Social Media for business depends on your Brand Ambassadors carrying the message. Not a concocted standard company line but a genuine sentiment and opinion. Your customers can tell. Some will call these Brand Ambassadors thought leaders of a company; but we think every worker carries weight with a customer or potential business ally. Leveraging your employees, management, and ownership’s social voice can make or break your business in these hyper-competitive and changing times. Utilize them all.
Who are these brand ambassadors and what is their voice? This is where common business culture meets the public road; at your digital front door. Are they welcoming? Are the responsive? Do they help? Or Complain?
The social voice of your business carries louder, farther and with more clarity than any PR or advertising ever will. This is the true voice of your business and why it must come from within. The true voice will get out regardless, make it work for you. Like the little birds or the fly on the wall, your customers can hear it all loud and clear; much louder than the canned doublespeak pumped out through the standard channels. It’s the comments being heard in passing when the subject of your product or service is mentioned in day to day conversations.
Reputation = Track Record + Social Voice + 1/PR + 2/Advertising
Your Brand’s reputation is governed by the track record you have built plus the word on the street supplemented by a little Public Relations and a little more Advertising. Consumers are bombarded with ambient PR and advertising noise. They have adapted selective hearing and filters for the noise. Our opinion is that word of mouth carries more weight, and therefore more responsibility, than ever before.
Empowering Brand Ambassadors: trusting employees to share their real feelings can be a tough sell to big business. This is why big business has such a hard time with Social Media. Control issues cloud the fact that businesses must change their whole model or lens on the world. This control is an illusion and change of this magnitude always meets resistance. That’s where your Brand Ambassadors come in.
What worked yesterday is passé. Communication has fundamentally changed. Business 101 states that a company should always evaluate the sentiment on the street. Get a feel for the terrain. And speak in a language that your customer understands – your Social Voice.
Other Pittsburgh Internet Consulting posts by Blackball Online Marketing:
Doing Social Media Well – Audiences
Doing Social Media Well - Scale
