We all have a problem with our corporate social media presences
Justifying costs related to maintaining and investing in corporate social media presences is getting harder and harder.
Organic engagement from followers are at an all time low, and it`s a never ending struggle to keep up with creating new content, and adopt new formats.
Outcome from the efforts are mostly not even near corresponding to the overall time and money spent.
Added to above we are experiencing a “de-follower wave”, where social media users are more likely than ever to de-follow if content is not relevant.
Your corporate presences on social media is about relationships – not the medium
Consider this;
- Is a follower a business relation ?
- When someone likes our content – who creates a relationship with her/him ?
- Whats the dialogue rate with followers/visitors of our presences ?If all your followers were gone tomorrow – how many business relations would you be left with ?
- We have aligned our strategy on SoMe, almost entirely on the mediums premises – whether it`s our frequency of content, formats and how we measure.
- It`s actually becoming quite hard to distinct one corporate presence from the other..
- Why not get back to the core of social media ?
Basically all social media started out based on peer-to-peer interaction – and building relationships. This seems to have gotten “lost in translation”, while it should have been the overall goal of our corporate presences.
Re-booting your corporate social media presences to be about creating relations and dialogue with existing/potential customers and attract future talent & candidates – more than counting followers and likes – is`nt as hard as you would think.
Leverage whats all ready there
However the engagement is low, we still have followers just waiting to hear from us, but we need to engage with them “in person” rather than using our existing “spray and pray” strategy.
Luckily we have our “relationship makers” right at our finger tips; Our employees.
They know our business, they actually turn up every morning and deal with our products and services, our customers and experience our brand first handedly.
They have vast professional networks where many potential customers and talents reside.
They can play a big part in helping our company map, claim and own actual business relations.
Embracing the advantage
Now, you can continue to “spray & pray” – and pay! – to get your slice of attention, but I predict that going with that, won`t cut it.
In stead, why not embrace the advantage in quickly being able to mobilize all employees by rolling out an employee advocacy program, engaging them in creating and nurturing your existing and future business relations ?
On our future social media strategy – and especially on our corporate presences – It`s about asking yourself;
Do we want to let our brand and business relations ownership be entirely on the mediums premises ?
Or, do we actively want to base it on our strategy, our goals & measurements – and our people ?
Experiment with confidence
Employee advocacy programs have all ready proven to support corporate social media presences with increased engagement, reach and brand awareness.
Companies that commenced early with engaging employees, are now much less depending on the specific medium – and much more aligned with their business strategy and goals.
They have – and are – capitalizing on access to valuable professional networks and business relations, and a highly engaged workforce carrying their brand with confidence enabling them to build and sustain business relations.
Final considerations
Would our existing/potential customers, future talents & candidates et al, want more content from our corporate channels ?
Or, would they prefer to build relations with us peer-to-peer ?
Or in other words – do they want to talk to our logo or our people ?