Cultivating Employee Evangelists

#SMSsummit

Sarah Finley, co-founder@sarahfinleyFebruary 6, 2014

Why you should be thinking about Employee Evangelists

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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 trusted more than Chief Executive

(Edelman Trust Barometer, ‘14)

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?

#SMSsummit

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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 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 and scale employee advocates to build long term relationships with prospects and customers.

Who is leading the charge

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Companies powering 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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• Employees have 10x more followers vs. corporate account

• Only 2% of the audience overlaps with corporate account• Employees share 29% more URLs about the company vs.

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

employees is 24 times that of corporate

Case study: Cisco

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

Case study: Intel

• Smart Squad Tablet program: identified internal and external influencers and seeded Intel based Tablets

• Comprehensive training across program, product and social

• Leveraged tools to aggregate, distribute and share content

• Results: • Earned 7M Twitter impressions• Advocates created 1,843 pieces of original content• Competitor purchased advertising against #IntelTablets

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Source: http://pt.slideshare.net/SocialChorusU/socialchorus-university-intel-inside-out-learn-how-influencers-create-social-roi-for-intel

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The 80’s called… they want their store back.

• RadioShack created Inner Circle, for both Employees & Influencers

• Mobile app allows for easy sharing of content, deals• Leaderboards track activity, points

Employee advocacy is more than just sharing

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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

Curating Content

Thank You

Social Development

Events

Employee Training

Recruiting

internal external

Listening

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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 in their

industry

NBRI Identified 6 Traits of Engaged Employees:

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

Additional benefits: engaged & result-driven employees

How do you know when you’re ready to activate your employees

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

Employee Activation Maturity Assessment

Competency

Maturity RatingsStage 1:

HierarchyStage 2:

EmergentStage 3:

SynergisticEmployees 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

Policies & Governance

No Guidelines Restrictive Inclusive

Training No Training Ad hoc Formal Program

Metrics & Measurement

Anecdotal Activity Tracking Behaviors & Outcomes

Tools & Technology Consumer tools used by individuals

Mix of consumer tools & enteprise tools

Social Functionality is integrated throughout

Leadership Command & Control Consensus Collaborative

Inspired by Community Roundtable Community Management Maturity Assessment.

Policies, governance & training are critical elements for successful employee advocacy

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Policies & Governance• Yes, social policy is a must…• More importantly, you need to define employee

advocate roles

Roles Employees May Play Advocate

Social Media Usage Employees use personal social media accounts and will on occasion share relevant news about the company

Roles within Organization Sales, Marketing, HR, PR

Training Requirements Social media policy, FTC disclosure requirements (bios, handles) and engagement rules

Disclosure Requirements "I work for ____ and this is my personal opinion"

Social Media Bios Requirements Opinions = My Own or My tweets are my own

Social Media Handle Examples Twitter: @SarahFinley

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• Adobe provides social media training to build employee social media fluency through awareness, empowerment and excellence

o 30% of workforce have already received social media training

o 3rd highest tech brand for employee activity on Twitter, #1 in percentage of employees on Twitter*

o Social Shift: formal training program for all employees & new hires starting 2014

Case study: Adobe

*Brand listed in employee Twitter bio; Source: SociaLook Leaderboard

“Social Shift exemplifies the way we are building customer relationships. The way we talk to them, support them, sell to them- every way we do business is shifting.”

New hire video

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• Launched Social Media Ninja program in 2010 to improve Sprint's reputation • Open to all employees• A few of the rules:

• Don’t speculate• Don’t talk about what you don’t know• Don’t promise anything you can’t deliver• Don’t talk about something that has not been announced• Don’t participate in controversy

• Sprint went from Worst to First in customer satisfaction (2008-2012)

Case study: Sprint

How do you measure success

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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

Metrics & Measurement: Dell Case Study

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Dell Super Bowl ad

• Dell launched 2013 Super Bowl 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/

How to use technology to scale your program

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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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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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• Establish clear business objectives • Obtain executive buy-in and support• Clearly define KPIs to measure success• Start small:

• Prioritize key teams to drive awareness & adoption• Pilot with those key employees to co-create the program

• Implement learnings from pilot for larger scale roll-out• Drive excitement and empowerment and reward the rock

stars

To get started…

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• Thank You

Additional questions:

www.getSASI.com

@getSASI

@sarahfinley

linkedin.com/finleysarah

sarah@getSASI.com