This week’s Big Marketing Minute is about the importance of getting your team members involved in sharing your content. Employee advocacy needs to be a part of your content strategy. We have seen larger reach for small business accounts, even with just one or two people from inside the company doing a simple share on their personal social media accounts. And that kind of reach leads to more leads.
The sales team should see social as a tool they use to get in front of more people, providing more leads for them to nurture and turn into sales. This doesn’t necessarily mean they need to share every single post the company puts out, but to thread it into their own content just makes sense. But you might be surprised how often team members – even salespeople, are hesitant to share company content. They don’t want to blur the lines between personal and professional.
I’m going to ask them to simply get over that.
So much of our life is spent at work. While what you do is not necessarily who you are, it is a big part of it. And as I say to clients all the time – this is no time to be humble. If you are good at your job, if you believe in what your company is doing, why wouldn’t you want to tell the world about it? ESPECIALLY those in sales – because sharing news about your business with your friends can bring in more leads from people who can genuinely use your product or service and maybe had no idea what you do all day everyday.
Below are some strategies we’ve used to get more people on a team engaged in sharing the social content we publish on their behalf. We encourage you to use these tips:
- All employees should be following all social media channels your company uses;
- If LinkedIn is in play for your company, all employees should make sure their profile lists their position with the company and that it properly tags back to the company page;
- A couple of times a week, each team member should check the pages, and if something resonates with them – share it with a quick comment that tells your community why you are sharing this with them. Maybe your company just finished a big project and the whole team is really proud of it. Share it! Maybe one of your colleagues just retired and you’re going to miss them. Share it! Maybe your company is rolling out a new product or service and you think it’s going to make a big difference for a lot of people. Why wouldn’t you share it?
For business owners/marketing directors, sometimes an extra push is what’s needed to get people on board. Some of the tactics we’ve used before include:
- A contest – each time someone shares a post that week, they are entered into a drawing. Then at the weekly sales meeting, one person wins a gift card to a local coffee shop. There does take some logistical organization on this one (we’ve had people email a screenshot in to a designated email address to make sure we catch them all);
- Ask team members to contribute content! Especially if your company does any kind of “out in the field” work. We have several clients in the world of construction/home beautifying. It would be impossible to capture “in-the-moment” content as an outsourced team, so we do rely on those at the projects to send in things they see. We’ve created contests over this as well.
These are the first steps to take to start getting your team used to being involved in your company’s social activity. Don’t miss this step! You’ll see a difference in reach right away.
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