Your employees are already on social media. Why not ask them to become your organization's brand ambassadors on their personal social media accounts so your messages will go viral? They can be trusted to say and do the right things. With a little guidance, and not too many "no-no's," they will be anxious to help their company succeed, because then they will succeed. In this presentation, you will learn: -- Why companies are enlisting employees as brand ambassadors -- Companies that are doing it well. -- The 6 steps to engage your employees as your most trusted advocates. -- Social media policies.

1. Your Employees Can be Your Most
Powerful Brand Ambassadors
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Professionals of Long Island

2. Today’s Agenda
 Why companies are enlisting employees as
brand ambassadors.
 Companies that are doing it well.
 The 6 Steps to engage your employees as your
most trusted advocates.
 Social media policies.
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3. Your employees are on ALREADY
on social media. Why not engage
them to promote your products,
services and brand?
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4. Benefits to Your Company
 Retain and attract talent.
 Burnish your brand.
 Leverage the viral power of social networks
to reach millions of customers for your
products and services.
 Create funnel for ideas and innovation.
 Increase “Earned Media” and reduce cost of
traditional advertising.
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5. Cisco: Requirements of New Professionals & College Students
Survey of
2,800 college
students &
recently
employed
grads
Cisco survey of 2,800 college students
Cisco survey of 2,800 college students
and recently employed graduates,
and recently employed graduates,
September 2011
September 2011
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6. Seriously?
80% said the
Internet is as
important to their
lives as food, air &
water!!
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7. Social Media Improves
the Customer Experience
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8. 8

9. Social Media Policies
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10. Coca-Cola® Social Media Principles
S
“These Online Social Media Principles have been
Developed to empower our associates to
participate in this new frontier of marketing
and communications, represent our Company,
and share the optimistic and positive spirits of
our brands.”
Coca-Cola has a Social Media Certification Program
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11. Gap’s Social Media Policy
Gap’s social media policy for
134,000 employees:
-"Keep in mind"
-"How to be the best”
-“Don't even think about it"
*Ragan.com
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12. Zappos.com
 Hundreds of Zappos employees on Twitter.
 2.8 million followers of CEO Tony Hsieh.
 He trusts his employees to “be real and use
their best judgment.”
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13. IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines
“…Personal experience with employees
has the greatest impact on executive opinions
of our company.”
…“not mass communications,
but masses of communicators.”
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14. Jon Iawata, SVP,
Marketing & Communications, IBM
 Cannot control what
employees say - but
employees can be trusted.
 Management knows what
its people are talking
about on social media.
 Strategically, social media
drives the business.
 YouTube bit.ly/1axz9AO
“Social Media as an
Internal Tool.”
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15. Long Island Companies on
Social Media
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16. Henry Schein, Inc.
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17. New Yorker Cartoon
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18. Employee Engagement
on Twitter #teamschein
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19. Bedgear, Inc.
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20. 6 Steps To Engage Your Employees
as Brand Ambassadors
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21. 1. Create Social Media Policy
 Form a committee including HR, Compliance,
CMO, PR Director, Legal Counsel and select
employees.
 Develop guidelines that promote
engagement on social networks.
 Keep the “no-no’s” to a minimum.
 Trust your employees to say the right things.
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22. 2. Survey Employees
 What social networks are your employees
using?
 Analyze their content to determine if they
would be reliable “wingmen.”
 Are they willing to serve as the company’s
brand ambassadors on social media?
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23. 3. Form Pilot Group
 Use the survey to identify enthusiastic
employees.
 Facilitate training sessions.
 Integrate social networking with traditional
marketing campaigns.
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24. 4. Provide Guidelines and Rewards
 Incorporate responsibilities and goals into
job descriptions.
 Strike a balance between free-wheeling and
over-bearing in advising employees what
they can and cannot say.
 Provide incentives and rewards.
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25. 5. Feed Information to the Pipeline
 Create branded blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn
accounts for senior executives and share content
with pilot group.
 Ambassadors comment on senior executive blogs,
RT their tweets, share articles on social networking
sites.
 Employees create their own content within
company guidelines for their social media accounts
and blogs.
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26. 6. Measure Results
 Track business relationships established.
 Monitor key words to measure search
rankings.
 Conduct rolling surveys of ambassadors to
assess activity and make course corrections.
 Create a system to collect information about
customer interactions: complaints and
kudos.
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27. You Need To -- Communicate social media policy and
activities to all employees. Add ambassadors.
 Be transparent in all communications.
 Accept that you cannot exert 100% control of
what employees will say.
 Trust your employees to do the right things.
They want the company to flourish – because
then they will too!
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28. To Summarize
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Create a social media policy.
Survey employees.
Form pilot group.
Provide guidelines and rewards.
Feed information to the pipeline.
Measure results.
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29. Social Media Governance
List and descriptions of 247 Corporate
Social Media Policies and Templates.
http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies .
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30. http://writespeaksell.com
Jeannette Paladino
jeannettepaladino
jeannettepaladino
@jepaladino
QUESTIONS?
COMMENTS
Jeannette Paladino
Write Speak Sell
jpaladino@writespeaksell.com
Tel: 212-308-4364
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31. THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING!
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF I CAN BE OF HELP TO YOU.
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