For those that don't know, I'm a Liverpool fan and we won the football (soccer) league last night. For those that don't know, I lived in Liverpool for two years, in West Kirby to be exact.
I was reading this article about how the manager, Jurgen Klopp says that it is the training ground where games are won and that is something, here at DLA Ignite that we agree in and here are two examples:-
1. Employee Training
As a small business during the Pandemic, business sense is to focus on the money and to get as much cash into the business as you can. Adam, Alex and I, don't agree.
We believe that if you want a high performance team you need to train them and we spend, two and half hours a week, totally focused on making sure that the team can give their best to our clients. This does not include any one to one mentoring that we offer as well.
Our view is that with the best employee experience, will give the best customer experience and from the the cash we need to run the business will come.
Maybe we are naive, let's see where we are in a years time.
2. Research into Social
When we started the business 4 years ago, there seems to be this ivory tower and theoretical view in social media. "Well it just works" seems to be the view of social media from the Gurus. Social Media works because I say it does, is another common attitude. But does it really?
I wrote this article back in 2016, How to use Twitter to get 10 C-Level Appointments Per Week — A Case Study which clearly provide a business case to be selling with social. But even 4 years on, people are questioning the value.
One of the issues is the barrier to entry to be a "social media guru" is low. People are still setting themselves up as social media gurus and offering nothing more than snake oil. One of our clients fired their social media person because they were "useless" they told me, they then justified the hire by saying "we thought he would be good at social media, because he had a beard". I kid you not!
As all we do here at DLA Ignite is social (we are not a full service marketing agency for example) we are able to focus on social and get the best results for our clients.
The next paragraph details the research we have undertaken into content.
Content - The Research
Being as we do social media day in day out, it has meant that we have been able to find out what works and what does not. Like a lot of things in life, it works on the basis of risk and reward.
If you post corporate content, there is little risk to the person posting it and there is little reward. Either there is no engagement (so what's the point?) or the engagement is all from the echo chamber (just your employees or direct reports) of your business (so what's the point?).
Or you can post something about yourself, Eric Doyle, he's a partner of ours. He's posted about the fact that he has started riding his bike again. People see this as high risk. What happens if I annoy somebody? What happens if I make a fool of myself? But I have nothing to say. But high reward.
At the time of writing Eric has 36 likes and 53 comments. That means with the average person having 500 connections on Linkedin that has reached 44,500 people. Think how long it would take you to build an email list of 44,500 people. We could assume that those 44,500 have 500 connections, so that connect could be seen by 22 million people. Who cares? You want leads and meeting after all!
Last time I spoke to him, he has got 6 new business meetings from this, it took him 20 minutes to create.
(I wonder if you can create 6 new business minutes in 20 minutes from advertising, cold calling or email marketing ... I doubt it, but let me know if you can).
Or you could get somebody to write the content for you. Which is less risk, but again the reward isn't as high as a piece of authentic content.
By the way, I can back this up with actual figures if you want to get on a call.
The conclusion of this is that actually, my audience is connected to me and they want content from me, not some content writer or your company.
Just like Klopp, this is how you create a high performance team. Social media isn't about "posting" content it is about understand the science and psychology of why you are doing it. To empower your employees to post, share and engage, they need to understand what is in it for them but to also want to take action.
Social media is not a tactic, it's a strategy. Just like preparation for a football game. You need to know that you are going to walk out to play the game and you are going to win. As an employer you must be providing them with the best preparation there is in the world.
This will mean that they will perform to the highest of their ability.
That's why we train our team and give them science to back up what they do. It helped Liverpool and Klopp, maybe it could help you?
But There is More - A Business Case Maybe?
In this interview with Danielle Guzman who is Global Head of Social Media for Mercer and we discuss "5 Things to Kick Start Your Employee Advocacy Program" and she shares the value they have gained from empowering their employees with social media.
Mercer are getting 3 to 4 times the attributed revenue than the brand generates. Can you believe that? If the brand is creating $10 million, then empowering your team on social will generate $40 million.
Danielle also emphasises the need for training.
There could be a business case there, my suggestion is that you use an outside company to help you. Hint, hint. ;)
The Word Has Changed However Much You Deny It
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said
So what as a marketer and a sales leader are you going to do about it?
It's great to see Liverpool win the league, but they got there knowing what it takes to build high performance teams and that requires investment.
You can find me on social here
Klopp believes the training ground is where the difference is made. This is where the drills are run through, where tactical ideas are tried and tested. Bolt onto this some spectacular recruitment and you have the 2019-20 Premier League champions. Every session is meticulously planned with his staff before training. Klopp will then address his players to outline their work in depth. He is not just Liverpool's manager, he is Liverpool's coach. Every aspect of every day is plotted and analysed in minute detail. In preparing for games, he insatiably gathers information before condensing it into the essential and most urgent details. Inside Anfield this is regarded as a key skill that helps drive one of his best qualities - the ability to take big decisions quickly, without prevarication, and getting those decisions right.
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