8 Tips to Humanize Your Brand through Social Media
Looking for ways to get your employees to use social media? Use these 8 tips to humanize your company.
I had the chance to catch up with a former client about the success of his business. While he has doubled his business over the last few years, he is always looking for marketing advice. And I am always happy to give my two cents on how to use social media to drive awareness and traffic to your website. Over lunch, the conversation went from marketing to the benefits of social media and how it could humanize his brand.
We started chatting about how to get people to his site. The usual tactics were employed: we have a blog; we work with our affinity partners, etc.
Then I started peppering him with questions like:
“Great, you have a blog. How often are you updating it, are you consistently publishing relevant and informative content, have you optimized the blog for keywords, do your employees share the information with others, are your employees contributing to the blog?”
Then I ask my favorite question, “Are you using social coupled with your blog to personalized the people in your company?”
His answer: Well…We should do more.
Our conversation got me thinking about how to humanize brands. While I am not a proponent of tactics driving strategy for social media, I think you first need to consider why your company should be social. You need to have purpose in your company’s social media efforts, it is all about P.O.S.T.
If you need a reason, here is one: social media is creating a two-way dialogue with people. Social media also produces almost double the marketing leads of trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail, or PPC according to a recent study by Hubspot this year.
And let’s be clear, people are searching for your product or company way before they pick up the phone or send an email of interest. While the sales process is not necessarily longer, however, prospects have more resources to research your product online. Why not give them information to support each stage of the buying cycle.
So here are some tactics to consider:
1) If you don’t have folks outside marketing contributing to your blog. Start today. You need employees to share industry news and trends.
2) Anyone working for your company should be positively promoting your organization through sharing industry news or company articles not always about you, but topics your current and potential customers care about.
3) Worried that folks don’t get social media? Give them a playbook. playbook.
4) People need guidelines, consider creating a social media policy.
5) Don’t expect people to jump in and understand what you want them to do socially, train them.
6) Have employees contribute to your blog on their interest.
7) Encourage your folks to follow your social media channels and reshare to their followers.
8) Be the influence and guide by your example.
Bonus. You need content to share right? Start using your employees to generate content for your blog
1) The number one rule for your blog should be S.F.T.C (Solve for the Customer).
2) Interview both employees and clients for the blog using a Q and A format.
3) Have clients share best practices.
4) Blogs are not exclusively for executives. Everyone should contribute.
5) If you don’t make the blog a priority, no one else will.
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