Train Your Whole Company to Use Social Media

I‘m being serious here. There’s nothing as authentic online as people who use social media as part of their everyday life.

For example, if you’re interested in a product and ask a question on Twitter, or announce how bad Big Fat Company is for doing something horrendous to you, chances are that a sales rep, customer support staff or someone from the communications department getting hastily in touch. Especially if they’re social listeners in the company.

Trouble is, tweets or comments from professional communicators and service staff aren’t necessarily the people you want to hear from. People don’t always want to hear the straight-laced corporate voice. Or at least I might be more impressed if the CEO of Dell (or Steve Jobs from Apple) really responded to a Tweet I’d posted.

Social Media isn’t Just for the PR Team

Although we at Jontus Media can give you communications advice, help with your PR strategy, scribble blog posts for you, and all the other online goodness you need to succeed online, implementing a social media strategy in your workplace really means that you have to do the ground work. Make it happen.

If you get your staff involved the have the potential to build your brand, share you company story, and connect with potential customers through their participation across social media channels in a meaningful and authentic way.

If the secretary, for example, spends a couple of minutes on Facebook during her coffee break she might well feel tempted to link to the company blog tutorial on how to get the most out of “widget X”.

If you, say, have a business Facebok Page, this might be one way to get them used to the culture of checking the site.

Similarly, by encouraging your team to freely follow people on Twitter and connect with them, you increase the chance that this interaction will lead people to click through to your site or learn more about your company.

Those of us using social media often mention our work place and the things related to our job. Being free to engage on social media sites is the equivalent to word-of-mouth marketing.

So don’t pooh pooh social media or just put it in the hands of one department at work. Get all your people involved and watch conversations and connection truly grow your business. From every direction.