With so many companies who are recognizing the power of inside out communications — leveraging employees as external brand advocates — this is fantastic post by Michael Brito, Edelman Digital, explains how to balance personal brand with a corporate brand. This is a definite read if you are someone who participates in a social media ambassador program or if you are a company that has launched or is exploring the possibility of one.
Original post: Managing The Conflict Between A Personal Brand And A Corporate Brand, Britopian
Everyone has a brand whether they like it or not. I am not talking about the clothes you wear or the car you drive either; that’s definitely part of it. The brand I am talking about is your attitude, how you carry yourself and the perception that others have about you; not that you have of yourself. Do you have a mediocre brand or one that is stellar and stands out from the crowd? Whatever the case, your personal brand is a direct reflection on the company you work for; especially with this new dynamic called the social web.
Some may say that there is no conflict, but I beg to differ. I have worked for some really large brands and over time built up my own personal brand because of it. There is always a potential conflict but there is also a way to manage it effectively.
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I recently discussed the value of creating a social media program to a group of individuals looking to create an ambassador program for their company. The discussion focused on how to build enthusiasm as well as recommendations on how to implement. Below is what we discussed. Enjoy!
From a corporate perspective, launching a social media ambassador program means you are recognizing that not only your consumers, but also your employees drive and influence conversations – or stories — and are wanting to tap into those conversations. The beauty of social media is that it’s an ongoing dialogue not necessarily between you and one other person, but between any and all of your social network connections. And that’s just it… recognizing that if you are already someone who has a social network profile, then you are someone that can easily be an extension of the corporate brand… a social media enthusiast or ambassador, if you will.
But, in order to do this, there are several key discussion points that should be in your social media ambassador toolkit:
1. Build Enthusiasm for Your Program — You will be asking your social media ambassadors to actively participate at least 20 minutes a day… on their own time (or whatever time frame you decide). So get them excited about doing it. Select participants who have a genuine appreciation and understanding of social media. Don’t forget to launch your program with a welcome letter that describes the program’s overall goals and objectives, defines their roles and responsibilities, the vision of the company, and how their participation contributes to meeting those goals.
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It’s raining social media. I LOVE it! And I absolutely love that small to large corporations have really started to see the value in social media. I’ve seen and been approached by many companies who are just on the verge of judiciously implementing the use of social technologies internally as well as externally as an extension of their marketing efforts, to raise brand awareness, and to engage employees.
Setting enthusiasm aside, one of the things I’ve observed lately is that sometimes these social media efforts are disconnected from one another, and oftentimes one functional organization has little to no awareness of what other organizations are doing. I liken this observation to my many years as a Web developer in Corporate Communications, where we would come across “rogue” or grassroots Web site efforts that we would have to wrap into the corporate brand. I absolutely applaud anyone’s earnest efforts to take initiative and make change; however, it’s essential that these efforts be coordinated not only from a branding standpoint, but also legal and overall communications ones as well.
Staying Under the Umbrella Creates Social Synergy
Ever walked through the rain and had to share an umbrella with someone else? When applied to social media, that proximity creates what is one of my favorite phrases: social synergy. Social synergy — don’t know if it’s already been “claimed” but I will gladly do so here — is the harmonization of social media efforts so that technologies, strategies and methodologies can be cross-leveraged, cross-utilized and cross-communicated. Isn’t the whole essence of social media to not work in silos, but to leverage connections, anyway?
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This post is a continuation of my series on “How to Make Employees Social Media Ambassadors“. See further down for related links on using employees as social media ambassadors and employee engagement.
The other day, I was sitting at a restaurant bar (as I’m prone to do) and started a conversation with someone — yes, I know, I make for a captivating dinner companion — on how employees are a company’s most under-utilized asset for communicating its brand. However, as my fellow bar person pointed out, how do you have employees represent your brand if they don’t even know what it is … if they even care? So yes, before you can use your employees as brand ambassadors, you might want to not only make sure that they understand your brand, but that they actually embrace and support it — the values for which your brand stands and the services and solutions you provide.
So how do you launch a social media brand ambassador program if your ambassadors don’t know the brand?
Obviously, you don’t.
Whether or not you’re looking to launch a social media ambassador program, the key to success for any company who wants employees represent its brand is that they MUST not only appreciate and understand its value, but be able to also communicate it. And in order for them to understand it, you must effectively internalize it to them. Seems kind of logical, doesn’t it? Of course it is, but it seems to be a one of those things that are either: 1) assumed or 2) not executed effectively. So how do you educate, so that your employees can effectively communicate?
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So, as a company, you now recognize that a socially networked company makes for a more human workforce. So, what are the next steps to making employees social media ambassadors?
There really are two different approaches to empowering your employees as social media ambassadors. You can either give open access to your entire employee base or start with a “pilot group” of officially recognized ambassadors. I don’t know that either approach has more proven benefits over the other, but if you’re a conservative company like mine, you’ll go for the latter…. and here’s why:
- Allows you to embrace social media while still being cautious about how to fully deploy or manage it;
- Gives you time to further refine your social media guidelines with a small group of individuals who will eventually become leading examples to the rest of your employees; and,
- Provides the opportunity to measure your social media impact using the initial pilot as a control group.
Building a Social Media Ambassador Pilot Group
- Survey employees on social networking habits and interests. Determine what social networks your employees are using and ask them if they would be willing to use their personal brand / social networking profiles to serve as the company’s social media ambassadors.
- Lots of employees will say they are passionate about social media. But you will need to weed out those individuals who are just consumers of social media information versus the ones who are conversationalists in social media — those who create content and dialogue within their existing social networks.
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