Social media

The financial argument for investing in social media

B2B tech companies often ask us our opinion on the value of investing the time and resources (read: money) in developing a social media strategy. We always tell them that investing in social media is a lynchpin of a great inbound marketing approach. But we have sometimes struggled to articulate just how much of an investment is required to generate a specific return. Until now.

Access our free report to get in-depth and quality data on the value of social selling and how you can apply it to your organisation. For example, did you know:

Companies that use social media at least once a week achieved lead deals 1.6 times larger than those who posted at least every month? Among this high performing group, deals were worth an average $75,000 dollars.

Get access to many more key findings here.

by Stephen Reilly

Top 3 social selling best practices

• How to do social selling successfully
• Tips on how to maximise your social media presence and conversions

Social media has evolved to become a key channel for communications in the enterprise. There are now 3.4 billion active social media users – 3.2 billion of which are socially active on mobile, too.

Thanks to these rather staggering numbers, social selling holds huge potential for businesses looking to grow. A quick definition, for those who aren’t familiar with the term:

Social selling is when marketers use social media to interact directly with existing and potential customers, providing value by answering questions and offering thoughtful content to aid individuals and/or businesses through the buying journey.

 – Hubspot

From in-built analytics tools in Twitter and LinkedIn to an array of third-party tools, there are increasingly more ways to track results and measure the value of social selling. But while the tools for internal analysis are there, identifying which metrics are the most important and relevant to your business remains the real challenge.

You may have a large Twitter following, and see good engagement on posts, but is this translating into website traffic or sales enquiries? And should you even expect as much from a platform like Twitter? It’s nuances like these that make it difficult to identify the return on investment of social selling. And that’s what our upcoming insights paper looks to uncover.

Visit our Insights page to get our social selling report

In this post, we provide three social selling best practices you can follow to net real return on investment with social media.

3 social selling best practices

From that, we've been able to collate some best practice advice and techniques when it comes to social selling, so that you can follow and look to implement in your own marketing now and in the future.

1. Know your audience. Know your content. Make a plan

Like all facets of marketing, the best results come from planning your approach. When it comes to social selling, best practice is adapting your company message, brand image, and content distribution to the world of social media.

When it comes to the content you publish on social media, brevity is key. Among the crowds of individuals on social media platforms, everyone is fighting for attention. As people have less and less time to read content and engage with it, those who can capture people’s attention—be it through written words, video, images, animation, etc.—stand the best chance.

Alongside the content itself is the way you broadcast it. We spoke to Kristin Treat, Head of Corporate Communications at Nintex, about the company’s content approach on social media. She explained how they set out an editorial calendar, the same way they do for blog content, for the content they’ll publish on social media channels. This calendar is set for each quarter of the fiscal year, divided out week-by-week. To break it down:

• Monday: left intentionally open, when news breaks
• Tuesday: product focus – new tech, new capabilities, features, functions
• Wednesday: thought leadership, position ourselves as a leader in process automation
• Thursday: customer-focus, highlight the success companies are having with our tech
• Friday: just launched, Q&A series. Interview internally, in the industry, partners, customers. People like that easily-digestible content.

This kind of structure is vital to broadcasting content routinely and to a high standard on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Although Kristin notes not keeping it so rigid that you can’t adapt to things like topical news stories or new product releases.

We also asked Kristin how they measure marketing success at Nintex: 

We measure everything! We have quarterly targets for unique page views of our blog and our website, and we’ve got a set number of leads we need to meet on a quarterly basis on our social channels. And when we run paid campaigns they obviously have their own metrics we track.

2. Lead with LinkedIn

Social platforms and their audiences are always changing. Twitter was the first social platform to be adopted by businesses, but LinkedIn has made considerable ground in recent years. Twitter remains the perfect platform for publicising company events, webinars, and the more personable side of your business and its employees. LinkedIn, however, was designed with enterprise in mind, which makes it a much more effective platform for starting conversations with potential buyers.

We spoke with Sarah Pavlik, Vice President of Marketing at pavliks.com, on the differences between LinkedIn and Twitter in terms of social selling best practices:

We get a lot more valuable engagement out of LinkedIn. We base that on a variety of different metrics. We’ve found that unbranded content performs better than branded – as soon as we put ‘pavliks.com’ in the visuals, it doesn’t perform as well as standard content information. I think when people see a brand’s on content it feels advertising, rather than educational, which is what we’re aiming for.

On Twitter, we deem success as whenever people will share information to their own followers. That’s showing they think it’s interesting and are helping us boost our own reach. We track our followers, but they can be fickle. It’s something we keep aware of, but we know that it will fluctuate. That’s fine because we know that conversions into actual website traffic is more important.

We also asked Matthias Seidel, Head of Marketing at Rencore, on his thoughts about paid advertising on LinkedIn:

I would recommend directing paid marketing campaigns towards LinkedIn, particularly with lead-generation forms. We used auto-generation lead forms through LinkedIn so if someone sees our content and wants to investigate, the form is already filled out with their information. This works 100% better than any campaign we’ve tried.

3. Integrate your social selling

Your blog, website, or social media channels… which is the most effective lead generation tool? Rather than picking a favourite, you use all three in combination with each other. Your blog is a great tool for introducing customers to your company, its offerings, and value to them. And your social channels are the best tool for sending your blog content out to as wide and dedicated an audience as possible. If you find success in these two areas, you’ll see an increase in site traffic, which is the best place to convert leads into customers.

Of course, this is the ideal. The reality is more convoluted.

We spoke to David Lavenda, Vice President of Products and Marketing at harmon.ie, on the difficulties of the end-to-end buying process:

There are several avenues along the modern-day buying cycle. We’re taught to always be selling, but people aren’t always buying – they’re investigating. They’re finding out more so when they get to the buying process, they’re already poised to make a decision.

So, the question becomes: how can you adapt your social techniques to match this? Thought leadership can provide knowledge and expertise, rather than constantly pushing the sale. And this builds up both the individual’s personality and the greater brand.

by aidan.danaher

Understand the value of B2B conversational selling and build a B2B chatbot

• Is face-to-face conversational selling a dead practice?
• Conversational selling in the modern marketing world
• How to use chatbots in conversational selling
• Build a B2B chatbot

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“Whatever happened to real, face-to-face conversation?” This might be a phrase reserved for older generations that fear the technological revolution will leave the children of the future incapable of face-to-face conversation. Indeed, there is plenty of content (yet little proven evidence) that reinforces this dystopian idea.

While we shouldn’t forget the importance of ‘real’, face-to-face conversation, most of us will agree that technology improves our conversational skills, rather than limits them.

Conversational selling, for example, is the process of retaining your customers and attracting new ones through one-to-one conversations. It’s therefore typically been performed face-to-face, but thanks to technology, conversational selling no longer requires physically meeting with someone. The internet and mobile devices allow us to have real-time conversations with potential leads from practically anywhere in the world.

This isn’t to say that B2B companies should neglect physical meetings with leads or potential clients when possible, as this is still arguably the most effective form of driving engagement. No matter how closely online communication can mimic real conversation, it will never fully replicate it.

So, how can technology enable and enhance conversational selling for B2B companies today?

Conversational selling in the modern marketing world

Cold calling has been a go-to method for conversational selling. But when only 28% of people who are cold-called engage in conversations and just 1% of calls ultimately convert into leads (and even less for attaining actual customers), we’re not sure if there’s really much ‘conversation’ going on.

Currently, email, arranged calls and physical meetings are the main sources of conversational selling. But these methods are also far from ideal. For online marketing, open rates hover around the 18% range, while click-through rates sit on average at just 3.16%. Face-to-face meetings still reign supreme—95% of people say face-to-face meetings are essential for long-term business relationships while the conversion rate for in-person meetings is 40%. Of course, arranging physical meetings takes up considerably more time, effort and money than sending an email or making a call, meaning you simply can’t arrange as many as you might like.

On landing pages, resources like case studies, eBooks, and whitepapers are often locked behind lead capture forms. Modern lead capture forms have, on average, 11 mandatory form fields. If that seems like too many to you, you’re not alone - the average landing page form conversion rate is just 2.35%, leading 84% of businesses to think their lead generation strategies are inefficient. These inbound leads are left to wait until a sales team member responds to them, which can take hours, days, weeks or potentially forever if they’re waiting on a response to a query that never gets solved.

Customers want information provided to them in a way that feels natural. They don’t want to feel obliged to hand over personal information or wait around for an email response to get that information. That's why real-time online conversation, having enveloped the consumer world, is taking hold of the enterprise. Instant messaging platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack are revolutionising office communications, while live chat services make it much easier to answer customer support queries. And now, chatbots are facilitating a brand-new interface for conversational selling.

Instant messaging and chatbots

As the name implies, instant messaging platforms better facilitate real-time conversation,  making it far more conversational than a platform like email. The first instant messaging platforms were AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) in 1997 and MSN Messenger in 1999. But it has now evolved to a point where any number of people can communicate in real time from anywhere in the world on free platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It’s understandable that instant messaging has become so popular; online conversations have a more natural flow, enabling quicker information sharing and more personable interactions.

Chatbot technology combines the essence of instant messaging with artificial intelligence. Chatbots use natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding (NLU) and natural language generation (NLG), which, combined, allow chatbots to derive the meaning and intent of the written text. There is already a huge range of chatbots, from a companion for insomnia sufferers (created by a mattress company, no less) to a medical diagnoses practitioner. In the marketing sphere, chatbots are also booming, and for good reason. Chatbots can:

• Put your company on the biggest platforms 

The top four messaging apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat, Viber) have surpassed the top four social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) for global monthly active users. 65% of smartphone users don’t download any new apps in a month, but the apps they do download and keep are the ‘core’ apps like Facebook, Messenger and Twitter. So, a chatbot on Messenger or LinkedIn will give you access to as wide an audience as possible.

• Improve the customer experience

Whether it’s providing information, content or support, chatbots put the customer first. In any and all these situations, chatbots provide real-time assistance the same way a salesperson would in a physical store, except chatbots can serve hundreds of customers at once, 24 hours a day! Chatbots can be programmed to give automated answers to repetitive questions immediately, and forward more specific questions on to real employees when actions that require human intervention must be taken. This transition creates a seamless experience for the customer – and one they’re much more likely to remember.

• Improve lead generation

Chatbots can also initiate the conversation, rather than just answering customer queries. With cookies, consumer information is linked to almost every web visit and transaction. Chatbots can use this information to personalise their conversations with customers, assisting them along the buying journey in a conversational manner. This adds up to create more engaging conversations, improving your company’s brand image and overall lead generation.

Build a B2B chatbot

In 2016, Facebook introduced chatbots to Messenger, opening the doors for developers around the world to create their own bots within the app. In the six months following their announcement, more than 30,000 bots were created. Another tech giant, Microsoft, has some of the best NLP technology around and allows developers to leverage that technology through the Microsoft Bot Framework.

In 2018, you don’t need to be a developer to build a chatbot. You can do so without any coding proficiency and in as little as 10 minutes. Companies like ManyChat make it easy to build a chatbot to function on Facebook Messenger. They have their own helpful how-to guide, but let’s break down how a small B2B business owner might use a Messenger bot.

1.   Identify the purpose

Arguably the most important step—you need to decide what you’re going to use your chatbot for. There’s no point jumping on the chatbot bandwagon for the sake of it—you need to know what it’s going to provide visitors to your Facebook company page. This could be:

• Help and advice on technical topics
• Links to your website pages (blog/services/solutions)
• Additional content for further reading/learning
• Information on the company – its history, upcoming events, webinars, etc.
• E-commerce if your company sells product copies (or product demos)

It could be a combination of all of these—your chatbot can be as simple or as complex as you design it to be. Remember, though, that this is for Facebook users. As such, they may have different wants and needs to regular visitors to your website.

2.   Write your welcome message

Once you’ve identified your chatbot’s purpose, the first step is to create your welcome message. This is the first thing that website visitors will ‘hear’ from your chatbot when they visit your Facebook business page. You might use your welcoming message to try and direct traffic to your main website, your blog or services page. Just make sure it feels like a conversation… don’t simply list what your company does. Suggest questions they can ask the bot to try and elicit a response and get the conversation started.

ManyChat lets you add buttons the same way you would add calls to action to the end of your blog, prompting the user to take further action. You can also add media like images, videos and audio to your welcoming message in the hopes of boosting interest and engagement.

3.   Automate your replies

Finally, you’ll want to create set responses that trigger when certain phrases (or keywords) are typed in. If you’re a company that serves multiple industries, you might want to suggest blog content around ‘Construction’ or ‘IT’ when these phrases are mentioned, for example.

Automated replies are essential (and highly effective) in getting a conversation going between you and the customer. The more you add, the more you can craft a realistic conversation.

Modern conversational selling with meaning

Like many other elements in the marketing and business spheres, conversational selling is changing to fit in with the modern world. Depending on your platform, your chatbots can use the latest AI technologies to push the boundaries of what’s possible for conversational selling. If you don’t have the developer firepower, you might just want to build a simple chatbot that sits on your company website or social media page to give visitors a warm welcome and suggest ways to interact with your business.

Those that are able to embrace chatbots and conversational selling can put their business at an advantage today and prepare themselves for the future.

Fifty Five and Five offer a full suite of marketing services for B2B technology companies. Whether you need a chatbot to engage customers or some compelling content to drive traffic to your site, we can help. View our full range of services and get in touch with us to find out more.

by aidan.danaher

What does a Top Microsoft partner company look like?

• The top Microsoft partner companies in terms of marketing; where they are, how big they are and how old
• Get our insights on the best Microsoft partners and improve your marketing

To find the top Microsoft partner companies in terms of marketing, Fifty Five and Five take an annual look at the digital marketing efforts of partners from around the world and rank them across three criteria: their website, their blog and their social media engagement.

What you’ll find is lots of valuable information and data about who is performing particularly good inbound marketing across the partner network. What you might find slightly less of, however, is specific data about the businesses that are doing particularly well – and how they compare to yours. Those looking to get differentiate themselves would do well to find out exactly who, where and how big their competition is. So that’s what we’re going to uncover in this post.

Where are they?

If you take a look at the geographical distribution of our Top 50 partners, you’ll quickly discover a few things. The first, and perhaps most obvious of these is that most companies in the Top 50 are based in the United States. In fact, as much as 32 of the companies in the Top 50 are American (64%). Of these, nine are based in California, three in Texas and one in Washington state.

The next largest concentration of Top 50 Microsoft Partners in the study came from the UK, with nine companies (18%) of the total included. The remaining nine companies are split in totals of one or two between Australia, South Africa, Canada, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.

How old are they?

You might be tempted to think that the best performing Microsoft Partners are the oldest, most established companies – but that’s not always strictly the case. Sure, the top performers are hardly brand-new tech start-ups, as the highest-performing blogs and social channels are built on consistency over time. But there’s a fairly broad scope of companies here – showing that there’s plenty of potential for even the smaller and less defined organisations to achieve digital marketing excellence.

The median age of companies in the Top 50 is 17, though there’s a huge range of different ages within this. The oldest on the list, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) was founded back in 1939, and the most recent, Bettercloud, arrived on the scene just seven years ago in 2011.

Bettercloud itself managed to beat plenty of competitors and landed itself a healthy spot as number 8 in the Top 50 – thanks in large part to its impressive social media score. So,  there’s no reason why younger companies can’t achieve digital marketing success.

How big are companies in the Top 50?

Just as with the average age of Top 50 Microsoft partner companies, there’s a varied range of sizes of companies all achieving success. The smallest companies, of which there are nine, consist of between 11 and 50 employees, while some others are much larger. In fact, two notable businesses even have over 10,000 employees.

Those who read reports like ours on Microsoft’s most competent partners, may well conclude that the top contenders are simply operating in a different league to theirs. Barring the possibility of committing more employees to a marketing department, a larger organisation is not representative of marketing success. It’s companies that have the right marketers in their team—willing to commit the proper amount of time and dedication to digital marketing—that are seeing success.

If companies numbering as small as 11-50 employees can have better digital marketing strategies than their 38,500 competitors, it’s surely proof that it’s perfectly possible to make limited resources go a long way.

Who are the Top 250?

Though we write our annual report to celebrate the inbound marketing strategies of the Top 50 best performing Microsoft Partners, we actually produce a list of the Top 250.

The majority (73%) of our Top 250 Microsoft Partner Companies consisted of between 11 and 200 employees, versus the 50% in the Top 50.

It’s difficult to draw any direct conclusions from this comparison – and it may simply be a result of the differing sample sizes. What is clear, however, is that smaller companies are well represented among the best performing Microsoft Partner Companies – by both metrics.

Get the details on the best Microsoft Partners and improve your marketing

The Fifty-Five and Five Inbound Marketing Excellence report gives insight and understanding into what it is that makes these top performing companies’ digital marketing campaigns so successful.

In the four years since the report was published, it’s quickly become a staple of the industry, delivering vital knowledge that helps companies improve their own inbound marketing strategies.

by Matthew Rooke

Your Inspire social strategy: an interview with Rachel Braunstein

• Rachel Braunstein of Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner organization shares the perfect Microsoft Inspire networking and social media strategy
• Advice on the power of LinkedIn and Twitter in your Inspire social strategy
• What new and returning attendees should aim to get from Microsoft Inspire

With Microsoft Inspire around the corner, we’ve been speaking to Microsoft to help partners (us included!) prepare for Microsoft’s biggest event of the year. We spoke with Rachel Braunstein—Partner Marketing Manager with the Microsoft Partner Network—on the spectacle of Microsoft Inspire and how to take advantage of the event through networking and social media.

Thanks for talking to us Rachel. Can we start with a bit of info on you and what you’ll be doing at Microsoft Inspire this year?

“Of course. I’m part of the One Commercial Partner organization, which harnesses Microsoft’s partner expertise and knowledge, from technical to marketing, business development, and programs. Microsoft is not just partner-led, it’s partner-first. And nothing showcases that as much as Microsoft Inspire.

“Last year I ran the social media for Microsoft Inspire, but this year, I’m speaking, attending sessions, and hosting podcasts onsite in the community hub. What’s great about Inspire is that we have incredible people from across the globe coming together, from business decision-makers to thought leaders and Microsoft employees. There’s a lot of great content there, so it’s a perfect place for podcasts. My session on Thursday morning is on how to connect with customers through modern selling and LinkedIn, something I’m super passionate about. So, lots of stuff going on as always! I love being an active participant like our partners—listening to the Corenotes, attending sessions, exploring the commons, and enjoying all the networking events at night.”

For those that haven't attended Inspire before, can you briefly break down what it is and why it's such a great opportunity for Microsoft Partners?

“Microsoft Inspire is where Microsoft connects with its partners on the largest stage of the year. We connect at many small events around the world but Inspire brings together nearly 18,000 people to talk about how we can build businesses, go-to-market and sell together.  It’s all about partnership and unlocking new opportunities.

“And this year, Inspire is being co-located with Microsoft Ready—our major internal sales conference. With both these audiences in the same place, there’s sure to be even more opportunities for Microsoft Partners to talk to Microsoft directly. The community is unified in a way that’s only done once a year on and on such a scale, so you’re bound to learn and create opportunities no matter what. And if you’re a first-time attendee, we have specialized tours starting Sunday and programming to help you find your way, connect with others and have an incredible time.”

If there was one thing that Microsoft Partners must do while at Inspire, what would you say it is?

“It’s hard to say! Some conferences are solely about digesting information and attending sessions. While you can do a lot of that at Inspire, if I had to choose one thing, it’s networking. And social media, particularly LinkedIn, is key to that. So maybe it’s more: network as much as possible, but make sure you use the social platform to help you!

“There will be greater functionality on the My Inspire app during the event to make it easier to network with people digitally and connect with attendees through LinkedIn. There are many opportunities to use LinkedIn to create conversations and potentially create new business. For instance, I always suggest people connect with session speakers on LinkedIn right after attending their session, and send a note saying how you attended their session and what you learned; or follow-up with them before or after the session to show that you care. That’s what networking is all about. It’s these special ways to build relationships with potential clients or partners that makes LinkedIn the perfect tool for your Inspire social strategy. It’s also important because when you speak to so many people, you can quickly lose track and you can refer back to the notes you send.

“With that in mind, you want to make sure your personal and company LinkedIn profiles are as engaging and up-to-date as possible. Include imagery, a summary description, rich media, your qualifications, and anything to draw someone in and relate to who you are. First impressions count, and your profile could be the first impression people have of your company before they actually meet you. So, be sure to post on your company pages before, during and after the event. If your profile is in top shape, you can be ready to meet as many new people as possible and give yourself the best chance at finding new leads and building relationships.

“It all comes down to networking and relationship building, and LinkedIn is your digital method of doing that.”

That’s really useful. Beyond keeping your profile fresh, how should Microsoft Partners approach the show on social channels like LinkedIn?

“There are two sides to social at Inspire: personal and brand. They’re both different and alike.

“If you’re bringing a team to Inspire, you’ve got a small army of advocates. As an individual, you’re representing yourself and your company. That’s what employee advocacy is all about. So, from a personal social standpoint, I would focus on Twitter and LinkedIn—those are my social platforms of choice. At an event like Inspire, you can post a lot of content every day—videos of the Corenotes and Sessions is a great way to capture the atmosphere of Inspire. Every time you post, you’re representing your company. So, including hashtags like #MSInspire and #MicrosoftLife, and ‘@’ mentioning the people you’ve met, are good ways to do this. It’s about creating an authentic experience around what you’re learning and participating in—that’s the best thing you can do. Show your credibility and differentiate not only yourself but your business by talking about the cool stuff you’re doing.

Show your credibility and differentiate not only yourself but your business by talking about the cool stuff you’re doing.

“The other side is thinking about the impact on your company brand. This should require a bit more of a framework. Of course, you still want to use images, video, and hashtags to give your posts the best visibility. But each post should have thought behind it. It’s not just about the experience—leave that for the personal side—but about sharing thought leadership with your audience. Let them know why the company is there, and the benefits of attending for your clients.

“But there should, of course, be fluidity between personal and brand in your Inspire social strategy. On your corporate account, re-post and share any great messages shared by employees (and vice versa). They play off each other. There’s nothing better as an employee to know they’re having their content broadcasted, while the business gets to extend its reach further. It’s a win-win!

“Social is ultimately about driving the conversation. It’s not supposed to be a static tool. That’s what’s so great about events like Inspire because there’s so much to say and do.”

And, even though Inspire hasn’t started, that should be the case now, too. Right?

“Frequency picks up the most at the event for sure. You can’t exhaust your audience before they even get there! At Microsoft, this month is all about inspiration. We’re trying to engage the partner network with inspirational quotes on our social channels—we want everybody to get in on the conversation and get people excited about the event.”

We’d like to thank Rachel for sharing her thoughts and expertise with us. Don’t forget to follow Rachel on Twitter (@rkbraunstein) and LinkedIn (rachelbraunstein). Keep up with the Microsoft Partner Network (@MSPartner) on Twitter for all the latest around Inspire, and make sure to visit Fifty Five and Five at stand #1622 at the event!

by aidan.danaher

How to build a great employee advocacy programme

• Tapping into the power of your employees to share company content
• Building an employee advocacy programme strategy
• Step-by-step guidance

Gaining consumer trust should be the priority of every brand. A way of increasing consumer trust is putting together a well thought out and strategic employee advocacy programme.

The power of an employee advocacy programme

The Edelman Trust Barometer has revealed that people are three times more likely to trust company information shared by an employee of that company over the CEO. LinkedIn network activity can back this up even further as the click-through rate (CTR) on a piece of content is twice as high when shared by an employee vs. a generic company account.

Tapping into the power of your employees to share company content should be next on your to-do list! But first you need to empower them, you need to cultivate the right climate for them to feel confident enough to share quality content with their own social networks. Because on average, employee networks have ten times more connections than a company has followers. Now that’s going to expand your reach if you encouraged every employee to share content.

Your employee advocacy programme strategy

Bear in mind that when you first start employee advocacy, your people will be reluctant to dive in. It’s not because they don’t want to be a part of it. It’s more likely that they feel their contribution will be insignificant. Therefore, training is important. People can’t appreciate how a tiny ‘like’ or ‘share’ can really impact the grand scheme of marketing your brand. Also, people are worried about what they can and can’t share about work. Educate, train, give them confidence and before you know it you’ll have an army of brand ambassadors!

So, assuming you’ve got your army out on the front line – here’s what you need to do to build a great employee advocacy programme.

Step 1: Create a solid content strategy

Before you ask your people to advocate for your brand, you should do so with a stash of content behind you – ready to go. This is an obvious one, but we’ve included some tweaks.

Two things really matter here – subject and format:

• Subject
  Try to create exciting or thought-provoking content that employees will want to share. You could aim for a mix of company related, industry related and general content. It’s a little bit salesy if all people ever share is company specific articles, not to mention drab. Sure, you might get lots of likes and shares this way, but once their peers start noticing a robotic pattern your engagement numbers could drop. Your goal here is to drive engagement with employees and their networks, so match the content with their interests for better results.
• Format
  Your employees will need a variety of content to post to keep things fun and easy and different formats serve different audiences. Videos are best shared on Instagram, blog posts on LinkedIn and news on Twitter. Social media is for quick snackable content on the go, so try not to flood feeds with 1000-word blogs, instead use social media to hook new audiences, and reel them back to your blog or website for further info.

Step 2: Identify your digital avatar

To get true engagement from your employees you must understand them as social media users. That way you can target them with certain pieces of content for massive impact. We’ve deciphered six types of users that are worth knowing about.

The Ghost: Randomly appears to scatter a few likes here and there, is an avid social media user but keeps a low profile. Target this user with photos and quick links. Or encourage them to simply ‘like’ content.

The Activist: Understands the power of social media and uses it as a weapon to change the world. Target them with newsworthy topics from your company.

The Bleeding Heart: Writes long poetic captions beneath their posts, using their profile as an emotional outlet. This user loves sharing an emotional connection with their followers. Flush them with inspirational content to start the conversation.

The Social Butterfly: Has 3000 friends on Facebook and a dazzling Instagram account. Loves social media and knows just about everyone. (This person is probably already sharing your content.)

The Early Adopter: They did everything before it was ‘cool’. Their pure iciness however is contagious. People look to them for all that is shiny, new and worth talking about. New launch? This person has an army of fans waiting for the down-low.

The Family Man: Bound to have a loyal band of devoted family and friends, this person uses social media to keep in touch with close ones around the world. Their peers are interested in what they have to say so bear this in mind when you want instant engagement with your content.

Step 3: Educate and train

Hold 101 trainings, such as lunch-and-learns and webinars to train employees on how to use social media for work. That way you let them know what’s in it for them:

Being an employee advocate can boost their professional reputations as well as impact the business. In fact, people who share consistently always end up being positioned as thought leaders in the industry, gaining a significant following. The business will also gain traction and start to gain more awareness, boosting sales and attracting top quality hires.

Step 4: Launch your programme

You’ve set your goals, you’ve prepared enough content and you’re ready to launch! Remember the following when your mid-air:

Exploit the channels you already have available, that way you can guarantee a captive audience. And always get leadership involved whenever you can. Arm senior executives, CEOs and MDs with material to share – so they can set a solid example.

Keep momentum

Employee advocacy is another way of engaging with your customers, but remember, like any other content strategy, it requires consistency. It’s paramount to return every so often to your advocates with new insights into how well they’re doing.

Mobilising your workforce to become brand advocates takes a lot of dedication and a positive mindset to get going. But with careful planning you can place your content strategically in the right hands, to be deployed at the right time. This will give you maximum impact, and you’ll boost employee engagement while you’re at it. Not too shabby.

For more advice on marketing your brand, contact Fifty Five and Five today or read our case studies to learn how we’ve helped tech companies around the world boost sales and get better ROI from their marketing.

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by aidan.danaher