Employer Brand and Consumer Brand. Why should there be a difference?

As usual Firebrand produce some interesting and informative articles. I really liked this one and wanted to share it with you. 

Gail Worthington-Eyre

Have you ever had a customer track you down via Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter to resolve a problem for them? What about a friend asking you for advice about a product that’s made by the brand you work for? If that’s happened to you, like it or not, that makes you a brand ambassador.

Social media has rewritten the rules for engaging with customers. No longer can you be a faceless organisation that only relies on a small PR team to “spin” news, a marketing team to craft promotional messages, a customer service hotline to answer customer complaints or the field sales force to deal with everything else. Almost all of your employees can be tracked down and identified either via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Forums. So what does this mean for your customer engagement plans?

 So what’s a “brand”

There are two options:

1. Hope customers won't ask questions via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and that your current customer service/marketing/PR/sales force will cope with the diverse demands placed on them. Clearly this is not realistic or smart.

2. Embrace social media, train up all employees and build a strong network of brand ambassadors.

What is a brand ambassador”? A brand ambassador is a passionate advocate of your products and company. They are someone, in any part of the organisation (from frontline staff to the CEO) who is proud to work there and to recommend your products to customers. There’s one other requirement that’s important: they must not be afraid of using social media to engage customers.

Here’s the 7-step guide on how you build a robust social media-enabled brand ambassador  program:

It all starts with a social media customer engagement policy. Here are 3 great examples from Intel, Coca-Cola, and Dell. Define who you want to approach as the first generation of brand ambassadors. Is it the marketing team? Customer service team? Sales force? Or perhaps employees from any part of  the organisation that are social media savvy? Ask for volunteers first, and then draft the right people as needed. Add customer/social engagement KPIs into each brand ambassador’s performance and importantly, make sure this is also a KPI of the executive team. If the CEO has these KPIs in his/her plan, then it will be clear organisational priority.

Training. This is important. The training program should cover the basics like media training (how to respond to external enquiries, what to say, what not to say, etc.), your company’s code of conduct, your policy on confidentiality and sharing information, as well as understanding social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, Forums, etc.). More advanced modules should focus on tone of voice, how to correctly identify yourself as a company employee, the blurred line between personal and professional social media, and so on.

Provide tiers of engagement. Not all brand ambassadors are equal. Consider providing more intense training for employees who are already customer-facing, or who have high profile roles (the CEO, Marketing Director, Sales Director, head of product design, etc.). Ensure you have strong links back to the rest of the organisation, such as HR (for job enquiries), Customer Care (for customer service issues) or Sales. For example, studies have shown that 47% of people want customer service through social media, so it’s important your brand ambassadors know how to respond to service-related issues. Once you’ve got it right with the brand ambassadors, consider rolling it out for all employees. Dell is doing it and already has over 10,000 employees trained. Not only does this reduce the risk of things going wrong with employees using social media, it’s also 10,000 brand ambassadors who are actively engaging customers! Finally, consider getting help. This isn’t easy otherwise all companies would be doing it. There are specialists in every city who understand this space and who you can outsource this whole process to.

 

Author Johan du Toit
Read all of Johan's Posts

 

Marketing Aged Care - Gail Worthington-Eyre: Social Media = Customer Service

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Social Media = Customer Service

Social Media = Customer Service

Late in 2012 over 100 social media statistics were released. As this exciting platform grows in use across all industries and as an add on to previous discussions on how the aged care Industry can leverage social media to connect with the consumer and grow brand loyalty I have extracted just a few of the over 100 statistics that were revealed. It is clear that social media = customer service and the challenge moving forward is to take the relevant data that exists and develop a strategy for how that fits within the industry.

Below are just 7 of the top 15 positive and negative statistics that were revealed along with a few extra interesting stats.

Social media accounts for only 16% of customer engagement today, but is expected to increase to 57%—the second-most used channel, behind only face to face interaction—within five years. (Marketing Pilgrim)

I hope you like the info and would be interested in your thoughts.

Seven Positive Social Media Statistics for 2012

1. 91% of online adults use social media regularly
2. 9/10 mobile searches lead to action (over half lead to purchase)
3. 54% of active social networkers follow a brand
4. 61% of global internet users research products online
5. Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors
6. 77% of B2C companies have acquired customers from Facebook
7. 83% of people who complained on Twitter loved the response from those
companies that did make the effort

Seven Negative Social Media Statistics For 2012

1. 25% of small to medium sized businesses have no strategy and only 28% measure their ROI
of social media activity
2. 83% of socially savvy consumers have walked away from a purchase in the past year after a
negative customer service experience
3. 56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored
4. On average companies only respond to 30% of social media fans’ feedback
5. 70% of brands ignore complaints on Twitter
6. 55% of companies ignore all customer feedback on Twitter and Facebook, largely because
they have no process in place to respond
7. Only 44% of customers are answered within the first 24 hours

60% of people who use three or more digital means of research for product purchases learned about a specific brand or retailer from a social networking site. 48% of these consumers responded to a retailer’s offer posted on Facebook or Twitter. (MediaPost)

Social media and blogs reach 80% of all U.S. Internet users. 91% of experienced social marketers see improved website traffic due to social media and 79% are generating more quality leads. (Business2Community)

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