In my last corporate role, there was an "employee advocacy" tool rolled out.  I got an email from the Marketing Director, "all you have to do is connect your social media accounts and the tool will do the rest".

I was dubious, but loyal.  So I connected, my social media accounts.

All of the content was "corporate", I think it's called "branded".  It talked about the company, it's features, its functions; "buy my product because we are great", it said. 

I have to be honest, my "head" said this content is crap, my "gut" said it too.  And guess what? 

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Quick question: Who is the most important person in the world, according to your customer?

Of course ..... they are.  For many marketers, this is a massive "penny drop" moment.

You, your company, are not the most important person in the world and all that talk about "brand", nobody cares about it.  In fact, in most cases, it pisses people off.  Yes, I know it does not piss you off, I know you are really excited about it, but this isn't about you, it's about your prospects and clients.

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Back to The Employee Advocacy Tool

I connected my social media accounts, it pumped out branded content, I lost followers. I disconnected my social media accounts and my follower account started back to climb again.

(If you are counting, when I connected the employee advocacy tool, I had about 60,000 followers on twitter, I now have about 180,000.)

This isn't the fault of the tool, in fact I'm going to share with you a case study of a company, Mercer, that use a employee advocacy tool and they are getting a 4 times revenue uplift by using employee advocacy.  Not bad, in these revenue hungry times.

There is also a case study on how people can get C-Level meetings, not with branded content, but with humanised content, but we are not there yet. 

So why, won't employees "like" employees content on social media?

Because most of it is crap.  Let's look at the science and some case studies.

Data Based Pyramid of Content

We built this pyramid of content through research.  This isn't based on opinion, it's based on data.  At the bottom is the content that gets you the least engagement and at the top is the type of content that gets you the most engagement.

Corporate content is basically advertising and we all avoid that.  Why? Because we know what's going to say "buy my product because it's great".

Let's move on to those case studies.

Case Study 1.

This is Eric, he's one of the team at DLA Ignite here is a post that he put up, it only took him 10 minutes to create.  

We have all seen posts like this, we see them everyday, but people treat social tactically.  You post, because you think you have to or somebody tells you you should and walk away.  Let's talk about this post. 

 Eric's post of his 16 year old son, Austin, on his Birthday got 8,000 views and 165 likes?

But better still, he got 6 - C-Level meetings from this post?  How?

Because, all of Eric's post are strategic.  He knows exactly why he is posting it and knows how to monetise it.  This is what remote selling is all about.  It's not posting and hoping, there is a clear, the structured DLA Ignite methodology behind it.

He doesn't always post "humanised" content, I'm using this as an example.  But an example of why you need to get your employees and sales team on social, just think of the $ impact to your business?  Especially if you scaled this across your business? 

Want to know what he does?  Look at his Linkedin profile, it's all publicly available information. 

How does Eric do this?  He builds relationships with prospects and customers and because they have a relationship with a human, not a brand, people are happy to engage.  Eric is also able to cut through the myrmid of noise that brands keep putting out.  If you are a buyer, where will you spend your time?  Reading an advert that says "buy my product because it's great" or look for the insight and educational content that people like Eric is putting out?  This is virtual selling.

As another example, the Microsoft Azure sales team actively use this as part of their sales strategy on accounts.  They find "changemakers" who will take this insight and share within their businesses.  This is how businesses are actively engaging with and influencing business and sales.

This is a sales approach, what about getting your your employees online? 

Case Study 2

In this case study, Danielle Guzman, talks about how Mercer, empower their employees to talk on social.  The ROI (return on investment)?  Danielle explains how Mercer as a brand will develop the business a certain amount of business, because they are well known in certain markets.  She also confirms in this video how empowering people on social and giving them personal brands gives Mercer 4 times more revenue than the brand. 

Sounds like plan? 

Where Do We Go From Here?

Just give me, or one of the DLA Ignite team and hour of your time and we can walk you through what we are doing for other companies.  No hard sell, just take you through what other companies are doing to transform.

Please contact me here or one of the DLA Ignite team here, so please pick one of our industry experts or one of our experts in your geographical locality.  Our website is here.