Social Media - Managing The Corporate Brand Via Team Performance

tt Your Guide to Social Media Success© Managing The Corporate Brand via Team Performance The New Brand Molecule

Paul Stillmank President & CEO, 7Summits 7SummitsAgency.com @7SummitsAgency Hello

Paul Stillmank President & CEO, 7Summits This presentation has been modified to include the speaker’s notes as text on each slide.

Social Context Evolution June, 1999: Harvard Business Review introduced a concept called The Brand Molecule Harvard Business Review, (June), 125-133. Urde, M. (1999). Focus was brands, sub-brands, and related brands. Companies were trying to understand the perceived relationships, proximity and positioning among these brands in the market place in an effort to better market to their target audience.. This was a very technical way of looking at companies trying to understand, manage and control their brands. Then

Social Context Evolution The cover of that article pictured a molecule (the brand), being built by people standing on the particles that make it up. The reference focused on how they “see” your brand. Then

Social Context Evolution Never was a graphic more prophetic – as now it truly is people that are building, modifying and transposing brands based on their own personal perceptions and experience. Then

Social Context Evolution Traditional brand models focused on shouting with little peer to peer influence. Sure, customer’s talked to each other – word of mouth is age old. However the Company and its Marketing department created the message that dominated the media… Then

Social Context Evolution Customers are more connected through social networks where they can relate to like-minded peers. Key Opinion Leaders emerge as a Social influence. Employees are out there doing their thing!
That’s changed now.
Social media has connected consumers with like-minded peers like never before.
We are hyper-connected.
Key Opinion Leaders have emerged with a bigger voice…as have Customer Advocates.
This has lead to new categories like Social Influence Marketing and Customer Advocacy Programs as companies jockey to take advantage of these newer, connected media.
Now

Social Context Evolution Customers are more connected through social networks where they can relate to like-minded peers. Key Opinion Leaders emerge as a Social influence. Employees are out there doing their thing!
The other big change, and the one we are here to talk about, is how your employees feature in this evolution of marketing and brands:
They are also “out there” – on Facebook, on Twitter, commenting on blogs, posting status on LinkedIn.
And their profiles on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on MySpace, on Bebo, and more – they may all carry your brand (their workplace).
Employees represent your brand , influence its perception, – whether you know it, whether you like it or not!
Now

Social Context Evolution Corporations respond by adding social context inside the enterprise and connecting that knowledge outside as well.
Companies have begun to embrace this as well:
By connecting partners, customers, and customer service to provide better support.
By supporting key opinion leaders in their causes; altruistic for sure, but also in hopes of garnering some of their social influence to their brand, their product, their service.
All of this has an impact on the Customer Perception:
A Company’s brand influences and is influenced by the relationships it has with key stakeholders. There are many organizational entities (and employees) involved in supporting those relationships
So when we talk about “Managing The Corporate Brand via Team Performance”, we are talking about this newer idea of Social Influence.
Next

Social Context Evolution The result is employees becoming empowered like never before. Never has it been more important than now to have high performing teams; engaged employees – employees that understand how to behave in these conversations so that they become additive and not a detractor. The key point is that how your team behaves externally is predicated on how they perform / behave inside your organization . And that is something that you can influence and support. Next

Your internal teams affect every phase of this socially integrated model:
Awareness  driving more impressions to your brands, products and services. Each is a potential brand ambassador.
Relevancy  influencing conversion through user (employee) generated content, tagging, rating, commenting
Involvement  promoting and maintaining contact through solution teams, online chat, and more.
Ongoing Engagement  building brand-entered community with active participation.
The Social Context has permeated this spectrum and employees can and do have an effect on this model.

Managing the corporate brand via team performance
First, change must come from within.
Employees are talking about our brands, products and services everyday online. They need to be engaged in that brand experience internally in a way that lends itself to getting the messaging right when they engage externally .

High performing teams sharing their excitement about their company, their work, and their brand create excitement and share an inside look at a company.
This is a force multiplier for large companies that get this right – leveraging the power of user generated content from internal brand ambassadors .

So how is this approached from the inside? How can a company light the spark and energize employees to this level and benefit?
Alignment! Embrace social as part of your internal culture as well. One sure-fire way to get on this path is to embrace social as part of your internal culture as well. Community is the new collaboration. So we need to get after that: people collaborating at work the same way that they do at home/online makes it easier to promote the behaviors inside our organizations that we want to see when the workday ends.

This style of internal collaboration and communication creates brand alignment, boosting employee productivity and therefore satisfaction.
Engaged, satisfied employees become brand ambassadors. Hopefully this is hitting home. This greater level of understanding and engagement with brands, products and services inside the enterprise reflects on both the style and level of engagement when employees represent your brand outside of work.

It’s more important than ever to launch internal brand communication initiatives so that employees understand and can articulate your brand attributes when communicating online.
Many companies have designed programs that completely engage their teams in the brand and its key elements. This often includes relating brand attributes to their specific work area or job, arming them for communications inside and outside the enterprise. Internal branding efforts like these prepare employees to present a credible, compelling, and differentiating story about your organization, products and services  an essential i ngredient that goes well beyond Social Media Guidelines.

This helps us to make the leap from controlling the message, summarizing cautions, and providing guidelines to creating an entire workforce of brand ambassadors that are active online.

Marketing and Human Resources need to work together to make sure that brand is clearly aligned with vision, mission, and values.
Recruit for success. Hire candidates that can support your brand. Ask specific questions during the interview process to determine whether a candidate “gets it” and can represent your brand online in the fashion that you want them to. This also tells the candidate something about your company  brand is important and the discussion starts at the earliest point in the process.
Corporate communications needs to keep brand attributes in the forefront until they are instinctive / natural:
Create brand alignment exercises for individual groups and departments.
Share brand alignment stories to help reinforce.
Add a communication program surrounding brands, applied brand attributes, and products/services.
Let’s Get Tactical!

Create your own internal community for gathering and disseminating market information to employees – knowledge is power.
Create a centralized location / community on your site that allows them to communicate internally and externally. This adds fresh content and provides a centrally located set of examples for others to follow.
Create dedicated internal communities:
Foster understanding of brands, products and services
Sub-communities created by the community
Make part of employee on-boarding
Create a roadmap for the future
http://www.slideshare.net/7Summits/applied-social-media-for-a-social-business
Let’s Get Strategic!

Where to Begin?
Cultural
Balancing point between self-direction and top-down mandates
Organizational attitudes about transparency
Social Business Planning
Types of social media already being used in your organization – for what purpose and by whom.
Types of problems being solved or desired to be solved
Success profile for problems being solved. Impact of those successes.
Social Business Policy status and impacts of policy breach.
Content organization: topical, hierarchical(by division, group, unit); roles & responsibilities.
Social Business Models
Communities of Practice versus decentralized social community
Accommodating discovery of people through content, content through people, content through content, and people through people.
Reward, recognition and recommendations
Assess Where You Are Today – Then Formulate a Plan

Our Approach – Example Assessment Areas - Continued
Community Launch Activities
Launch strategies to drive traffic, participation, and creation (rewards, competitions, forcing through changed processes, individual and team performance measures, events, etc.)
Moderation and reporting strategies
Identifying internal champions and key influencers – before launch and on an ongoing basis
Other corporate initiatives that enterprise community is coupled to – additive and detractive
Community Management
Member management policies and enforcement
Role of senior leadership in contributing to community
Marketing of successes and the growing value of community affected content
Promotion of new content, new members, new groups and new topics
Leveraging of Web 2.0 effects to accelerate community ease-of-use
Assess Where You Are Today – Then Formulate a Plan

identify themselves and the capacity in which they are participating
be selective about who they allow into their network
Treat colleagues, customers and competitors alike with courtesy and respect
be factual and participate where they actually know what they’re talking about
be genuine, be themselves, and talk in the first person
give appropriate recognition – respect copyrights and fair use guidelines
know how to handle and route customer complaints
know when NOT to engage in conversation
use forum etiquette
remember that if it’s online, then it’s discoverable
state when it’s their personal opinion
focus on areas where they have valuable knowledge to share
Realize that participation in social computing on behalf of your company is an opportunity
What about those guidelines? Managing the corporate brand via team performance Well-written Social Media Guidelines steer employees to: Social Media Guidelines do not create brand stewards – they enable your employees to be brand stewards (policy, communications, training, engagement)

There are many laws and SEC regulations that govern what, how and when companies can disclose information that may affect the financial markets
The FTC now requires a company to disclose its material connection to employees posting messages or blogging with they are “off duty”.
A well written policy should guide employees to refer inquiries on such topics – from any source – to the appropriate company communications department
Managing the corporate brand via team performance Furthermore….a few cautions

Paulie’s Picks: a list of public domain best practice documents on Social Media Guidelines
Mashable’s “10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy”
http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-policy-musts/
Intel Social Media Guidelines
http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_us/social-media.htm
IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines
http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html
Sun Microsystems’ Social Media Guidelines
http://www.sun.com/communities/guidelines.jsp
Mashable’s “Presenting: 10 of the Smartest Big Brands in Social Media”
http://mashable.com/2009/02/06/social-media-smartest-brands/

So get out there! Get your employees engaged to build your brand molecule…they are already influencing how your customers view your brand. Managing the corporate brand via team performance
Closing Remarks
Understand your customer, draw together relevant content and serve it up inside the organization first!
This type of “ internal listening” affects how you participate and react externally – strengthening brand perception. Apply social listening tools to understand customer perception, find relevant groundswells and apply them to serve your customers better.
Exploit the social context inside the enterprise to make difficult jobs more easy and to connect customers with each other to do everything from solve problems to ideate new products.
That’s how you can gain alignment and momentum between corporate and personal brands!

In the Vast Expanse of Newly Evolving Social Media, What Should You Focus on First ? Your Guide to Social Media Success ©

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Social Media - Managing The Corporate Brand Via Team Performance

by 7Summits on Mar 07, 2010

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Social Media - Managing The Corporate Brand Via Team Performance Presentation Transcript