A businesses biggest asset are its people.

Managing Director, Board of Directors, Heads of Department, Customer Service Staff, All staff.

I know that. You Know that. We all know that. There’s probably motivational signs around your business stating “There’s No I in Team” or “We’re All In It Together” or “One Big Family”

On social media it’s different – a business’s biggest assets are ignored in favour of 1 person in 1 department of which social media is but a small part of their job.

With 83% of the UK population using social media, it’s time for businesses to take social media as seriously as traditional media.

Here are the key stakeholders in businesses and how they can use social media for good.

MANAGING DIRECTOR / CEO / OWNER

You must lead from the top

You can’t expect for the rest of the business to take social media seriously, if the very person leading the business is not active on social media and if often heard grumbling about “how social media is a waste of time” and it’s “Just people posting about what they had for breakfast”

If you’re reading this and you work in a business where the MD does this you know how frustrating it is to get buy in from the whole of the organisation regards to social media

Take a look at Richard Branson and Lawrence Jones on Twitter to see how active they are on Social Media

Social Media and customer service are at the heart of what Virgin and UK Fast do and both go at lengths to engage and support others as well as talk about the culture in their organisation

That said you don’t have to be an organisation with thousands of staff – if you’re an MD or a Small Business it helps to understand social media even if to understand why certain strategies are being developed

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Social Media filters through every area of the organisation

Not just marketing. But finance, HR and sales departments

Having that base level understanding of Social Media at board level make for dynamic decision making

No longer is a marketing department held to red tape and bureaucracy to push through every campaign or innovative marketing idea

Because the board understand the nuances of social media, and believe me there are many nuances, it allows for a freely moving organisation that can push the buttons

Look at the Social Media accounts for Innocent Smoothies and BBC3 and you’ll understand the organisation truly gets social media from a board level and allows the marketing department to have a large degree of freedom

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT

Heads of department are perfect partners for the marketing department

They get to hear those human stories that fly so well on social media

Storytelling is at the heart of great social media and you need those heads of department to feed those stories and photos through to the marketing department

Without them the social media can often appear cold and commercial

Business owners often say to me “I don’t know what to post about on social media” and my response if often “Are you tell me no one in your organisation has told you a story or an event that has happened in your business today”

Heads of department need to think like journalists and editors and be able to spot a good story and encourage their team to do the same

CUSTOMER FACING STAFF

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”

Oh and now it will end up on Social Media

Social Media makes things both easier and more difficult

In the old days if a customer had a bad customer experience they’d tell dozens of people at work / the pub and you wouldn’t know about it

Now if a customer has a bad customer experience they’ll tell hundreds or thousands of people about it on social media and you will know about it instantly

They key of course is to not have bad customer experiences and to have great customer experiences that they tell hundreds and thousands of people about on Social Media

The people at the front line need to understand they are in the social media age and this is the way the world works

How they interact with customers influences what happens on social media

ALL STAFF

A businesses biggest asset are its people

I said that at the beginning of the article

And it’s true

Buffer have reported that “Dell has over 10,000 employees who have gone through an internal social media certification program and are trained to support the company’s objectives in social media”

If you’re relying on employees or your network to spread your companies message it’s important they understand social media to a level they feel confident with

One of the biggest barriers to social sharing if people are scared of saying the wrong thing on social media or simply not knowing how to use the platforms

When you defined your ambassadors earlier it’s worth remembering that your best employees with a little training could become your best social media ambassadors over time

You might not be Dell, you might just have 10 employees. But those 10 employees spreading the word about the company will often reach more people than the company page can

NEED HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA?
Chat to us about Social Media Marketing for YOUR organisation , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation

We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you

Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services

Or

Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Alex

Alex McCann is owner of Altrincham HQ – a social media management and training company based in Altrincham, Cheshire that has worked with 100s of local business developing their social media strategy. Alex has 500+ LinkedIn testimonials and is Ranked Number 1 for Social Media Marketing in the UK via independent customer reviews on Freeindex.