Réseaux Sociaux

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« LinkedIn? Twitter? Oh, no worries, we have a kid on our team who’s a real social media  pro! He’ll teach us his secrets! We don’t need a real trainer! »

As an estimated three-quarters of consumers say that social media influences their buying decisions*, companies are realizing that they simply don’t have the in-house social media skills needed to get the full benefit from their social media presence.

In order to bridge this skill gap, many companies are opting for “Do it yourself” internal training. As they often try to cut costs, they’re asking employees who they consider to be “social media savvy” to help get the others on board during internal company events such as morning meetings, annual conventions, and learning lunches. However, they soon realize that these one shot events don’t produce results and don’t always help to unlock missed business opportunities and lost revenue on social media.

So you’re probably wondering what is behind this?

Well, with 15,098 LinkedIn members claiming to have “corporate social media skills,” * amongst other factors, it’s easy to understand how business leaders are often misled.

So what does it take to organize a results driven social media education program and what are the pitfalls to avoid ??

Pitfall # 1: Asking employees who are « really good » at using social media…

We hear this in companies everyday: when we ask them to define « really good »,  they’re not able to give a clear answer. Our experience has showed us that many companies define “really good” as “already using social media and being comfortable with the technical aspects.”

→ Just because someone is already using social media, it doesn’t mean that they will be able to transfer their practices to their colleagues.

Pitfall # 2: Asking employees who have had no formal training background…

→ Understanding and using social media doesn’t necessarily make someone an experienced trainer who can handle different skill levels, generational issues, social media pushback and doubts, questions, etc..

Pitfall # 3: Asking millennials who don’t necessarily have the required business, market, or sector maturity…

→ Corporate social media education is strongly based on corporate social media strategy, which is linked to pure business strategy.

While millennials are obviously digital natives, not all of them possess the business knowledge and on the ground experience required help their older colleagues understand the business benefits of social media. Plus, seasoned business professionals might not take them seriously, thus possibly derailing your social media education program !

An example of this is a software multinational putting a twenty-something in charge of evangelizing Social Selling internally. While this person might be very digitally savvy, they have no sales experience and have been poorly received by internal sales teams. ☹

Pitfall # 4: Not getting their social media activities and skills validated by a social media training professional…

→ These « social media champions », what do their social media activities actually consist of? And how are they conducting themselves on social media? Before assigning this task to them, it might be a good idea to have them checked out by a social media training professional in order to make sure that your colleagues will be in good hands and avoid any future social media blunders!

Pitfall # 5: Not sharing the corporate social media strategy and vision with them…

→ If these corporate “social media gurus” don’t have any knowledge of the company social vision, this is dangerous as they’ll be passing on incorrect social media strategy to the others!  :-0

Pitfall # 6: Not having an accurate « job description » for the internal social media « trainer » role..

→ If you don’t have a reliable system of measuring social media skill expertise, how will you know if you’re asking the right people to « train » the others? Do these so-called social media gurus have objectives and are they getting results?  If they have no strategy and structure, they’re probably not getting results!

Pitfall # 7: Not having clear goals and social media skill integration KPI’s

→ Once again, just because employees know how to use social media, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have methods to measure social media ROI or even social media skill integration!

So, in short, this DIY method for building a corporate social media education program might seem like a good idea at first, but it might be better to take a more serious look at this. If you’re expecting results and change, you might want to consider training your internal social media champions…

Need some help setting up your corporate social media education program and training your internal champions/ambassadors ?  The Smartworking team can help you!  

*Source: Hootsuite
**Source: LinkedIn

Social Selling

Introducing digital

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While many of your colleagues and clients are off on vacation or on ‘’summer mode », those in the office are thinking about using this calmer time productively in order to prepare for the rest of the year, complete unfinished projects, and get ahead on others.
Amongst the items on your unfinished and/or get ahead list, you might find social media.

Summer is the perfect time to work on your social media projects. As many people are off enjoying  digital detox, they’ll be checking in much less or even not at all. So why not take advantage of this slow down and buff up your social media profiles and strategy.
You’re probably thinking, « ok, good idea, but where do I start? »

Here are 3 major areas that you can start working on!

1/ Clean up !
When was the last time you had a look at your :

– invitations list : just take a quick look at each person’s profile- are they of interest to you? Have you understood the synergy you might have with them? Have you worked with them? If you decide not to accept, then don’t worry, they won’t receive an alert about this!

Remember, now is a great time to clean up your invitations list. Once the fall comes, it will quickly fill up again and you might risk losing that all important invitation because it will be swamped by the ones you should have cleaned out!

– connections list on LinkedIn and/or your following list on Twitter? Your company strategy might have changed or been slightly refreshed since the last time you worked on these things. So why not think about your strategy, objectives, partners, clients, etc for the upcoming months and :

• adjust accordingly (no, people on LinkedIn and Twitter will not receive a notification that you have removed them !)

• reach out to those you haven’t been in touch with for a long time (while you may not get an answer right away, some people do stay in touch over the summer months, so you might just be surprised !)

2/ Plan ahead!

When was the last time you had a look at your summary on LinkedIn and/or your bio on Twitter? And what about your editorial strategy? Have you thought about the upcoming events and messages you’d like to communicate?

• if your company doesn’t have a social media strategy and specific guidelines to follow, then have a look at your company website, LinkedIn corporate page or Twitter account. These pages are great  places to check for content and message inspiration for your  own profile.

• coming back to your strategy, clients, prospects, market, sector, etc.  Do your social media profiles reflect your upcoming strategy for the fall? Think about how you can tweak them in order to send out the right messages! Or, even better, have a chat with your sales, marketing, digital, and/or communications teams (see below).

3/ Team up!
Social media success is attained through collaboration. You can increase the linkage from your profile to company presence via content, strategy, links, contacts, etc. By doing this, you’ll not only get a digital boost from your colleagues, which will bring you more visibility, but it will also help you to achieve your performance goals…. So how can you infuse more collaboration into your social media profiles?

• check in with your marketing, communication, and sales teams. What is the social media strategy for the fall? Have they shared it with other departments? Summer is a great time to plan informal coffee meetings with them. People tend to be more relaxed and will be happy to share with you what they’re working on!
• and what about your own team? When was the last time you had a look at their LinkedIn and Twitter profiles? You might just be surprised to find some early adopters working right alongside you! Have a look at your team’s profiles and activities. They could be a great quick-win business case to show to your management if you’re trying to get ahead in the fall on your social media strategy, digital budget, etc.
• and, finally, don’t forget to pop in and say hello to the boss ! And why not schedule a time to talk about social media with them.

Summer time is social time ☺

Need some social media help this summer? Plan ahead and team up with Smartworking!

Social Selling

Introducing digital