Using Brand Advocates (Employees) for Influence

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Using Brand Advocates for InfluenceLiz Brown Bullock

CEO & Co-Founder Social Arts & Science Institute, SASI@lizbbullock

LinkedIn: Liz Brown Bullock#SMSsummit

Employees are key ingredient in new social era…

More than ever – a company’s brand is influenced by what consumers are saying about the brand

An everyday employee is 2x trusted vs. Chief Executive

(Edelman Trust Barometer, ‘13)

Confidential©2013 Social Arts & Science Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved

90% trust recommendations from people they know. 70% trust consumer opinions posted online. 14% trust advertising (Nielsen, 2009)

How companies market, sell to and support their customers is changing…

What roles do employees play in this transformation? How do you activate employees?

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Companies must fundamentally rethink how they connect with the marketplace…

Challenges:• Companies are seeking “authentic” and “genuine” ways to build

customer relationships.• How do you scale across customer online conversations?• How may companies and customers collaborate in useful ways

(products & services)?

How do you use social media authentically and engage with the marketplace to deliver results?

Answer: Companies must train, activate and scale brand advocates (employees) to build long term relationships with prospects and customers.

©2013 Social Arts & Science Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved

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Companies empowering brand advocates:

IBM• 500 Thought Leaders• IBM VOICES

Dell• 10K Certified employees• Engage on behalf of

brand

Cisco• 1.3K employees

amplifying company message

Sprint• 2K employees• Ninja Program Black

Belt

Best Buy• 3K employees• Answering customers

Intel• 300+ employees• “Experience Intel”• Content generation

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Case study: Cisco Twitter analysis

• Employees have 10xs more followers vs. corporate accounts• Only 2% of the audience overlaps with corporate accounts• Employees share 29% more URLs about the company vs. corporate

accounts • Employees account URL reach is 2x vs. corporate accounts• The reach of hashtags about the company shared by employees is 24

times that of corporate

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/socialook/cisco-global-february2013socialook?from_search=2

Activating brand advocates can go beyond amplification…

• Dell asks certified employees to do various social activities on behalf of Dell that speak to their level of interest and expertise

• Goal to deepen their social expertise • Portal serves up activities, tracks, reward and

identify the right employees to activate

Listening

Thank You

Social Development

Events

Employee Training

Recruiting

internal external

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Additional benefits: engaged & result driven employees

Recent study from National Business Research Institute:• Engaged employees produce 2x as much work product in the time as

unengaged employees• 40% – 80% of customer satisfaction is affected by employee attitudes

1. Believe in their organization2. Have the desire to work to make things better3. Understand the business context and the bigger

picture4. Are respectful and helpful to colleagues5. Are willing to go the extra mile6. Stay up to date with developments within their

industry

NBRI Identified 6 Traits of Engaged Employees:

Source: http://www.nbrii.com/blog/employee-engagement-customer-satisfaction-financial-performance/

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Employee Activation Maturity Assessment

Competency

Maturity Ratings

Stage 1: Hierarchy Stage 2: Emergent Stage 3: Synergistic

Employees feel restricted to share any content about the brand, even

on personal social media platforms

Handful of employees are sharing brand content and some

engagement with customers and prospects

Robust organization armed and working collaboratively to connect

with customers, prospects, advocates & Influencers

Leadership Command & Control Consensus Collaborative

Policies & Governance No Guidelines Restrictive Inclusive

Education No Training Ad hoc Formal Program

Metrics & Measurement Anecdotal Activity Tracking Behaviors & Outcomes

Tools & TechnologyConsumer tools used by

individualsMix of consumer tools &

enteprise toolsSocial Functionality is integrated throughout


To activate employees you need 5 critical competencies: Leadership, Policies & Governance, Education, Metrics & Measurement and Tools & Technology

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LeadershipO

rgEx

ec S

uppo

rt

1 – 2 Executives supporting social business

Handful of Executives supporting. Most likely in Marketing, Comms orgs

Tops down priority with leadership across the board supporting

Goals:1. Launch 2. Adoption3. Better

Relationships• Do these

Executives have the support to drive training and activation of key teams?

• What are key orgs to train and activate?

• Do these Execs sit within these organizations?

• How can you leverage top Executives to launch & sustain employee advocacy

Leverage Executive support to build program + reward & recognize key employees• Dell’s CMO, Karen Quintos schedules private meetings

to celebrate Dell’s brand advocates


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Policies & Governance

• Yes, social policy is a must…• More importantly, you need to define

employee advocate roles, plus how you will activate them


Education: Dell’s Social Media & Community University

Policy

Principles

Governance

Training & Tools

Activation programs

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Metrics & Measurement

• RISK: Dell witnessed reduction in employee incidents after training• ACTIVATION: Certified Dell employees were activated to create powerful

customer driven programs

Awareness

Activation

Business Impact

• 9,000+ employees trained• 30 courses in 55+ countries• Marketing, Sales, PG, Customer

Service

• 1,600 employees Twitter handle with Dell bio

• 2,000+ Brand Advocates• 150+ Subject Matter Experts

• 2.2 engagements and 6.8 clicks per employee post (SME’s)

• Incremental 17K traffic to Dell• Improved reach, earned media

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Tools & Technology

• Internal portal to capture key data around employee advocates

• Portal served time bound activities for employees to sign up and participate

• “Wall of Fame” touting strongest advocates

• Log activities + Leaderboard• “Find network members” to connect

with like-minded employees

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Dell Superbowl ad

• Dell launched 2013 Superbowl ad solely online and via social media

• Activated Dell certified employees to share Super bowl ad

• +6.5M views on YouTube

Source: http://www.pmdigital.com/press-events/super-bowl-commercial-index/

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Tools & Technology: SocialChorus

• Develop Advocate strategy• Identify brand’s best employee advocates based on:

– Social media savvy & influence– Position within company hierarchy– Departments– Location

• Make it easy for advocates: – How, why & when they should communicate– SocialChorus Platform training

• Make it easy to see success: custom analysis of program performance, broken down by:– Individual advocates– # of endorsements– Social channels– Time period– Top advocate content

• Continual optimization

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Closing with Final Thoughts

• Employees are key in building and scaling customer relationships, but they need governance, training, processes and tools.

• Activating employees goes beyond content amplification. Find your needs and employee’s passion points.

• Leadership is critical for adoption. Plus, leverage leaders to reward & recognize.

• Define employee roles and how you will activate employees.

• Ultimate goal is to authentically deepen customer relationships and be a better business.

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Employee Manifesto: Gautam Ghosh

http://www.gautamblogs.com/2010/05/social-business-employee-manifesto.html?m=1

Using Brand Advocates (Employees) for Influence

Technology

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