Utilizing ALL Of Your Employees In Your Social Media Strategy

By Allyn On April 25, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Today I am speaking to those of you with medium-sized and small businesses. You big enterprise level folks are welcome to follow along too, but you know as well as I do when it comes to social media, your hands are tied by big company rules and regs… but you smaller biz folks are fortunate! … you are agile, quick and creative; so let me teach you how to fast track your online presence in regards to social media marketing.

It’s All About Conversation And Interaction

I’m going to mostly refer to Facebook here because I believe it is the social media platform that allows the most direct interaction between you and your present and future customers. I am also going to illustrate by pretending we run a store called “Outdoor Patio Furniture Sales.” Play along with me ok?

Having a Facebook Fanpage for your business is just the beginning really — you have to make the page alive. A Facebook page that is interactive, conversational and interesting conveys a message of SUCCESS and people (customers) want to be a part of something that is SUCCESSFUL! If your Facebook page seen as a success… potential customers WILL want to do business with you when they have a need for your product or service. But before you can do that, you have to have friends and fans who regularly visit that page and comment.

Getting The Convo Going

First off, I can bet that a good 80% of your current employees are utilizing Facebook on a weekly or daily basis to keep up with personal contacts. I can also bet that many of them have a good majority of their Facebook friends who also live in the local area where your brick and mortar store is located. Can you see where we’re going?

(1) The first tip I have for you is to encourage your employees to use Facebook to “invite” their friends to join your business fan page. It’s simple, non-assuming, and it works well, especially because I am sure that you treat your employees well, and they love working for you! They spend 40 or more hours per week building your business… why not encourage them to spend off time building too? … on Facebook!

(2) Big companies spend thousands of dollars developing and updating software to keep their employees from visiting social sites like Facebook during work time. They have multiple paragraphs of legal-speak in handbooks dedicated to telling employees what will happen to them if they are found “wasting company time” on the internet. It’s laughable !!

But you, Mr or Mrs small business owner, should embrace your employees’ desire to visit Facebook during the workday… you should encourage it! Now I am not advocating 6 hours of playtime everyday for every person who works for you… but it would be a great idea to have select employees visit your business page for 15 minutes 3 or 4 times per day to chat with your fans and friends!

Let’s look at this through our pretend outdoor furniture store… you can ask your employees to status update their own personal page with something like:

I’m here at the store, excited about the new patio furniture shipment that just came in… some super kewl umbrellas with solar lights are the highlight! You guys come by and I’ll show them to you.

You could also have your employee post a picture of these great patio umbrellas to their own personal update.

Next, I’d have the employee post a similar update to my business fan page (your fans will see this update on their walls)… something like this:

Hi guys, Cheryl here, assistant manager of “Outdoor Furniture Sales” and I wanted to let you know we just got in some really cool lighted umbrellas. They come in 3 sizes and 4 colors. Awesome stuff! Here’s a pic too!

Finally, I would have a couple other employees use their personal accounts to come in and place comments on Cheryl’s post above. You have 3 or 4 of your folks reply like this:

Hi Cheryl, the red ones are really nice and I wanted to add in that they run on solar power, so no batteries!

and another employee could write:

I just had a customer get two: one for his back patio, and one for his Mom too… these things are pretty neat!

Then of course, Cheryl should reply and answer back and continue to interact. If you ask 5 or 6 of your folks do this, you will find that customers will also feel very comfortable jumping in and being a part of it too. You might call this strategy, “priming the pump” for “flowing conversation!”

Now it occurs to me that some of you readers are already thumbing your noses at this strategy… if that’s you, I would say that “you just don’t get it” and you should probably just keep sending out thousands of direct mail fliers and spending $5,000 per month on roadside billboards. This free, touchy-feely stuff is just not for you! Of course, you could also contact us to help you run this whole thing.. that is what we do ya know!

(3) Keep in mind the 80/20 rule and social media. We don’t want to make it “all about me.” In addition to that, we want to use the Facebook page to “show ourselves to be human!” You don’t want people to relate to the sticks and bricks that hold up your store, you instead want them to relate to the PEOPLE that make your business great… you and your employees. Here’s how you can use your Facebook page to accomplish this goal. Once again, here are some updates you could make on the page for your “Outdoor Furniture Sales” store:

Cheryl our assistant manager just had a baby boy! Mom and son are doing well, Dad is passed out on the floor! Ha!

Or you could update something like this:

John Humphries Jr has worked with us for 3 years, and now he’s heading off to Marine Corps basic training next month! Come in and wish him well. Thank you John for being a part of our team! You’ll be missed.

Are you getting the idea here ya’ll? Let’s get your small or medium sized business up and running in this space and let’s knock out the big guys by being agile and quick and on the cutting edge! This is how we do it! Contact us today.