You employees can be your biggest brand assets, your social brand ambassadors. 8 case studies from Cisco on how we leverage our employees in social media and why.

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Your Employees As
Your Brand Assets:
Activate, Nurture and Treasure
Petra Neiger, Global Digital & Social Media Marketing
@petra1400
Updated: 09/18/13

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82% of employees say they
trust a company more when the
CEO and leadership team
communicate via social media
41% of people believe
conversations with company
employees to be the most
credible specialist sources of
information
Sources: eMarketer,
Michael Brito/Edelman

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2) Humanize Your Brand1) Scale Business through Social Media
3) Drive Amplification and WOM 4) Resolve Issues and Answer Questions
Executive blog triggers sharing and conversations. Executive
participates in conversations – unscripted
Cisco Support Community resolves 1M+ cases annually
online due to member contributions
Employees drive 33% of total brand campaign reach
The
“Discoverer”
The
“Closer”
SME 1 discovers negative comment in influential LinkedIn
group, partners with Social Media team to route concern to
SME 2 who follows up with commenter
Happy
Commenter
Angry
Commenter

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On-going activations
On-going social media training & certification
Program-specific activations

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Includes first –degree employee tweets,
excludes employee RTs
33% of total reach driven by employees

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Executive blog triggers sharing and conversations in social
web. Executive participates in conversations – unscripted.

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Employee-generated, brand-related graphics tell a different side of the #IoE story

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Executive
“Mentee”
SME
“Mentor”
• Learn new skills in a
safe environment
• Understand business
case for social media
• Understand social
business requirements
• Connect with an
executive
• Build business case
for social media
• Highlight social
business requirements
How can you help executives
build social media literacy?
Executive mentoring as part of
your training program:

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Cisco Champion

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• Interactive and sharable asset triggers
conversation:
• Take online quiz (“What is your
data footprint?”)
• Create and share customized
infographic
• Illustrates personal data usage and
business impact of individual’s
technology habits
• Employees’ social activities contributed
to over 26% of total social reach
related to the #DatainMotion careabout
(total social reach = 5.7M)
Social Reach: 5.7M*
1.5M from Employees
*over a 4-week time period (3/4 – 3/29)

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People “put a surprising amount of trust and credibility in employees
of companies”. “41% of people believe conversations with company employees to
be the most credible specialist sources of information.”
Source: Michael Brito, Edelman Digital, Smart Business, Social Business
• SME 1 discovers negative comment in influential LinkedIn group
• Alerts appropriate people triggering escalation process
• SME 2 connects with commenter within a few hours
SME 1: “The Discoverer” SME 2: “The Closer”
Social Media
Team
Collaboration
LinkedIn

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• Social Ambassador activities:
Responds to questions
Creates buzz around Cisco social
channel posts and updates
Defends Cisco by replying to others’
negative comments about Cisco
• SA voluntarily engages on
Cisco-related social channels
for personal/professional growth
• Results:
Establishes Cisco as a thought leader
Increases positive sentiment about the
brand

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• Social Ambassadors engage
with members on the
“Networking” discussion forum
• SAs locate questions and
requests for product advice
• Ambassadors respond by
recommending appropriate
Cisco products to meet the
individual’s needs
• Individuals express gratitude
ultimately augmenting positive
sentiment towards Cisco

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• Ambassador Activities:
• Actively monitors discussions
• Posts relevant articles, event
invites, industry news and trends
• Initiates fun, interactive
conversations with “Question of the
Week”
• Results:
• Increased group members by over 58% to
20K+ in the last 12 months
• Progressed from 12th to 5th largest
LinkedIn Group for Cisco-related topics
• Added 2 subgroups targeting Brazil and
LATAM
• Ultimately established herself as a
“trusted Cisco voice”
LinkedIn

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• SA actively listens and monitors Cisco Spiceworks Group
• Detects numerous unresolved group discussions within a few days of beginning
Spiceworks Ambassador efforts
• Responds to members’ questions and issues in a timely and relevant manner resulting in
positive member feedback and appreciation
“Can’t access my work
group through the Cisco
E3000 router.”
“Can you please check
if the solution at the
below link works?”
Spiceworks

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CLC team
clc-core@cisco.com
Spiceworks members promote
illegal method of acquiring
Cisco software
Legal Team responds
appropriately to group
members
Posts
Listens
Social Ambassador Case Resolution Process
Cisco Social
Ambassador (SA)
Social Ambassador
Program team
Cisco Legal Team
SA routes issue
Spiceworks

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• Showcasing the possibilities
with Cisco technologies
through authentic, human
voices
• Created healthy internal
competition within Cisco social
community
• Drove WOM and increased
reach

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Live Blogging
Video
Interviewing
Live Tweeting
Fielding Questions
& Responding

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Organic channel voice increased 28% in the share of all Cisco
mentions on Weibo (Feb 2012)
41%
26%
13%
59%
74%
87%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Sep-Nov Feb Mar
Owned Channel Voice
Share of
Mentions
Voice breakdown
Trend by channel,
Mar 2012
19%
8%
80%
91%
1%
1%
0% 50% 100%
Sep-
Nov
Mar Positive
Neutral
Own channel voice
comparison
13%
17%
85%
82%
2%
1%
0% 50% 100%
Sep-Nov
Mar Positive
Neutral
Organic voice
comparison

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Roadshow Polling to Collect
Feedback
Architecture Roadshow Preferred Cloud Topic Polling to
collect customer , partner , and social audience
feedback
Participants:536
Retweeted:413
Comments:89
(Link)
176
tweets
Super Bowl LED
Screen
The biggest LED screen at Super
Bowl stadium was supported by
Cisco drew a lot netizens’ attention
and discussion on weibo, Cisco’s
high-tech image was popularized
and admired through the
promotion, also received the good
suggestions from brand fans. (link)
159
tweets
Cisco Recruitment
Tips
Cisco launched an online
consultation for giving suggestions
to students who want to work at
Cisco. The campaign continually
drives the interaction between
netizens and official account. (link)

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Employees Learn New Skills
Provide personal/professional development opportunities
Business Scales Social Media
Multiply the impact of your efforts
Employees Add An Authentic, Human Voice
“41% of people believe conversations with company employees to be
the most credible specialist sources of information.” (Michael
Brito, Edelman)
Employee Sharing Can Build Loyalty to Company
“Employee sharing can influence your employees to love your company
more” (Social Media Today)
We’re Social by Nature
… why not do it online, too?