Drive traffic. Improve engagement. Gain followers. These are all great goals for your social media campaign, but without the right social media team behind you, you’ll never be able to accomplish any of them.
A new report from Cision and Social Business Engine, “What’s Working in Social Media Marketing – Brand Stories From the Trenches,” takes a look at how some of today’s biggest brands run their social media teams. The report shares real-life examples from Dell, Humana, NASA, Southwest and Wal-Mart.
Here are five quotes from the new report that can help you better develop your social media team for optimal performance:
1. “When our employees stick to our social media principles we find that they are successful in building relationships with customers, growing their reach, improving engagement in social and providing business value to Dell.”
― Amy Heiss, Global Program Manager for Social Media Training and Activation at Dell
Focus your employees around a single strategy. By setting strong, targeted goals, your team can better prepare their responses to customers. At Dell, employees undergo a training program to learn social media strategy, policies and best practices. A training program, specific to social media, keeps employees all on the same page and aligned with your brand’s goals.
2. “Every associate in our organization contributes to the customer experience; therefore, an enterprise-wide approach is critical to ensuring we’re able to deliver a consistent and great brand experience.”
― Lewis Bertolucci, Head of Social Media at Humana
Take your social media training one step further and involve your entire organization. Humana employs a core group of seven that runs the organization’s social media efforts, but takes steps to ensure all employees know how to properly represent the brand on social media. Brand advocates aren’t just found in your marketing department. Take advantage of the other valuable people across your organization.
3. “The Social Business Team acts as the ‘hub’ and works together with Marketing, Communication and Customer Relations department ‘spokes’ to deliver on social strategies.”
― Ashley Mainz, Social Business Manager at Southwest
Your social strategies need to reflect your business strategies. At Southwest, instead of a social media team, they have a Social Business Team, which focuses on connecting with other departments to improve their social efforts and better the organization’s business overall. Get all your employees working together so that your organization can evolve into a social business.
4. “With over 500 social media accounts, we aim to engage with our niche audiences and tell each mission and program’s unique story.”
― John Yembrick, Head of Social Media at NASA
When developing your social media strategy, you should always think about your audience. NASA’s main goal is to relate to their followers and share their story in a way that makes people care. No matter your industry, reach as many people as possible to build your community. Engage with your audience in a unique way and share interesting content to make them care about your brand.
5. “We focus our efforts on understanding our audiences, the channels where they congregate and developing meaningful content that we can take to them.”
― Chad Mitchell, Senior Director of Digital Communications at Wal-Mart
Social media is a chance to tell your brand’s story. Wal-Mart aims to inform their audience through social media not only about their business, but also about their charitable efforts, in order to boost their corporate reputation. Use social media to appeal to your audience and humanize your brand. Share your story, but encourage others to share their stories as well.
Images: 드림포유, Yahoo, Airwolfhound (Creative Commons)
