Recognizing employees

The advent of Social Media has opened up a vast array for marketing,promotion and creating excellent P.O.M for anyone and everyone associated with it,whatever you want to promote or send out or market all you gotta do now is spread it like fire on Twitter,Facebook,Blogs etc. its as if you now have a huge trumpet to gather all the armies of Gondor ( yes i love Lord of the Rings), and thus you can promote your things almost anywhere and everywhere in the world,to whomever you want to… you are in complete control.

many a times within organizations,even in your own organization you might have felt the abundant you,and misuse of social media, and i am sure a few of your colleagues or even management might have heard from the IT administrators on the extensive use of it.

However wouldn’t it be great if you could use this for creating an atmosphere of appreciation and recognition for your employees. You can use social media as a acknowledgement tool for your employees along with it being a low-cost medium to show your support towards them.

here’s how :

• Publicly recognize your employees accomplishments; posting a story on your brands/products Facebook page or on the company blog can help you in promoting your employees within the organization, and making others motivated towards productivity,plus its good advertising for the brand itself.
• Boost up the company morale Real-time; almost everyone is on Facebook or some other form of social medium nowadays, so showing employee recognition on the social media sends out a signal that the employers are connected with the employees and care about their well-being it also encourages peer-to-peer acknowledgement; friends leave comments,congratulate,retweet and share news further etc. helps employees keep motivated.
• The best way of recognizing employees on social media is through:

Facebook: the most widely used social medium,the more you recognize people on it the better.

Twitter: Tweeting and re-tweeting employee news,congratulations and other things help in spreading the news further and faster.

Company blog: if your brand or product runs a blog its always a good idea to let all the other employees know about any good news, acknowledgments and even employee promotions on it, this way the employees know that their good news is being circulated throughout the organization, people will not only praise them but will also be motivated to make an effort in having their accomplishments recognized.

Gifts: show appreciation towards your employees by sending them virtual gifts,it could be as simple as sending them something on Farmville :P,a simple congratulatory e-card or a online movie ticket, just something to make them realize that you are connected with them and that you care.

BE WARNED Though, there might be repercussions, not everyone likes to have themselves publicized on social media, there are people who like to keep the “lime light” off them as much as they can,so when you send out that “status” or Tweet that congratulatory note be very sure that the person you a referring to in those updates/notes is OK with what you are doing, because  social media also means exposure..but the difference is, its public exposure strapped onto 2 rockets :D.

Your very own Social Media Ambassadors…A guide

The main focus of any brand from day 1 has been to be in the mind of the consumer “Its” consumer as long as it can be,in the outside world this is made possible by offering promotions,putting up billboards, getting brand mascots and what not, however,in today’s marketing environment with the inception of social media and online mediums becoming a normal part of all marketing campaigns, companies and marketers should also start paying attention towards how to maintain those online customers and brand “loyals” they have.

As long as brands want to increase their online and social media presence,fellowship and engagement more effectively, they will have to create relevant,genuine and interesting custom based and community-oriented content for their consumers. Another solution is by giving these consumers a chance to be the brand representatives.

Social Media Ambassador campaigns can be very effective,especially if they are run with people who are super active with Facebook,Twitter or LinkedIn and/or they are super bloggers. how a brand benefits from it is ;

• if the representative is super active he would definitely have a vast following on the social media making him an “influencer” so they can spread the “brand word” within the relevant communities.
• if the Brand is successful due to the ambassador, the ambassador is likely to be bestowed with not only a long lasting relationship with the brand,but also a key spotlight by the brand on the ambassador.
• the consumer/target audience wins, when they are provided interesting and exciting content and things to look at/read/experience from the person/people (ambassador) who they listen and like.

so quickly and briefly lets see how we can do this;

how to set up a Social Media ambassador program :

 

• Identifying “talent”: the first step towards starting a social ambassador program is through researching and selecting a whole pool of probable talented candidates who can represent your brand on the Social Media front. Many a times companies tend to take this “recruitment” process on their own so that they could maintain total control. however some brands also leave this process to be open sourced, this way everyone/anyone is allowed to be a part of the process and the brand promotion already starts well before the actual program itself through word of mouth.

• Selecting the “talent”: ok so after you/your brand has identified or shortlisted potential ambassadors,now comes the time when you need to select people out of the shortlisted list. for this you need to look at a few things;
• How good is the social REACH of the person, how far stretched are his existing followers or contacts.
• What is the persons PERSPECTIVE regarding the brand?
• Is he an INFLUENCER within his circle, how much do his network contacts listen to him.
• Would the person be a good MEDIA FIT for your future promotions, for e.g if you wanted a video testimonial from the ambassador to put up on Youtube or FB.

•  Managing the Ambassadors:  once the brand/you are done with the    above processes, you need to put in processes and regulations to monitor and manage the access and activities of the ambassadors, sometimes professional talent comes with managers, but if you are hiring crowd sourced ambassadors then they need to be properly trained in the “ways” of the brand so that they can understand what exactly they need to do for you.
• What to hold back: you need to set filters on how the ambassadors are to communicate with the audience, giving them a free reign over everything can make you and your brand lose control over the communication being disseminated, hence always remember what to say out loud and what to hold back.
• Maintaining Longevity:  with the Social Media brand ambassador campaign almost done and complete, you just have to maintain a long relation with the ambassador or this will not end up well for you,as a followup to the campaign you can do things like,putting up videos by the ambassadors, shooting their testimonials,getting their comments on the product/brand and creating themed competitions around it. etc, this way the ambassadors maintain that good impression about your brand and this way you would be able to keep your “brand call” on for a longer period. 🙂 Cheers

Make an impressive Social Media customer experience

It seems you have launched this amazing brand for the Youth. Youth that is hyper and way too emotional when it comes to brand loyalty and interactions.now since you are a “new age” marketer yourself,you want to go all out on social media and promote your brand like there’s no tomorrow, but social media comes with its share of good news and bad news when talking about customer/brand interactions.

the bad news is, if you by any chance be it accidental or not slightly hurt the customers experience with the brand you risk not only tarnishing the brands image you also risk tarnishing on a bigger platform in front of target audiences from around the world, soooo the damage done to a brand on social media is exponential :s.

The good news however is, just as customer complaints travel at ligh speed through the social media, so do compliments 🙂

So how do you insure a good customer brand experience on the social Media, here are some pointers:

• Use the basic essence of Social Networks,which is “a place for people to meet and talk”. YOU should create A PLACE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS TO MEET AND TALK on the social media.
• Make Social Media a regular part of your CUSTOMER SERVICE. you add UAN numbers and email addresses for complaints, add your brands social media link too, BUT….BUT be ready to have a plan to act on any queries or complaints received….you wont want to get caught with your pants down :).
• Your Facebook and Twitter followers do not translate into the actual number of people that may be involved in your brand, many brands have a far bigger number of customers than the number on their social media pages, use this data base translate these customers INTO your social media fan base, interact and engage with them there keep them busy with your brand, hold online promotions and competitions on your page to keep them happy and involved.
• Another important approach towards creating a customer experience on social media, BE PROACTIVE,be proactive in interactions with your followers, compliment them, answer their questions effectively and efficiently, tell them about things,put up interesting statuses. MAKE THE BRAND HUMAN.
• MAKE YOUR TOP SOCIAL MEDIA PARTICIPANTS FEEL IMPORTANT, reward them, since they have been so loyal you could tell them a few things, maybe about a upcoming promotion in advance or develop a loyalty point system for them, this in turn helps creating these influencers’  in serious brand advocates.
• CONTENT IS KING,always remember that unique,interesting and reader friendly content is what wins you the game in brand communications,give em something special….could be facts about your brand,could be tips for your brand..just give them something new to talk about and read regarding your brand so that they are kept interested in it.
• Social Media IS the place to STAND OUT,The more interactive and engaging your social media presence, the better. In part, social media is a little anti-social because there can be a lot lost in plain text. By giving your fans a true voice on social media, or encouraging participation through photos and videos, you humanize the experience that much more.

so thats it,this is my take on how to create a better customer experience on the social media. the rest is just “simple” 😛

I like Digital..but… Doesn’t mean i am TECHNICAL…JEEZ

considering the is my first post on my new blog, i will try to keep it simple and fun instead of forcing the usual bullox about Social Media and Digital down you throat.

There has been an amazingly increasing trend of “Digital” in Pakistan lately, everyone wants to be a part of the “Digital Age”, its the latest high for all tech geeks,tech savvy hormonal teens (and even adults) ,while a small part of the “Adult” generation are showing receptiveness towards this phenomenon as well.

BUT…

What all these above mentioned people (and some other people) fail to realize is that, being Digital does not mean being “technical”, “dude you are so into digital you must understand all the languages and c!@# going on behind a website”. “bro making this website must be child’s play for you since you are all digital.”

Dudes,bros, just because a guy is “digital” does not mean he is ace at developing apps,websites programming…jeez that is what software engineers and developers do 🙂 (and of course super geeks) ;P.

let me just shed some light on the topic,a person who is associated with the “digital” field or is part of the “Digitalsphere”, mostly contributes to a campaign or project by sharing ideas and dropping strategies on how to execute a particular thing on the online front, how to spread it,promote it, engage audience/target market towards it through the internet,and how to take it beyond the boundaries/barriers of conventional promotion and marketing, this could be done using social networking tools,websites and applications, this could be done through Social Bookmarking tools, through online videos,unconventional mediums such as SMS and email marketing, and a slightly new phenomenon called “Blog Marketing”. These are a couple of things to start with,the rest will come with time my peeps :).

So, the next time you see a person with “digital” in his profile do not start picturing him with website templates and binary codes frolicking over his head. He is just a normal guy with a hint of imagination in him :). cheers