Digital Trends, Human Resources, Modern Career, Talent Branding
Employer Branding Around the World with Leni Rokosova.
Originally from Czech Republic, Leni sees herself as a global citizen. Her background is in linguistics and international relations which led her to explore the world on the path to matching the best talent with amazing career opportunities. She has lived and worked in seven different countries and enjoys getting to know a new culture and immerse into it. She is currently working as a Talent Acquisition Manager for Meltwater in their Sydney office, responsible for full cycle hiring across all their departments in Australia and New Zealand.
Leni, congratulations for Meltwater being awarded the Top 7 Best Place to Work in Australia in 2017 and Top 12 Best Place to Work in Asia in 2018, as well as being one of 2016, 2017 & 2018 Great Place to Work Awards Winners in Canada. Can you share some secretes of your company success: what are the best practices of talent attraction and retention at Meltwater?
What attracted me to Meltwater was the fact that the company has managed to establish itself as a global leader in media monitoring with 60+ offices in less than 17 years! However, despite the success and growth we are experiencing, candidates I approach on LinkedIn typically have not heard about us, but when they do their research, they’re always surprised that they have not come across us yet!
Our target market is Gen Y (also known as Millennials), it is well reported that personal growth and career development is the key factor in choosing a suitable employer for this generation. As such Meltwater is extremely conscious of building a culture that facilitates that experience, we challenge our employees from day one to be the best version of themselves. We work in a fast-paced environment, things change quickly so our new recruits need to be agile and learn quickly.
Research also shows Gen Y wants to be connected to the work they’re doing and for us, that means ensuring there is a sense of shared purpose. There is plenty of time spent with line managers and even though these meetings may sometimes seem like simple catch ups, the regularity achieves a greater purpose. A constant two-way feedback ensures people feel they have a seat at the table, they are given a platform to speak up and make an impact on the business and its culture.
Last but not least, we promote based on merits, not tenure. Drive and determination and your ability to realize your potential quickly are what determines the speed at which your progress. You can easily check this by a simple search of our employees on LinkedIn.
Is building a strong talent brand a “must have” or “nice to have” for modern employers?
Definitely a “must have”. Especially for Gen Y, they want to be coming to a place where they don’t only do what they enjoy doing but also a place where they feel welcome and are surrounded by like-minded individuals. Showing them what our culture is about, what our workplace looks like (maybe even giving them a sneak peek into our office playlists), how we celebrate success and what we do together outside of our workplace, is a no-brainer. This way they will already anticipate if this is an environment they would love to be part of or not.
What has been the process of building a strong talent brand at Meltwater?
We don’t have a designated team or employees for building our talent brand. I believe this should be a common effort of recruitment, marketing and HR, but, ultimately, all employees are responsible for this. Of course, all of us have a slightly different goal but at the end of the day, we all want to increase our brand awareness. I drive different initiatives, such as encouraging our employees to write blog posts, partner with top universities and students’ societies and provide training to all newbies (regardless of what team they join) on how to manage/promote our brand on LinkedIn. I already started this in my last job and it worked really well so took it over with me to Meltwater. It only takes about 15 minutes (if they’re in Sydney, its F2F, if in any other office, it’s via a video Skype call) but you would be surprised how little people know about different functions on LinkedIn and how to use them to your advantage. I always start the training with showing them some numbers on how many people interact with our brand on daily basis which always leads them to understand why this training is so important.
What is your social media strategy when it comes to employer branding?
I’m a huge advocate of LinkedIn and that’s where I spend lots of my time during the day. From my experience, the most quality talent is right there and it’s easy to tap into. On the other hand, it is true that the Gen Y don’t necessarily have a LinkedIn profile (yet!) and so it is important to build a strong strategy on their favourite social channels, such as Instagram and Snapchat – this is work in progress for us right now!
How do you use content marketing and storytelling methods on LinkedIn to generate stronger candidate pipelines?
As mentioned before, I love LinkedIn and consider content marketing as a great tool for raising brand awareness. I always make sure my posts have a purpose and most importantly, have a personal touch. Sharing only jobs, I’m currently hiring for wouldn’t make the cut! I divide my posts in 25% about our office life/culture, 25% about company updates, 25% about job posts (always accompanied by the right culture pic!) and 25% about my personal/professional interests. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the office life pictures to only 25% because there’s always something happening (ranging from a simple celebration of someone’s birthday – yes, everyone loves a good piece of cake! – through celebrating a new deal that just came in, to those crazy closing days when we always have a theme and dress up).
#COACHIFYCHINA, Consulting, Digital Marketing, Digital Trends
7 Tips about Branding on WeChat for Beginners from Olivia Plotnick.
Olivia resides in Shanghai, China and works as the marketing manager for Brandigo, a global marketing and communications agency. She manages the company social media accounts, including WeChat, as well as the blog, content offers and promotion. She also manages the marketing and communications for Shanghai based free fitness community, FitFam, a volunteer-led organization with over 3,000 active members, and currently over 6,000 WeChat followers.
Olivia is recognized for her knowledge of marketing and branding in China; she was featured in Forbes and grew a WeChat account from 2,000 to 5,500 followers in just 6 months.
Today she shares with Coachify her top seven tips on using WeChat as a branding tool.
1. WeChat is a chatting app: engage, tell a story.
Branding in China is becoming more popular. In China or in Hong Kong when you are outside there are bright neons and signs everywhere. However, people are not paying attention to that, they don’t read advertisements on the windows anymore – everyone is looking at their phone. Especially young, Chinese consumers nowadays want to disconnect from all the noise of advertisement.
We are getting so focused on telling our own stories and getting involved in other people stories – just look at your WeChat moments. Why would brands be not doing it? Why would brand not tell their stories to better connect with people? The key question is: how can brands better connect with their customers?
Storytelling and personalization are the answers. WeChat is a chatting app, people are expecting it to be interactive, and personalized, that’s what they crave from this platform. They expect to receive content that they can relate to and connect with on a personal level. Elijah Whaley, CMO at PARKLU makes a great point in this article about the digital consumer in China – your WeChat, and other mobile channels for that matter, should be fun, engaging and useful.
2. Make it about people.
Data from Tencent shows that people prefer to see and share content about their lives and those close to them. Reach out to your community, your coworkers, your customers and get them involved.
One of the most popular articles posted from the FitFam account was an article announcing an event in partnership with a women’s active wear brand. The article highlighted many of the reasons why people find the community so special, and what the core values mean to many of the young women in the community. It reached people on a personal, and emotional level, and ended with a call to action. It also included user-generated content in the form of photos that were taken of actual members of the community.
Other well-performing content comes from the FitFam partnership with Creative Humans writer Eduoard Bellin who interviews members of the FitFam community in-depth. These stories provide a window into the life of a friend, a workout partner – someone that people feel connected to and have an interest in learning about because he/she is part of their daily life.
3. KOLs are a must.
This is especially true for B2C brands. KOLs or influencers are a key strategy for many brands. They’ve amassed their followers through blogging, thought-leadership, as well as leveraging their celebrity status. KOLs are usually well-trusted and have a much more personal relationship with their fans. As this Boston Consulting Group article states; In China, shopping is about more than just the transaction. It’s about entertainment, discovery, and social engagement with friends, celebrities, and internet influencers.
Chinese consumers trust influencers, and are not as put-off by sponsored content as much as their Western counterparts. In fact, many KOLs have done such a good job building up their fan base and making a niche for themselves that many have their own online stores on Taobao and Tmall where they are making millions selling products.
Make sure you set the right expectations in terms of your budget and do your research carefully before selecting a KOL to work with your brand.
Consulting, Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, Human Resources, Leadership
5 Tips for Using LinkedIn as Employer Branding Tool.
LinkedIn is not only a powerful tool that modern recruiters use to source candidates, but also an emergent employer branding platform that many companies have started to appreciate.
Read on to learn how the recruiters, HR and employer branding specialists from the different parts of the world generate stronger candidates’ pipelines by using content marketing and storytelling.
1.Introduce Social Media / LinkedIn Training
Did you know that employees have 10 times more connections on average than a company has followers? To leverage your employees personal brand and network introduce Social Media / LinkedIn training.
For example, Dell’s HR strategy including social media training resulted in higher quality hires, lower turnover and better engagement rates for Dell.
“We have trained to date over 16,000 employees! We also train our summer interns as part of their development and introduction to Dell. The biggest success is the ongoing focus on the program including monthly power hours by topic (how to deal with trolls, what is the deal with SnapChat, etc.) as well as the revisiting and updating of the content. The opportunity we have is to continue to have executives model this activity and behaviour.” – says Jennifer Jones Newbill, Senior Manager, Global Candidate Attraction, Engagement and Experience at Dell.
Click HERE to read our case study About social media and recruiting with Jennifer Jones Newbill from Dell.
2. Empower your employees to tell the story about the company
Of course, they need to love their work in a first place, and the post should come from them, you cannot simply order a praising article. Readers will only spend their precious time on reading and sharing authentic stories. Pay attention to employees who already blog or vlog. Often those who relocate will be interested in documenting they journey.
3. Enchant your staff
Delight the staff with a small gesture or help when it is not expected, for example offering them flexible work arrangements or even showing that you listen, and you care:
“When you enchant people, your goal is not make money from them or get them to do what you want, but to fill them with delight.”
“(…) in a world of mass media, social media, and advertising media, it takes more than instant shallow, and temporary relationships to get the job done.”
Guy Kawasaki, Enchantment
4. Communicate your innovative HR policies
Challenge yourself (and your top management) to introduce a HR policy that could be shared as an interesting story.
Impossible? Here is the update from BrewDog:
“Thrilled to find out today that BrewDog have been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2018 Scottish Top Employers for Working Families Awards, in the ‘Best for Innovation’ category, for our Pawternity Leave initiative! (…)”
Seems standard but wait, did they misspell “paternity”? Or…
5. Measure success on your LinkedIn company page
Even if your company already has its LinkedIn page, you might strongly consider setting up a new page for your geographical region.
A simple company page is free yet give you some visitor demographics and some invaluable metric tools such as updates engagement and followers acquired in a specific month, week or even day.
Followers acquired are only included for sponsored updates. You could still measure the success of your organic (not paid) updates, by looking at the followers acquired on a given day if you post no more than one update per day.
This article was inspired by the companies and experts from Scotland, Germany, Czech Republic, Australia, and China.
What are your favorite company updates or ideas for using LinkedIn as employer branding tool? Reach out on LinkedIn or Facebook; we would love to hear about the examples from other countries.
Beata Dziedzic
Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, Modern Career, Relocation
How to Find a Career in China, Get Featured on Forbes and Use LinkedIn to Its Full Potential.
From the rural Pacific Northwest to the middle of a concrete jungle, Olivia Plotnick has made it her mission to never stop challenging herself to reach new horizons. Making the decision to move to China by herself several years ago she has quickly learned how to build a personal network from scratch, become recognized for her knowledge of marketing and branding in China, get featured in Forbes and grow a WeChat account from 2,000 to 5,500 followers in just 6 months.
Olivia, what is the story behind your move to China?
I started studying Chinese at St. Mary’s High School. It was the first high school in Oregon to offer Chinese program. The summer after my first year of studying we had an opportunity to come China and I was one of the seven students selected. We travelled all around China during the holiday, it was my first trip outside of the States. It was the Summer 2007, and we went to Beijing, Henan, and the southern part of China, Kunming in the Yunnan province. It was so different from anything I had known or been exposed to before. After that experience, I started thinking that this is the path that I wanted to follow. I studied Chinese and business throughout college and I completed my final six months of college in Beijing, at Beijing Language and Culture University. I moved there by myself and enrolled in an intensive language program. The classes were only taught in Chinese and I was the only American in my class, with no other native English speakers. I think I cried a lot (laugh) and I was a little bit miserable for about five months, but by the sixth month I was loving it: I have this distinctive memory of riding in a cab and passing all these incredible buildings in Beijing. The energy from the city was electrifying. I went back to Oregon, graduated and found a job at an international adoption agency. I was helping prospective parents through the first 1 to 2 years of the adoption process. I was also helping to update the organization’s website to drive more traffic and liaising with our Beijing office. While this role was a huge learning opportunity for me, I knew it wasn’t my career path. I really wanted to move back to China and pursue a career in international business.
Adding Value, Consulting, Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, Human Resources, Leadership, Modern Career
How to control social media with math
Mirco A. Mannucci is a Big Data Analytics Consultant, a CEO @ HoloMathics and a Ph.D. in Mathematics. His interdisciplinary background in the sciences and software engineering mingles with a burning interest in web social communities. Mirco is one of the authors of the research conducted at Chapman University exploring the concept of virality. The researchers were examining socially bonded clusters of people and subgroups on Facebook to identify the way to achieve the maximum reach of people. Today, Mirco and I will be discussing implications of big data for social networks, virality and the new world of super-heroes on social media.
Mirco, as a Big Data geek with a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics, how do you see social media transform in the next 5-10 years from now?
Great question to start off Dagmara! I think we should always begin with a touch of SF, because quite often what some mavericks are dreaming about now, becomes reality later. Social media means media which are social, media that are embedded in the very tissue of the social web. Now, where is the social web and where is it going?
I believe that the plumbing has already been done, we have plenty of large scales social communities. We also have small dedicated communities, we have various types of communication tools, we have, in a word, the proper infrastructure. But something is still lacking, isn’t it?
What is lacking is true SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE. By this I mean: just like there is a logical intelligence, there is a social one. Not many people are social intelligence geniuses, to be sure, and yet without it not much happens in one’s life, because social intelligence drives success.
So, here is my little piece of SF: I dream that very soon there will be another Social Web, let us say Social Web 3.0, which looks and feel like the existing one but with a glaring difference – it is smart. In this social web on steroids, people will get together, form teams, virtual ventures. All of that thanks to some help from the embedded social intelligence. It goes without saying that this would drastically impact social media and social advertisement as well. Highly focused communities would also demand highly focused media….
Will the social media 3.0 allow people with scarce social intelligence to do the work for them? Also, it is interesting that you see the future of social media 3.0 as a collaboration tool. Would not that be just another LinkedIn or Slack on steroids? Just another networking tool?
We definitely need a layer of intelligence on top of the existing social web to form a team of collaborators. I am not suggesting that a machine is better than humans at assessing whether some fellow is the right one to cover some new role in a team, but the machine could act as an advisor. I would not like machines to replace my judgment, but I would like machines to expand my possibilities. Imagine I need someone for my team who is extremely smart, knows how to speak Farsi and Icelandic, has a record of traveling in off-the-road destinations, and has a passion for new projects. What is my chance to find such a fellow now? Very slim, right? So, why not have a little help? There is another dimension involved. This is not a battle humans vs machine. Humans could recommend people too, and perhaps the machine would learn from them…
That is why you decided to build a platform that will enable it?
The platform, that I am building right now, is a “gaming platform”, in a sense. The chief difference is that instead of letting you play in an alternate world, it tries to turn you into a superhero in this one. Most of us live an unnecessarily boring life because we dream and leave our dreams in our closet. Why not add a little spice by being able to post your dreams adventures or join other’s dreams and team up with other superheroes? That is precisely what I want for the Social Web 3.0.
You mentioned that the Social Web 3.0 will impact social advertising. What is the biggest challenge while using social media for advertising and the way to overcome it?
The biggest challenge is that we are completely drowning in information: everywhere we are bombarded with ads, brochures, emails. The only way to mitigate this miserable state of affair is to provide value, highly specific value, to the individuals. If you shoot me an ad, most likely I do not want to hear it, but if you know what I am after and you leverage this knowledge by assisting me in MY objectives things are quite different.
On the other hand, retargeted ads can be pretty helpful. But, let’s drop the topic of ads and let’s get into something more entertaining. You mentioned that our lives are quite boring. What about viral content? It makes our life more exciting, or at least more fun. Getting viral is what everyone secretly dreams about, but they don’t want to admit it at loud. What do you think it takes to achieve viral growth? What could be the key variables that drive viral growth?
The paper which I have coauthored with my fellow researchers at Chapman University partially answers the question: to become viral it means to become like a virus. Viruses go from place to place in the body, being hosted not only by single cells but by entire organs. We essentially found a math model of virality which involves leveraging groups and communities instead of single individuals, to spread information around. To be sure, our research is simply a modest step in the right direction, we need more sophistication to provide a better representation of virality. But using interest groups and active web communities to spread your “virus” is certainly a great way to begin.
If the information is like a virus, looks like we should start spreading info locally, to the people that are close to us in a strictly geographical sense (but they are not our friends like on Facebook), and let them share the info to everyone globally. Do you see a potential in it, in a tool where everyone can share anything they like, but there are no other rules involved?
The beauty of the social web as it already operates now is that the notion of the locality has undergone great changes. When I grew up, several centuries ago, what was the chance of having a talk with you about social life? Close to zero. Now my nephews, who live in Milano, have friends in Spain or … China. Therefore, virality can take different clothes… however, having said that, there are certain types of information which must be spread locally, for the very simple reason that they are intrinsically local: why should I broadcast to the entire world the news that the guy next door offers the best pizza and a jazz concert for an incredible price? A guy in Peru could not care less…as for the second part of your question, I think we should have themes, channels through which information flows. I am not a big fan of Twitter’s model.
Neither am I. It’s way too messy and requires a constant time commitment. Mirco, if you were on a mission to predict the popularity of pieces of information that spread through the social media networks, where would you start?
Going back to the previous answer, I would try to understand which paths this piece of information follows to spread, and what is the relevance for folks and communities which dwell on mileposts along this path. Example: Suppose you try to spread some news about a service. You want to hit ONLY groups and folks for which this service could be intriguing, right? Nobody spreads info if they do not think it is “cool” and valuable…
Sure thing. But what is the probability to detect information big stories before they even happen?
It is extremely difficult to predict the future, especially where the human element is heavily involved. However, IF (big if!) I knew a lot about the folks and groups which receive this information, for instance, their tastes, goals, dislikes, then something can be predicted, especially if I do have a track record of previous scenarios.
Even if we knew the tastes, goals, dislikes, likes, interests of everyone in the earth, there are still many external factors that can mess your equation up. Is there anything certain about social media at all?
True, indeed the variables are almost infinite. But, as I have already said, I do not like Hal 9000 type of AI. I rather prefer Jarvis, the AI advisor of Tony Stark in Iron Man: Jarvis advises me, but I decide. If it makes mistakes, it will learn to adjust.
Using data and identifying new opportunities for unlocking it requires creativity. Could you give us an example of a product or a service that used creativity to bring data to the next level and unlocked its potential?
The obvious thing that comes to mind is Youtube. Not a rocket scientist type of technology, by any means, but one that has changed radically many aspects of our life: we can post anything, opinions, products tests, news, personal journeys. A video which is on your computer is your video, a video that is on Youtube is humanity’s video…a big difference.
There are plenty of tools on the market that helps identify the most influential authors (influencers), but after finding the right ones for your product or niche, the question emerges: How do we minimize the risk of not getting enough brand exposure, engagement or leads from this cooperation? We cannot be sure that our content will resonate well with the audience. What data would you be searching for to maximize the success of the cooperation with an influencer?
With a partner in crime, I have been working hard at a new platform to do exactly what you ask for. To be more precise, and going back to the previous part of this interview, I do not believe that getting the influencers on your side is enough. You need to also catch groups and communities for which what you want to sell is relevant, and communities have a life of their own. So, whereas as you said there are plenty of tools which are aimed at individuals who are “hubs” in the social web, this perspective is a bit too skewed toward single individuals.
You mentioned that community has a life on its own, can you share more details here…?
A community to me is like a collective mind: we are the neurons, but the whole has an intelligence of its own. It is the same everywhere: a single cell is one thing, an organ quite another. This is extremely important to understand if we really want to unravel the mysteries of the social web: if we stick to the view of the cell, we miss the organs…
Any golden tip for social media managers out there on achieving a consistent analytical approach?
Hire people, who understand both analytical tools and what these managers are trying to get.
What is the one social media metric you would die to measure, but no one out there came up with a solution yet?
How much what we offer aligns with what people really want.
I would risk a statement that people often times don’t know what they want…they search for one thing, but end up using or doing something completely different. People are irrational, don’t you agree?
You are right, but my measure is not what they want now, rather: after you show it to them, they like it or not? People are very bad at figuring out what they want before they see it but quite good at deciding what they like after they have played with it.
Information overload is killing our productivity. You have plenty of projects on your plate and you are surely a busy man. How do you achieve a better quality of information and remove the noise?
I will be honest with you: I was never good at that, I am someone who begins 1000 things and completes 2-3. But recently things have changed for me, simply because I realized (finally!) the truth: I do not have much time, nobody has, we barely have the time to do what we need and truly wish to do, and send everything else to hell.
…so, prioritizing.
Do not let information drive you, any information, drive your life and use the right info to go where you want to go.
How do you see the role of AI in data mining?
Well, the fact is, little by little we will let machines do the dirty job. Data sets are huge and complicated, so this is bound to happen (in fact, it is already happening). But I do not see the role of humans as something that is going to die anytime soon: humans are still needed to create new ways to model data, to make sense of what machines will find. Let us say that I am here an optimist: instead of substituting humans, I like to think of future AI as expanding our cognitive powers. But maybe I am a tad too optimistic. Time will tell.
They say that failures make us stronger. Could you share with us one of your failures and what did you learn from it?
There was a project I started in 2009 called MergingPot, the ancestor of this new thing. I spent a considerable amount of time building it, putting it on FB as an app, but eventually it died. Why? Truth is, I had no clue how to run a start-up, how to prioritize, how to engage people, and also my timing was not right. In fact, everything was wrong EXCEPT the core idea, which was way ahead of time. Now, if I was a complete fool, I would give up. Far from it…I always loved the hero who has been beaten up to a pulp and yet makes a last comeback 🙂
Do you want more blood? I could go on forever. What is more interesting is WHY I failed. Chiefly by lack of consistency: when you start something, you MUST complete it, no matter what.
Ouch! You even don’t know how much I agree with you on that one…thanks for sharing!
And of course, thank you a ton for the interview, Mirco!
Thank you Dagmara! I had a lot of fun.
Coaching, Consulting, Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, Leadership, Modern Career
Social media tips from an expert. Tony Vincente.
Tony Vincente is a social media manager @ Microsoft, but also he is an online personality known as the Fashionable Foodie and a Fashion Designer @ Vida & Co. Tony is here to share a few secrets of the ever-changing social media space. Shall we start?
Tony, I am sure you know that one of the biggest struggles of every social media manager is to prove their impact on the company’s ROI. Can you give us an example of a campaign that is beautifully linked to return on investment?
A great example of showing the ROI of a social media campaign comes from one of Microsoft’s partners Cisco who saved $100K. While most companies spend big bucks for product launches on things like flying execs from all over the world they did the entire thing online. Here is the link to the case study. I encourage all in the social media industry to check it out!
Thanks for the link Tony. Also, can you share a proven method of retaining follower base and the way of measuring the retention rate?
Your followers will always ebb and flow. The trick to retaining them is to ask them what THEY find most interesting on your social channels. You can get immediate answers by conducting bi-weekly polls. This will provide the guidance you need to create the right content followers will keep coming back for! The way I measure retention is through weekly reporting. A part of these reports shows how many followers we gain/loss on each channel. To get this data you can use social media tools such as Sprinklr or the analytics each platform has to offer.
What is the biggest challenge in a social media manager’s job and the way to overcome it?
The biggest challenge I face is keeping up with the number of new social platforms introduced every day! Actually, tech advancements are exciting; the challenge is determining which are necessary to your organization’s success. The way to overcome this challenge is to really know what your audience demographics look like and to start off with the main social platforms you know have the most users like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Utilize the analytics each of these platforms offers to build audience profiles and based on what you find expand your platforms accordingly.
They say that failures make us stronger. Can you give us an example of one of your failures, experienced during your career in social media. What did you learn from it?
Sorry, I have no examples, I’m the bomb! Just joking, of course, we all fail at some point it’s coming up with quick solutions that make us truly successful. Early in my career, I actually had a hard time learning about the voice of the company. I was a budding social media personality in my own right and thought that my voice was universal… Not the case! My failure was that I didn’t learn enough about how the company spoke to its audience members before taking the job. I mastered it thanks to a supportive management team and a determination to get it right. Thankfully, I became great at speaking for a number of Fortune 500 companies including the one I work for now Microsoft!
My takeaway for social media managers (and community managers) would be to visit the social platforms of the companies they want to work for and get to know how they speak and what message they are looking to get across. Being the “voice” of an organization is a huge responsibility, what you say can affect how people view your company for better or worse.
How do you define the success of a non-quantitative social media activity?
It’s all about audience reaction. Knowing what I post brings joy to the audience for me is a true success even if it cannot be quantified by measurable standards. I like to create fun graphics and make jokes with audience members though these actions don’t produce sales or even tons of likes/shares. It’s the comments back of “you made my day” or “thank you” that makes what I do extra special.
Any golden tip on achieving a consistent analytical approach?
A consistent analytical approach always begins with a question. Was our promotion successful? Did today’s post resonate with the audience? Therefore, my golden tip is to be ok asking “why”. You have to be open to asking and thinking about how things occur. It’s the basis behind all analytics. So don’t be afraid to ask questions, they spark a deeper conversation that eventually leads to answers.
What is the one social media metric you would die to measure, but no one out there came up with a solution yet?
I really do not have an answer for this one. Almost everything can be measured on social these days. Once you master the tools available and really understand the importance of data analytics you can find any answer you’re looking for.
Are you using any social media management tools you cannot live without?
Oh yeah! Sprinklr is essential for what I do. I can set up listening queues, reports and of course engage with audiences on this tool. It’s easy to use and new features (like little bird-which can be used for influencer identification) are constantly added. If you aren’t using it I suggest you give it a try.
Can you share with us your process of coming up with a social media strategy? What is the most difficult phase of a strategy?
There are a number of steps to building a solid social media strategy my top three tips:
- Create obtainable goals: Outline what you looking to do. Are looking to increase traffic, mentions, etc. A strong social media plan starts with know what the goals are and once established the fun part of how they can be achieved begins!
- Find out who you want to be your audience: Your message needs to resonate with audiences for it to be successful. Identify where your industries audience behaviors, demographics, and interests lie. It is a lot of research but obviously worth it! Quick tip: You can find some of these answers by looking at social platforms in your industry and seeing who follows them and what content types they interact with the most.
- Identify what channels will work best: There are a number of social platforms to choose from but what they offer may not fit with you organizations goals of reaching out to identified audiences. Learn which platforms are essential for business and will have the demographic you are looking to capitalize on.
Step 3 is the most difficult phase of a strategy because each platforms functionalities change often so my suggestion is to be open and fluid to change. Do not be afraid to add other platforms as long as you have the bandwidth in place to support them properly.
Your biggest social media inspiration and social media guru everyone should learn from is…
I actually have two. CEO of Thrive Arianna Huffington (ariannahuff) and growing social star and host of the MPN Podcast Rachel Braunstein (@rkbraunstein). Both of these powerful women share great tips you need to know to propel your career and enrich your daily life. I love learning and both Arianna and Rachel provide guidance that is relatable to everyone. If you aren’t following them I strongly encourage that you do!
Thanks for that one. I read the book of Arianna Huffington, but I definitely need to check out the podcasts of Rachel Braunstein. Let’s talk about social media QA. Testing and innovation are an important part of every social manager’s job. Can you share your hit and miss of 2017?
My HIT of 2017 is Brand24 a FREE platform (with a paid component depending on your needs) allows you to perform deep analysis on a number of social media functions. I utilize it for event hashtag tracking. It is a must try. My MISS of 2017 would be underestimating the power of custom graphics. We are a visual society and people really respond to colorful and slightly graphics on social. Custom graphics are the main part of my social planning and essential to the continuous growth of the platforms I am responsible for.
What is the newest social media trend you would love to explore more?
Live video is taking off. All of the top social media platforms are providing avenues for users to live stream more than ever. It’s immediate and in many ways a more impactful way to get messages across. I have LOTS of video coming up soon for both Microsoft and for my personal brand so stay tuned!
What is your process and mentality around taking ideas, prioritizing & testing them efficiently, validating, and then feeding the learning back into the process?
I am an A/B tester. Everything that comes my way I want to know how it works, will it work and how it will be implemented. I am open to ideas but before they are presented to the field I want to make sure it’s something that they want and will enjoy. Do not be afraid to do beta testing with select audiences. The information collection is invaluable for success.
One DO and one DON’T for creating a meaningful growth in social media would be….?
Do: Like as many people on social platforms as you can.
Don’t: Over follow! Follow people you know will follow you back and help you promote your posts. As your social media platforms grow then you can start following verified accounts that may follow back in turn.
And the last but not least: what would be your 2017 social media tip?
My 2017 social media tip: Identify your TOP INFLUENCERS and utilize them to the fullest. Influencers are essential messengers you need to get your words in front of audiences you may not have direct access to. Engage with them as much as you can (once they are identified) and do not hesitate to reach out to them when you need specific posts amplified.
Thank you for the interview!
Coaching, Consulting, Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, Leadership, Modern Career
Social media tips from an expert, Victoria Nikolaeva
Victoria Nikolaeva is a Social Media Strategist at New York Institute of Technology. Today we will be talking what excites us the most in social media: strategy, metrics and ROI. Without further ado, let’s dive into her social media world and see where she is going to take us.
Numbers tend to be a true Achilles heel for plenty of fellow social media managers, but you definitely don’t shy from numbers as a research assistant, helping out in data gathering and analysis. Can you give us an example of a campaign that was beautifully linked to ROI?
A lot of the time, I try to look for inexpensive ways to gather data. In my experience, few companies want to allocate a higher budget to social media, or media in general. So through freely available tools such as built-in media platform post/campaign monitoring tools, or even better: using Google Analytics really helps a lot. There are freely available courses on how to use such tools that I recommend everyone take advantage of. The only shortcoming of Google Analytics is its inability to monitor social media, however, I found that most platforms have their own tools available.
At the moment the best example of ROI in my experience was when I first started experimenting with social media and analytics. I ran my own advertisement on Twitter, and quickly learned all of my mistakes in the ad campaign through the Twitter analysis interface. I remember making the silly mistake of including too many, hardly relevant, keywords in the campaign thinking that as long as it reaches more people, it would be better. That was a wrong approach. After adjusting my keywords, I had gained a lot more followers and traffic to my main website at the time. Ever since then, I’ve been using the tools to find the best posting times for my particular audiences, as well as see what posts interest them the most and look for ways to make them more frequent.
Can you share a proven method of retaining follower base and the way of measuring the retention rate?
In my experience, the best way of getting a steady follower base is by finding a niche topic that you like to post about and stick to it. I have found too many blogs try and post a variety of content targeted at a varied audience. However, that tends to confuse the brand identity more so than gain more followers. For example, an account that posts only flowers will be more successful than an account that posts about flowers, cooking, and cars. People look for specialization. And of course, being engaging with the audience, and posting frequently enough and on a set day of the week/month is important.
The best way to measure retention rate would be through Google Analytics or that particular platforms available tools. I like to look at the numbers for returning users to see if I have decent retention rates. However, when using Google Analytics for this, remember to exempt the IP address from your work and home to not confuse results!
What is the biggest challenge in a social media manager’s job and the way to overcome it?
Being on time with posts. It is important to post content at the same time/day so that followers get used to when new content comes up! However, life happens and sometimes we can forget to run a post for the day. I believe it is important to have at least 2 people on social media for that reason. Someone who can pick up the slack on occasion, and generate content when you simply cannot. At my job, I was lucky to have very helpful coworkers who sent me content whenever I was sick so that I could prepare posts from home.
They say that failures make us stronger. Can you give us an example of one of your failures, experienced during your career in social media. What did you learn from it?
Coaching, Consulting, Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, Leadership, Modern Career
Social media marketing tips from an expert – Lindsay Scarpello
Lindsay Scarpello is currently working as a Social Media Manager at Omaha Steaks and today we will be asking her about the strategic approach to social media, social media ROI, most important metrics, trends, and inspirations.
Social media is a rough business. What is the biggest challenge in a social media manager’s job and the way to overcome it?
I think the biggest challenge is staying abreast of all of the new trends and how customers are engaging with content. Snapchat (and now, Instagram Stories) is the perfect example of something that came in, disrupted the way we thought people wanted to consume content, and is now a dominant medium on social.
Can you share a proven method of retaining follower base and the way of measuring the retention rate?
Good content. That’s it, really. That’s the secret. Create and share good content.
They say that failures make us stronger. Can you give us an example of one of your failures, experienced during your career in social media. What did you learn from it?
Good question. I think my best example of failure in my role has been when I ran social for a (now out of business) futures trading company. That company experienced a huge public mistake that drove away customers, which eventually led the company’s demise and their being bought and absolved by another company.
Before that, though, during the mistake period, my bosses told me not to respond to angry customers on social media. I knew in my gut that this was the exact opposite of a solid PR crisis strategy, but I didn’t press the issue or try to convince my bosses otherwise. Anyway, my position (and many others) was eventually eliminated due to the company going under, but I still wonder if I had countered my bosses’ ideas with a solid social strategy, where I’d be today. I’m ultimately happy because I moved on and have had a good career, but it’s still interesting to think about.
How do you define the success of a non-quantitative social media activity?
I’m not sure there isn’t a non-quantitative way to define the success of a social activity. Vanity metrics like impressions or reach aren’t much when it comes to proving sales value, but they’re often correlated and can give a great general idea of success. I guess I would say I judge the success by the responses I receive from our followers. Example: if I’m getting a lot of great community engagement on Twitter, that’s not something I can quantify, but that word-of-mouth is incredibly valuable.
Any golden tip on achieving a consistent analytical approach?
Figure out how to report sales or conversions (as you define them) and you’ve proven everything you need to. For us, we report on sales, but we also report on CTR, because we consider that a conversion for social. If we’re getting them to click through to the content or the offer, we’ve done our job. If they’re not following through to purchase, then there’s something else wrong with the sale or the UX of the page, or something. And that’s a valuable thing to know for other areas of the company.
Coaching, Consulting, Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, Leadership
Social media marketing tips from an expert – Frederic Mailloux
Frederic Mailloux is a Senior Social Media Consultant and a former Social Media Director at TC Media. He is here to share few secrets of the ever-changing social media space. Let’s get it started then!
Frederic, let’s go straight to the point – social media return on investment. Can you give us an example of a social media campaign that is beautifully linked to ROI and how to get it started?
When I arrived at TC Media (we had 125 papers running all across Eastern Canada), around 30% of our website’s traffic was coming from social media, which was clearly not enough. We get our digital revenues per page views, and social media was underutilized. So the first thing we did (the data team and myself) was to look at the numbers, both on GA and Social analytics. With that in hand, we then analyzed the content that was published and how much it was performing. From that, it was just a matter of finding the voice and tone of the brand(s), and how every journalist should be using social from then on. I’ve come up with a deck and presentation on how social affects your PV numbers, and how using social in a better manner would mean more eyeballs on stories the journalists were working hard for. After one year, social traffic had almost doubled, representing around 55% of page views source. All because we organized how employees should use social media and gave them very few specifics guidelines so that their job would be easier.
All that made it easy for the social team to calculate how much revenue we could expect from a single follower in a given timeframe. This number helped tremendously to target our acquisition cost (yes, we did some paid acquisition campaigns in markets we reached less of the population than we were happy with) and forecast how much time it would take to make ROI on these as well.
Can you share a proven method of retaining follower base and the way of measuring the retention rate?
Let’s be honest: you will lose followers along the way. Maybe because they are not as attracted to your brand anymore, maybe they’ve had a bad customer experience, maybe the content you publish is not relevant to them…It happens. And brands shouldn’t be concerned as long as they GAIN more followers than they lose.
So the best method to retain – and gain – followers: get to know them. Find out who they are what they like, why they are attracted to your brand on social media, what type of content makes them engage with your brand. You might find some insight on your social audience that rubs you the wrong way (why don’t they like my super duper promotional posts!) but you’ll get a better grasp of what to do with your social channels. Most social media analytics or social media tools have the information needed for measuring retention rate. Explore the native analytics, get familiar with it: there’s a wealth of insight there.
What are the biggest challenges in a social media manager’s job and the way to overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges is how brands and companies view and utilize social media, and what they expect it to be for their bottom line. Social Media Marketing is SOCIAL first, media second and marketing third. Social is not just another marketing channel. It’s the only way people can interact directly, in real time, with their favorite brands. As a social media manager, you got to think about the relationship between the brand and the audience. You’ve got put the audience in the middle of all your initiatives. You must be able to answer “What’s in it for them?” to every piece of content you publish, every campaign you put out there. In a nutshell: SELLING SELLING SELLING = bad. Engaging, conversing, creating a relationship = good.
There is another hurdle: getting people to understand that in social media, they are not going against their “real world” competitor. Brands on social media are challenged by each and every bit of content that people put out: hockey scores, Minion quotes, vacation pictures, Memes, cat videos…
They say that failures make us stronger. Can you give us an example of one of your failures, experienced during your career in social media? What did you learn from it?
Coaching, Consulting, Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, Leadership
Social media marketing tips from an expert – Kelly Farrell
Kelly Farrell has almost a decade of professional experience in social media, educating companies to see the value in social media programs and understand the conversations surrounding their brand. She is here today to share her strategic approach to social media.
Kelly, you worked as a team leader with a global team to create and deliver strategic webinars and workshops. I believe that in this fast-changing and competitive market you learned a lot about a result-oriented approach. Can you give us an example of campaign/social media activity that was beautifully linked to ROI?
Great starter question! One of my personal faves would have to be when The Daily Show did hidden videos when Jon Stewart announced his departure last year. Comedy Central created this campaign to create buzz for the new host, Trevor Noah, by utilizing Google ads and YouTube videos. What followed was a reported 38 million impressions, almost 3 million views, and even a Webby Award for Best Use of Data Driven Media. It was so fun to follow on social and uncover all the Easter eggs along the way – fantastic way to keep fans engaged and intrigued by the new host, loved it!
Can you share a proven method of retaining follower base and the way of measuring the retention rate?
That’s tough to narrow down to just one method to be honest! But if you’re particularly focused on seeing results and measuring retention, I would suggest outright asking your audience what they like. It seems so obvious, but a lot of companies want to avoid looking naïve on social, when actually, the audience will appreciate the chance to participate in the content they see and feel more connected to the brand. And most social networks make it easy to incorporate now too with the addition of polls. Asking their opinion ensures your content will hit the mark, and you can measure the results instantly through the poll answers, or in the native analytics of the network. When you start to see an increase in followers, you know you’re making an impact. If you start to see a drop off, take a deeper look at what content was posted when you see the biggest decline so you can revise your content strategy.
What is the biggest challenge in a social media manager’s job and the way to overcome it?
I would probably say resources. Depending on the role and the company, many social media managers find themselves overwhelmed if they have to take on the role of leader and executor. This is where managing your resources really comes in handy, and I would advise anyone in this position to consider the following:
- What is the current state of your social media presence? Are you stretching yourself too thin right now, focusing on a lot of social networks rather than honing in on a few key ones to do really well?
- Get organized! Nowadays there are so many ways to make your time more efficient by utilizing templates for editorial or content calendars, software to auto schedule and manage feeds, etc. It takes time to build out a process that works for you initially, but you’ll cut your time sourcing and managing content in half.
- If you’re set on getting more resources, whether its budget or people, everything you do needs to be visible and tie back to ROI. For example, if you get advertising spend, be sure to report back on how many more impressions and clicks you got as a result.
They say that failures make us stronger. Would you be so kind and give us an example of one of your failures, experienced during your career in social media. What did you learn from it?
I can recall a campaign I did back in the day when I was marketing in the music industry. One of the bands I supported was going to go on tour to support the 10 year anniversary of their most beloved album. During this tour they would play that album in its entirety live. So when it came time to put together a plan for online advertising, we made the mistake of only targeting older fans who supported the album when it was first released, trying to re-engage them and their love for the band. But when we looked at ticket sales, we saw that majority of those purchased were in fact from the newer and younger fans! It turns out they were more excited for that tour because they had missed out originally and were die-hards for the classic album. Though the tour was still successful, we couldn’t help but wonder how many fans we alienated by not broadening our reach in online advertising. All that to say, my key takeaway was to really understand the data and who your audience is on social – don’t just go by who you think the audience is. Experiment with A/B testing and pay attention to who’s clicking!
How do you define the success of a non-quantitative social media activity?
For me, this is where storytelling really comes in because qualitative metrics are all about shifting sentiment. While quantitative metrics are great, at times they lack the context needed to truly evaluate the success of your efforts. For example, if you’re just focused on the number of comments you receive on a post, you could deem it successful due to high volume. But without the sentiment, you’re overlooking if those comments were primarily positive or negative, which puts a completely different lens on it.
Any golden tip on achieving a consistent analytical approach?
I would say that no matter where you are getting your analytics from, the most important thing is to be consistent in the beginning so you can actually benchmark your success. Set targets for a quarter for example, and keep the same ones for each campaign you develop. Then once you achieve those targets, revisit your goals and define new analytical targets. Too often businesses create the content and report back on what metrics they achieved, but if you ask me, that’s putting the cart before the horse. You need to know what you want to achieve before you can establish how to get there.
What is the one social media metric you would die to measure, but no one out there came up with a solution yet?
That’s a tough one! I think the biggest challenge for any social platform currently is accuracy with the qualitative metrics, such as sentiment. They’ve come a long way, but it’s so difficult for systems to pick up on context, even outside of social media. But because it’s considered a metric in social media, there’s much more demand for systems to evolve and understand context in this field.
Are you using any social media management tools you cannot live without?
Oh gosh, the industry has come such a long way in the past 5 or 6 years and developers are really stepping up their games… competition is intense now! I think rather than name any ones in particular, I will focus on features and say that personally, my “tool” is my phone. These days it’s all about making content that is mobile-friendly, accessible on-the-go, and secure. I’m big on experimenting with apps on my devices, whether it’s for publishing, following news, or analytics, I LOVE trying out new ones that have a nice, clean interface with intuitive features.
Can you share with us your process of coming up with a social media strategy? What is the most difficult phase of a strategy?
