Your Employees Have Bad Social Media Skills

In today's B2B buyer-empowered age, social media has become essential for businesses to connect with customers, increase brand awareness, and drive sales. Everyone's doing it. The buyers do a better job of it. The sales professionals and company employees are not so much.

However, despite the widespread adoption of social media in sales and marketing strategies, most employees at companies need to be more skilled in using social media for business purposes. At a very high level, I want to explore the importance of social selling and employee advocacy and why companies must train their employees to use social media effectively.

What is Social Selling, Really?

Listen, you should want your sales teams to start and continue as many targeted conversations as possible. Actually, Account Based Marketing only solves some things for targeted messaging. Social selling uses social media platforms to help your team to develop relationships with potential customers, build a sales pipeline, and drive sales. It involves leveraging social media networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to build relationships, share content, and engage with prospects.

According to LinkedIn, 78% of social sellers outperform their peers who don't use social media in their sales strategies. So, why wouldn't a company learn to use an approach like social selling? Moreover, 55% of buyers research social media before purchasing. Social selling has become a vital aspect of modern sales and marketing.

Why are Employees Under-skilled in Social Selling?

75% of B2B buyers use social media to help make buying decisions. Despite the importance of social selling, many sales professionals need more skills to use social media effectively. Just look at their LinkedIn profiles, awful LinkedIn posts, and how they reach out to prospects on LinkedIn. Now there's proof and a holy-smokes moment for most company leadership.

One reason for the poor social selling skills is that social media constantly evolves, and new platforms and features are continually being introduced. Your team may need help to keep up with these changes and learn how to use social media for business purposes.

Another reason is that social media can be time-consuming, and employees may not have the bandwidth to focus on it. Especially if they are doing it the wrong way. Additionally, some employees may hesitate to use social media for business due to privacy, security, or compliance concerns. They fear breaking something or getting fired because they posted something the CEO or CMO did not like.

Why is Employee Advocacy Important?

Employee advocacy is promoting a company's brand, products, or services by its employees. It involves employees sharing content about their company on their personal social media profiles to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to the company's website. Sort of like social selling but a little more watered down. It has to be, given the general employee population's responsibility.

Employee advocacy can be a powerful tool for companies because it allows them to tap into their employees' social networks. These collective networks are more significant than the typical brand. So, they are worth tapping into.

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, employees are the most trusted source of information about a company, with 54% of consumers saying they trust company employees as a source of information.

Research also has shown that employee-generated content receives 8x more engagement than content shared by company profiles. Employee advocacy can significantly increase the reach and attention of a company's social media content.

Employee advocacy can be a tremendous air-cover strategy to make marketing and social selling more successful! I built and ran these programs at SAP and Cognizant for over 10+ years.

Investing in Social Media Training for Employees

Given the importance of social selling and employee advocacy, companies must train their employees to use social media effectively. Here are some tips for creating an effective social media training program:

1. Start with the Basics: Begin by teaching employees the fundamentals of social media, such as how to create a profile, how to connect with others, and how to share content. Your team is the face of your company, so you don't want anyone to be 'swiping left' on their content on LinkedIn profiles.
2. Focus on the Company's Objectives: Align the training program with the company's overall objectives and show employees how social media can help achieve these goals. Ensure your team and program integrate branding, tone, and talking points. I worked for one large organization that prided itself on the entrepreneurial spirit of its 200,000+ workers. We all know where that directionless can go quickly, right?
3. Provide Best Practices: Teach employees the best practices for using social media, such as how to engage with customers, how to create compelling content, and how to measure success. Whether it is a series of ongoing workshops like the ones I started and ran at SAP (i.e., Social Media Office Hours and Social Selling Office Hours) or the Personal Branding Bootcamps I ran at Cognizant, you have to do something to upskill your team.
4. Demonstrate ROI: Show employees and your leadership the value of social media by demonstrating how it can generate leads, drive sales, and increase brand awareness. The more on-brand, organic impressions you have, the more social selling conversation triggers or web visits you'll have. And when you do the math, you will be surprised at the ROI!
5. Offer Ongoing Support: Provide ongoing support and resources to employees, such as social media guidelines, training materials, and access to social media experts. These resources can be built as part of an in-house operating model. Or use the help of someone with hands-on leadership experience, like Gerry Moran and Marketingthink Consulting .

What Next?

Social media has become an integral part of modern business, and companies must invest in training their employees on how to use it effectively. Social selling and employee advocacy can significantly increase the reach and engagement of a company's social media content and drive sales. By providing employees with the necessary skills and instruction, the possibilities are endless!

Set some time up with me via this link . I'd love to help you with your social selling or employee social media training.