A habit from conventional advertising is the almost total concentration on selling a brand by wowing an external audience. Throw a few monkeys at it, toss in a talking baby and you’re golden, right? Not so much any more. Employees armed with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other nefarious social media tools now have the real power to stop and start your brand. So even if you’re not ready to implement a global social media plan, it’s still important to deal with the social media that already exists in your company.
A few suggestions:
- Make sure that everyone in your company, from the factory floor to the C-Suite, understands your marketing goals.
- Keep employees informed on your latest advertising, web and promotional programs. You don’t want them finding it out from someone else on Twitter.
- Suggest the types of message that will help the company.
- Explain how employees can help achieve those goals with social media, but do not try to coerce them into furthering the company agenda.
- Through in-person presentations, try to get a feel for who the real social media junkies are. Later on, you can recruit them for a formalized program.
- Accept that social media is part of life and make it work for your brand.