey home. You see, I have spent a lot of time over the last year working with a number of fantastic people to improve their social media marketing and I've often left feeling a little frustrated for them. Despite their talent, hunger, professionalism and creativity they're held back by the brand(s) that they want to shout about, despite sometimes seeing their competitors trail-blazing ahead in social media. The worst part is that it's a common problem, so far as I can see.

The problem is a lack of trust

The leadership team are clearly not daft people, and yet there's no trust in management, trust in marketing and in fact trust in people across the business to be free'd up to appropriately represent the brand in social media, a must for modern marketing. A brand that's not fully represented in social media by its marketers, sales people, customers services (everyone, really) - isn't a fully functioning brand in 2011, brands are increasingly re-shaped by those very customer interactions. So isn't damage incurring by not doing anything?

The puzzling part is why would a company be scared to "unleash" sales and customer service people, let alone marketing, when they spend the most time with current and prospective customers already? Their job is essentially built upon handling objections, building trust and maintaing relationships - more so than the marketers, in fact. The result though is stale-mate, little progresses from what's perceived as a safe position by senior management. Yet taking no action is still a decision, to opt out.

But it's risky?

I can understand the counter argument here too, especially for larger organisations. There's a risk, and so a lot of fear, of short and long term damage to the brand, of course. Opening up access to a corporate blog, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, for example, feels risky. I totally recognised that...

  • We're human and so we cannot expect to have a uniform, PC approach from everyone involved in social media
  • Big personalities might come across as a little controversial when communicating in only 140 characters
  • Plain stupid comments can clearly go viral across the net, as we all make those mistakes at some point

The thing is, there's risk already with unmonitored emails and phone calls - things that these people are readily left to do. There's more chance of people behaving 'on-brand' when they're so visible, surely? Equally, there are existing people in a business who may not want to be involved or so visible online. so there's that to manage too.

An inspiration for what's possible

There are companies doing great work in social media marketing, most often the big brands and there are also a handful, like Dell, that reveal the potential on a whole different. Just Google "Dell social media case study" the results reveal the potential:

  • Dell has a social media training centre and certifies employees to be social media professionals or in the very least social brand ambassadors
  • Dell listens to and participates in tens of thousands of online conversations daily, in 11 languages via a command centre running Radian6 software with trained team members
  • Dell Ideastorm has pioneered crowd-sourcing for product innovation since 2007
  • Dell generates millions in sales directly from social media activity since 2008

What is there not to take from that? Can you be the Dell in your own way, in you own market or niche?

The answer

This is no small task, we can't become Dell overnight, of course. Yet this can and should be phased rather than constantly put-off. I think it starts with education and governance. Defining clear policies like IBM has become famous for, comprehensive training requirements and all inclusive support is what's needed. Maybe even changes to the recruitment strategy so that the right skills are brought into the business. Either way, we have to start something? Training would need to be top down, as proven by Dell, including leadership who want to understand and deliver a vision, management to deliver that vision and of course those practising it day-to-day and making it happen.

  • With training and ongoing support, I think it makes sense to encourage company wide social media participation, this being of course subject to the goals of the company, available resources, the competitive environment and employees' skill-set.
  • Employees can be supported to become online ambassadors for your brand (as well as offline), imagine empowering only 20 of them initially, Dell now has thousands upon thousands. Invest in those that want to be active with training and guidelines, "unleash" them, ensure that the training includes insights into the business strategy and why social matters, make the implications clear
  • Social media participation is already occurring, whether we like it or not, so clear social media policy is a must.
  • With the importance of social participation increasing, recognise it by adding it to job requirements of new employees where it's a key to the role. Remember that it does not mean everyone's on Twitter, it could be that a technical person prefers to blog or interact on key forums and social outposts, or even just listen and highlight trends to an in-house journalist, there are no rules and as with any employee you want to play to the strengths of the person.

Whilst still recognising that everybody is different, the point is that everybody in the business could play a role as a marketing voice for your company dependent on the context, and a more natural marketing voice at that. I find that concept amazingly powerful.

What's your experience with this - any advice that you can share with others on this topic?

Author's avatar

By Danyl Bosomworth

Dan helped to co-found Smart Insights in 2010 and acted as Marketing Director until leaving in November 2014 to focus on his other role as Managing Director of First 10 Digital. His experience spans brand development and digital marketing, with roles both agency and client side for nearly 20 years. Creative, passionate and focussed, his goal is on commercial success whilst increasing brand equity through effective integration and remembering that marketing is about real people. Dan's interests and recent experience span digital strategy, social media, and eCRM. You can learn more about Dan's background here Linked In.

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