0:03
Shanie Zimerman
All right, everyone. Hi, I'm Shani and I manage Oktopost Strategic Partners. And joining me today is Jen Gutman, our Director of Social Strategy.
0:11
Jennifer Gutman
Hi everyone.
0:14
Shanie Zimerman
In this webinar, we're going to be talking all about employee advocacy and how to maintain and even launch a successful advocacy program during a crisis similar to what we're going through right now. So essentially, we all know this period pandemic is affecting all walks of life and really every industry out there. What we really don't know is what the future holds. But taking these steps in the right direction is really the only way that we can keep moving forward. So with these types of events that are going on and happening globally, it's really important that the organization is aligned on the messaging that you want to be delivering to your customers and your audience. Employee advocacy is a really effective and creative way to deliver that message while allowing advocates and your employees to engage in these meaningful conversations on social. So I just want to remind everyone that you are on mute. If you have any questions at all, feel free to drop them in the Q and A box and we'll make sure to get to them at the end of this. Jen, tell me what it's like being the Director of Social Strategy during these times. I want to know a little bit about the day to day. I can't imagine that this is easy. Sure.
1:24
Jennifer Gutman
So yeah, you really can't imagine, I think what all of us B2B marketers and social media managers and employee advocacy leaders are going through after having started January 2020 strong and having to basically realign all of our content. With that said, I always have had the philosophy that there are no such things as problems, only challenges. Right? And who doesn't love a good challenge? So I think we're all at the Oktopost headquarters taking this as a really good challenge that we're going to figure out. So with that said, you know, when everything first started, I'm sure many of you can relate. I wasn't really quite sure what I should be posting or when I should be posting it, or even what I should be sharing. In regards to COVID 19, I was glued to the news and also glued to our competitors feeds, being like, okay, who's going to say something first? And for me, there was no really defined moment until I logged into Oktopost and I saw that our engagements started to go down. And for me that was the time when I was like, okay, Jen, it's okay to post now about COVID content. See what I did there? Because I understood very Quickly that this is where our audiences, that's where their minds were. So once that signaled to me that we needed to change up our content, I also knew we needed to empower our advocates with the right content. And I also knew we needed to act fast because news was changing on a daily basis. So I started to brainstorm. And as I began to brainstorm, something kind of hit me as well, right? Like this is our new normal. So we really need to be strategic as we start redefining our content and think not in the short term, but in the long term, what kind of campaigns can we be running today that's going to be able to continue the conversation into tomorrow? And for me, one of the themes that was relevant, I think, both internally at our company and externally, globally, was the messaging and not creating panic. So a fun fact about me is I actually hold a master's degree in counterterrorism and homeland security. And before my shift into the social media world, I was certified by FEMA and how to handle social media during crisis. So. So I was like a little bit excited that, wow, this is like time in my career that I'm actually going to be able to combine these two things. And so the first thing that I actually did was put together at Oktopost, a crisis management employee advocacy task force. And I highly encourage it, if you haven't done so already. At Oktopost, it was pretty informal with a fancy name, but it was important for me to have the right team together to lean on as information, both internally and externally was flying through all sorts of channels. So I invited our CEO, some marketing team members, our head of HR, our head of operations, and a few sales VPs. And really for me, when it came to the advocacy side of things, the reason why I pulled everybody with those titles together is because I wanted to be able to communicate creatively on the different aspects of the business to our employees. Because what I was finding was that there was mass panic internally to match what was happening globally. And again, one of my goals in this was do not create panic. And I felt that if we could use the advocacy channel to push out messages, that would give our employees confidence, right? Confidence that their jobs aren't going anywhere, confidence that we're going to get through this and relevant information, that it was going to keep everybody engaged with the program and keep sharing. And then from there, when it came to our actual social channels, I basically needed to delete everything very quickly. Luckily, an Oktopost is campaign based, so I would just pause the campaigns, but that that gave Me a scare because I just was so afraid that the wrong message, the wrong image was going to go out across one of our channels that wasn't reflective of the times that we're in.
5:28
Shanie Zimerman
Yeah.
5:29
Jennifer Gutman
And
5:31
Shanie Zimerman
that's a huge concern. What would you have done done if that entirely wrong message did get sent out? Like what. What could you have done to kind of save the day and step in with that right messaging at that right time?
5:44
Jennifer Gutman
So I think being aware of your content, being aware of the messages you're sending out is very important. But when you're running an advocacy program, you don't always have that full control over what employees are going to say or how they're feeling necessarily when it comes to social. Right. This is their outlet to share how they're feeling. And in today's environment where everybody is using social media to express themselves to communicate. Right. We're all literally in our homes all day. My biggest concern there was that our employees, even though I trust them, I know that, you know, after some meetings with our task force, that employees were feeling nervous or scared or frustrated. Right. We have global teams all sitting in different areas in Europe, in the States, in Israel, and every government is handling the situation differently. So what I ended up doing to really just be on the safe side is I used our banned keywords and I banned some words like curse words or other things that may be sensitive topics that employees wouldn't be able to share just to really make sure the content people are emotional. So I just didn't want to have anything reflected poorly on Oktopost as we figured out our messaging. So I would highly encourage using the banned keywords and the compliance features in your platform because that really helps just again, let you get a little bit of sleep in between all the crazy news.
7:10
Shanie Zimerman
Totally. So what type of campaigns did you create for advocates since the start? Well, since. Yeah, since the start of all of this.
7:18
Jennifer Gutman
Yeah. Right. Was that like February 19th? I think that's when like around. So basically the types of campaigns we switched away from any campaign that was heavily promoting Oktopost or really talking about the positive things about B2B marketing. And we focused on three campaigns I'd say right now that I see the most engagements in. So the first one is just like your simple 2020 COVID 19 response. It's real basic, it's super easy and I see so many clicks coming from it. This campaign is currently housing any curated content or Oktopost in house content that we're writing about the coronavirus outbreak. Again, a goal of this campaign is to make sure none of the articles that we're sharing are spreading or contributing to panic and are somewhat still relevant to either the verticals that we sell to or to the audiences that we have. We then switched up a campaign, so it's called 2020 globalization of social Media. And in the beginning of January we had this really cool idea that we were going to do a bunch of podcasts, webinars, and get some influencers and discuss interesting topics. And we actually shifted this campaign to focus on different challenges that the different verticals that we have or business in general or organizations might have during these times. So Colin Day, who is our managing director of mia, he was so nice to volunteer to host these podcasts. And we're interviewing people like Chris Skinner from the fintech space, who talks about how banks, for example, can use social media to engage. During this time we're interviewing Kyle Hegary, who's a coach, an expert on cross cultural communication. And so what I've been finding, if anybody's stuck with any sort of in house content that they can be thinking about long term, especially when it comes to advocacy, all the influencers right now that we lean on, they're all at home, so we all know where to find them. And they're dying for speaking engagements because, let's face it, a lot of their events have been canceled this year. So it's a great opportunity to reach out to any influencers in your industries and start some series, network with them and create those posts. And I see that our advocates like that as well because it's new knowledge for them as well. And so for example, I had one of our sales guys come up to us say, wow, that was some really interesting content with the podcast. I'm going to use that when I talk to customers. So again, trying to keep it educational. And the last campaign we probably should have had before COVID 19 that we set up is called 2020 Employee Suggested Content. And this campaign is geared, it's more like light hearted. And this campaign is geared towards the suggestions that come from our advocates and our employees about what they want to share during these times. And I've seen what they're suggesting and they're making me laugh, their jokes, their funny memes. There's a ton of great meme content out there right now, unfortunately. And it helps me, I would say, drive the content bus when it comes to knowing what to put on advocacy because it's coming from the advocates, instead of get hit by it and feeling like, oh my gosh, I don't know what they want or what they want to share.
10:35
Shanie Zimerman
Yeah, no, you were definitely able to take action really fast on social and align all of the messaging, align all of the advocates. So really great work with that.
10:45
Jennifer Gutman
Thank you. Thank you. I think one of the things that we're learning here at Oktopost is that all of us are on the front lines together. And that while we are all, or would all consider ourselves digitally savvy social media experts, we are not really trained, I don't think yet, to handle this level of remote work, especially when it comes to advocacy. So, like, yes, we're doing advocacy, we have global teams, but at this scale and this quickly. So I think what's helpful is that I know that I can reach out to my B2B marketers on LinkedIn. We kind of reach out to one another and just kind of ping ideas off of each other because we're all learning together. And, you know, these three campaigns above, they were not in the original 2020 campaign lineup when we created our annual campaigns. But I think adapting quickly has been key to success. And by doing that, we're actually seeing one of our campaigns right now has like 250 clicks and 14 conversions, one of the three I mentioned above. And that's amazing. I mean, that's one of the best performing campaigns we've seen. So I think if you can adapt quickly and just go with it, and if you see something's not working, don't wait until tomorrow to fix it. Just don't grow attached, get rid of it and start something new.
12:02
Shanie Zimerman
Totally. And as an advocate on the OXOPOS team, I can tell you that the content that you're giving us and that you're providing us is not only on topic, but it's informative, also a little lighthearted during these times, which I think that everyone can really have a little bit of a relief during this type of global pandemic. So can you share with us the type of content that you're finding to be more effective for keeping advocates engaged? So what is most engaging, specifically for the advocates?
12:30
Jennifer Gutman
Yeah, totally.
12:32
Shanie Zimerman
Specifically for the advocates audience. Sorry, advocates.
12:35
Jennifer Gutman
So feel free to chime in anytime. No, but what I'm seeing, you know, first of all, I think this is the biggest question right now for a lot of advocacy program leaders is what's gonna resonate with my advocates and what's going to also resonate with my audiences and their audiences and continue to drive this forward? Right. It's like, where do we start? So what I'm seeing based on our analytics in Oktopost is that the most profound engagements, meaning like the clicks, the conversions, even the comments I would say right now are pretty profound because they are allowing you to engage in some sort of conversation. We're all locked at home and being the most effective are the content pieces that are focused on giving any employee confidence or putting some order or make sense of all the disruption going on around them. So for example, third party content that's straight from the source of wherever it may be coming from around I don't know like I use like inc.com a lot. Social media today has some good stuff coming out for third party content that I've been sharing and it just puts some nerves at ease. I also think as I mentioned, you really enjoy the light hearted spoofs. We did one, we posted one about like a spoof of video conferencing. Right. Cause if we can't laugh at ourselves, how are we going to get through this? I also see how our industry, how the B2B social media marketing industry is handling the situation. So whether it's the impact and how to move forward, I see those articles having relevance. And I think also I'm seeing positive articles about business moving forward. Right? That's key. Figure out how to keep moving forward. And anything that hope or that message to advocates makes them feel that they're contributing still to the, to the greater good of the company. Another big one, tips on work from home. And I think this is actually a really great one because it's really easy that it's easy for organizations to write about and it's also easy if you just go to Google and type tips to work from home. And I've had employees reach out to me, you know, they're having trouble with their Internet. I mean God forbid, can you imagine now if we lose Internet, we're all at home but like Internet, their routers, screens, how do you set it up so that this is all going to work? What's the best room in the house to sit in if I have kids? So you can get really creative with that content. And then I also post workouts or recipes or TED talks are really good and we see a lot of engagements on those.
15:10
Shanie Zimerman
Yeah, no, sorry.
15:13
Jennifer Gutman
It's okay. And then I think just when writing the content, just keep empathy in mind. I think that for myself and when I'm writing all the advocacy content, I ask myself these four questions. The first I always say to myself, you know, is this piece of content informative for our employees and our audience? What new piece of knowledge is my audience or advocates going to gain? The second question I ask is, will this piece potentially cause panic? And if I have any doubt in my mind that this piece of content is going to cause panic, I do not share it across the advocacy board in any way. Again, do not cause panic. The third is the question that I ask myself is how is this content contributing to the greater conversation on social media? So having a look at the space in your industry and what topics are being discussed, how are you adding value to those conversations? And right, that goes into my fourth question. Am I speaking with a purpose or am I speaking just to speak? Because if I'm speaking just to speak, I think right now you don't need to add noise to the feeds. You need to just take a step back and make your conversation relevant and meaningful, if that makes sense.
16:26
Shanie Zimerman
It 100% does. And what I was, when I almost rudely cut you off, I just wanted to agree with you that I'm just a light hearted person in general. So I'm a bit more drawn to that type of content still, you know, informative, but a little bit more lighthearted. And I see that that's actually really resonating well with my audience. A lot of them are my partners and it's just allowing for some more meaningful, trustworthy conversations as they're also trying to navigate this new world order. So just these relatable topics, I think that, you know, we're all on the same page, we're all going through this together and just being able to have conversations during this time, I think it's super, super helpful. And when it comes down to the messaging den, tell me what, what are your best tips? You mentioned never, you know, we never want to incite panic. So what are your best tips for keeping the messaging cool, common, collective?
17:21
Jennifer Gutman
Sure. So it's simple, right? Be human. We are all human. So let's be human in these times. And then when you think you're being human, be even more human, right? Because at the end of the day, that's what your audience wants. Connecting digitally. We've completely lost this peer to peer connection. And in these times, I think as all of our, our customers and clients and advocates, as we all try to understand how we're going to rebuild these peer to peer connections and these meaningful conversations. Be patient, but be human. Don't also expect, you know, yourself to be a COVID19 professional spokesperson and keep your audience updated about the situation. Leave that to the experts and again, go back to being human. There's nothing wrong with on social media when you're an advocate, if you share a piece of content, someone comments asking them how they feel or putting out messaging, that's just simple, right? Like have you had a glass of water today? Something as simple as that continue to spark those conversations that we are losing in the office space or from business meetings today. I think the messaging brands needs to resonate and in order to do that, we really need to humble ourselves and also speak to what we know, not try to be someone that we're not. So be compassionate, be personal, be yourself, even be funny. Right? Like Shani, like you're one of the most comical, funny. You have these great one liners bring that to life and as you share your content. And I think that by doing that we're all in it together. And luckily social media is actually going to work to our benefit because it's going to help us stay connected. And companies that are doing advocacy now, they I think have a leg up because they have advocates, a trained force on social that they're going to be able to continue to utilize and again, just drive home that they are human, that there are, there are actual humans sitting at home behind these computers who want to talk to you, who want to engage totally.
19:28
Shanie Zimerman
Now, when it comes down to the advocates themselves, you know, we, the two of us were based out of our Tel Aviv office and we have our London office, our Atlanta office, we have Julia in Arizona. So we're used to a bit more of the remote connections. But now that everyone is at home and kind of in their own space, have you found it challenging to keep advocates engaged and participating in the program and what techniques are you using to keep them engaged and participating?
19:58
Jennifer Gutman
Yeah. So I'm sure anyone on this call who's running an advocacy program, they will tell you along with myself that there are always challenges with keeping advocates engaged. Whether there's a Covid crisis going on or not. It is definitely one of the biggest pains and obstacles of any advocacy program that we all work together to hopefully close the gap. I'd say the challenges that I've seen now, there's I think there's like four big ones. So the first I would say is connecting and really understanding what the advocates want to share. So. Right. What I've been doing for that. Oh, sorry about that, I pressed my screen. Sorry about that. So yeah, so practicing advocate listening. So basically right. This is like connecting with your advocate on a personal basis. And I'm really prioritizing this because I think that right now more Than ever. People are at home all day, whether they have kids or not or whatever they're doing. And they're isolated, so they're dying almost to just have some communication. And I think it's a great opportunity as an advocate leader to listen to what the advocate would like to share and better understand what type of content that they would feel comfortable sharing. Because when they're comfortable sharing the content, then that means I'm doing my job. Another challenge I've seen is communication. We've lost pretty much. I mean, Shani, you and I used to have literally coffee every day and we would talk about work, we would talk about, talk about advocacy, and we've lost that ability to have a coffee break and gain insights from one another. So I recommend with this loss of communication to over communicate. But I think a challenge with that is also like, don't be annoying. And that can be hard with the different personalities in the organization. So it's like, who, who are you gonna really bother? You don't want to do that, but you also want to communicate, finding that balance. And I know for global companies, we're still pretty lucky that you know our size, but for global companies or companies where this might be less manageable, I would go back to having, you know, as I mentioned before, maybe set up a task force of some sort that you can kind of get that feel from a few different members of your department and speak to them on Zoom meetings. See their face, but check in, right? Communicate with them, listen actively listen. What are their teams in need of content wise? And then how can you help those teams do their job at the end of the day? I think that is really helpful. And again, even with hr. So a funny example here at Oktopost is that during one of our task force meetings, we were speaking about different ideas for content, and our head of HR mentioned that a few team members were worried about their home setup because they were living in a studio apartment and they had their desk and they didn't know how they were going to manage their day. So we started to do some research and we found like a personal trainer to bring in. And we use the advocacy board as ways to kind of help our employees get ideas on how they can arrange their space or what they can do with their time between calls. I think the last thing that's been a challenge is keeping our company culture alive. It's changing, it's evolving, which is awesome, right? It's that challenge that we know we're gonna, we're gonna solve because we're Excited to, but it's different. So what I've been utilizing there, and I think this may be a great opportunity, if you haven't done so already, is Instagram. And a lot of B2B companies struggle with what to share on their Instagram channels. And right now it's actually been one of the best social channels to engage advocates and connect with them because we actually have interesting content. Right. Like you can take a picture in your kitchen. And that's interesting for people to follow because see the more human side of you and not just the brand. So we have ramped up our hashtag employee takeovers, which is a huge trending hashtag right now on Instagram. And it gives you the opportunity to actively listen. Right. Because you have to reach out to them, you have to gather some photos and you tell basically their story of what it's like to work from home. And we've seen a lot of engagements from this. And also employees are getting excited because they see their colleagues on our Instagram. They're sharing it in their stories. So I definitely think utilizing Instagram to keep your company culture alive is going to go a long way in the advocacy program as well.
24:52
Shanie Zimerman
Yeah. So I just want to give you a little bit of a shout out right Now, Jen. Before COVID 19, she was always reaching out to us if it was on a monthly basis, to just connect with the advocates individually and get a better understanding as to how we want this program to really run and the type of content we want to see and different types of incentives. And since COVID 19, she's been so on top of it and she's been taking all of our feedback and really applying it. And I just really think it speaks a lot to the program when there's someone leading it that's creative and engaging and just so enthusiastic about everything that has to do with social. So just wanted a little kudos to you on that. Thank you. What other aspects of employee advocacy helps bring these teams closer together? Even though, like I said, we're all working very much separately.
25:44
Jennifer Gutman
Yeah. So. Right. The big problem with social distance is that it actually creates social distance. And that's a challenge. If you think again about that water cooler talk or lunch breaks or coffee breaks, we don't have that anymore. But advocacy is a serious great replacement for these watering holes where we used to conjure and get information from one another and chat with one another, because it's a way to continue to unify your company. What do I mean? The gamification aspects of an advocacy program Right now can go a long way. So I can tell you what's happening in Oktopost. We have some of the regional managers that have been quite quiet over the past few months suddenly, like going crazy and slamming everybody because they are just like getting all these clicks and they're so proud of it and they're like, amazing. And they're creating in our Slack channels, naturally, because they're excited that they're getting so many clicks. And I'd like to think it's because of good content, but they're getting a lot of good stuff and they're talking within each other. And I think when I see that, when I'm not the one that has to constantly be like, advocacy, advocacy, advocacy. And it makes me a little bit more common. I see between them on Slack or on our WhatsApp or on our Google Hangouts or all the other millions of ways we digitally connect that. The gamification piece, the competition, the friendly competition uniting everybody. And everybody's now more aware of, like, who's at the top. And they're checking the leaderboard more, maybe because they're home and they're bored, I don't know. But they're checking the board more. So that's awesome. And I think that what we've also done is we've revamped our incentives for the program. So I know right now is a difficult time for a lot of companies and money can be like finding budget for prizes and things like that at this time might be a little bit challenging. Lucky for us, what we've done. So along with create meaningful content, we wanted to change our initiative to be meaningful. So we put forth an initiative to support our local businesses. So now for the advocates, when somebody wins at the end of each month, instead of getting the traditional Amazon gift card, what we're doing is we're giving them a gift card to their local business of choice and we are going to promote that business on our social channels with a shout out to the advocate and where we're really hoping that this takes off. And we've had a lot of good feedback so far, but employees do feel like they have some control and some power to help a really not so great situation. And so even with our incentives, I would recommend thinking about what you're currently incentivizing with. I know one of the team members that I was speaking at at a larger company, they shared with me that they were doing lunch deliveries for the top advocates, which I thought was a cute idea.
28:44
Shanie Zimerman
Amazing, I love that.
28:46
Jennifer Gutman
So it's like lunch on us. So there's definitely ways to get creative if anybody needs some ideas there. I have a whole list that I've been hearing and brainstorming with because, again, it's a big change. Right. Like, we have to make these moments meaningful. And I think also. Right. There are parts of our day that are so mundane now that we're at home. So even putting meaning in the mundane, I think helping local businesses and this incentive, I'm hoping our employees will really drive up the content. So, Shani, let me know what you think later.
29:18
Shanie Zimerman
I absolutely love the shift in incentives. I come from a long line of small business owners, and I love that we're able to just give a little bit back wherever we possibly can. So, Jen, before we wrap up, I would love to know if you have any other tips for B2B customers. B2B industries that are kind of really just trying to thrive in this new normal. Yeah.
29:45
Jennifer Gutman
All right. So I've thought about this long and hard, and something that I came up with that I think is actually, if we want to look at the COVID 19 glass, we can look at it half full with this one. Because we've all been having to make content so quickly. And we've known our messaging. We know exactly like, you know, where to hit what and where in the buyer journey we need to put content. And now everything is like, whoa. We don't know what's going on, what people are feeling. So I recommend putting together customer advisory committees. And we're starting to do this at Oktopost, and we're seeing some really interesting stuff. So what this basically means is, is we are having our CSMs, our customer success managers, reach out to their portfolio of customers, not to sell them anything. Right. If they want to buy, that's amazing. But we're not being sales with this initiative. It's literally a listening initiative for our CSMs to reach out and just be human. Right. And ask the questions around, what can we do at this time from a client content perspective to help you? What content are you lacking? What information do you need to do your jobs better? Where can we come in and help? And we've been getting some interesting feedback in these advisory. We call them customer advisory committees because we let the customers know that their feedback is being taken very seriously and it's being looked at. So if anyone out there who's a customer listening and they want to be a part of this committee, please reach out to your csm. We're looking to understand where we can help you improve Your customers. And this is like marketing at its finest, right? This is listening to your customers understanding the content, that they need, the materials and then we're going to provide them with that. And I think as crisis continues to unfold, it's giving us a reason to reach out to our customer with a purpose. Not just, you know, I need to reach out to you because this is my job. It's a listen. We really, really want to engage and understand. Are we on par? And then the second thing that we've found helpful is employee engagement training via Zoom. So what are these trainings? So basically in the past, I think our advocacy program, it kind of reminded me I was a cheerleader, so it reminded me of a megaphone. We had like the cheerleaders like being like go content and then it goes out. They share the content, the advocates share the content and it's out there. It's a social land and there's nothing coming back our way in terms of comments, engagements. And what I'm seeing is that because of the work from home environments and because everybody is online, there are more engagements, there are more comments, there are more discussions taking place on the content being shared. And I don't think employees right now, as I mentioned before, right, we're not trained for this new work setup that everybody's remote. Some employees don't exactly know how to comment or how to engage back. And again, when those conversations right now that are lacking, that were once peer to peer, are no longer there, we need to arm our employees who are sharing our content with the right tools to respond to that content. So for example, right, we want to make sure that if someone raises a question about the industry or a salesperson should know how to handle that question, but also be human. And so we are putting together employee trainings to help with not being a megaphone, but really helping to drive two way discussions on social media.
33:37
Shanie Zimerman
Yeah, amazing. Jen, thank you so much. I want to move over to Q and A. We have some really good questions. Are you ready? Yeah. So one of the, one of the questions we got, what are your suggestions for those who are looking to relaunch their employees advocacy program in times like these? So had a program, paused it and now looking to relaunch.
33:59
Jennifer Gutman
That's a really great question. I do think that now is actually going to be the best time to do this and I would look at it as a uniting initiative. Right. With so many people right now working from home. Right. They're going to need a place to whoever you're. I don't know if. And again, we can also take these questions and take them personally further. But I don't know if you to pitch this to stakeholders or write a business case or if it's already been approved wherever you are in the process of bringing the program back. But I think a great place to start would be a kickoff and launch over zoom and getting everybody retrained. And again, I would need to know a little bit more information on where you are in the launch. But I would be certainly happy to talk more about it. But I think again, just making sure everybody's trained to handle the responses and share the content on how to use advocacy, why you're doing it, why it's important. I hope that helped help that question.
35:03
Shanie Zimerman
No, I think it absolutely helped. We'll have our contact information at the end, everyone, just so you know. So if you wanted to elaborate further, we can certainly help you with that. But the next question that we got, how do you recommend the balance of not appearing to be capitalizing on this crisis and via new campaigns or initiatives launched via advocates and so on?
35:25
Jennifer Gutman
That is. That's like my biggest fear, right? I'm like, I'm dead serious. And I think a lot of us have this, you know, this notion in your head when you're creating the content, right. How do you find that balance? And I think it is hard. One of the things that I've been leaning on right is whatever content that I'm creating, I'm trying to be very thoughtful about it. And so if it's content about working from home, for example, I'm trying to see the reaction of it. And actually just today, so we launched a new ebook, this was from before and it's finally finished. And I like tested out today for the first time in like a month and a half, some content around marketing automation and Oktopost and how we integrate. And I'm just keeping my eye on the analytics, honestly, and, and making sure like what I'm sharing is resonating. And I again, I think there is a fine balance and I'm not quite sure if any marketer has figured out that balance yet, but I'm trying to stay away from like the salesy language. I'm trying to stay away from like, you know, buy Oktopost or buy product today. But more around how we may be able to help you during this time because I do still think that business is moving forward and people are still looking to understand the tools that they're going to need to have to move forward. And I think that as part of our job as marketers. Right. What I said before, we're not COVID19 experts. We're our own industry experts. And it is our job to continue to educate our audiences and keep, keep people informed about what it is that we do. And I think part of a way to continue to keep business moving forward is not stray too much from your original messaging in terms of at the end of the day, you are still trying to engage with your audience. So let's use social to do that.
37:27
Shanie Zimerman
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I have another question here that ties in a couple of the questions together. I'm looking to start an employee advocacy program. What resources and best practices are there for organizing boards, choosing advocates, how to launch and so on?
37:44
Jennifer Gutman
That's a really good question.
37:48
Shanie Zimerman
I can also chime in with this one.
37:49
Jennifer Gutman
Yeah, Shani, I'm gonna, you know, once a customer success manager managing our partners and I know from our coffee talks that this has come up a lot. So I'm gonna actually pass you because I think you have better insight.
38:02
Shanie Zimerman
So when it comes to choosing advocates, I like to look at it as who is going to be engaging and who's going to bring the most value to the program and who is it going to be most valuable for. So when I am kind of guiding customers partners around launching an advocacy program, I would always recommend starting with first of all your internal marketing team. That's also a nice little testing period where you can see and get feedback on the type of content that you're sharing and the frequency of shares and the engagements that you're generating from there. I would open it up further to the customer facing team, all of your client facing team, as soon as they hang up the phone with someone, they should be connecting with them on LinkedIn. I know that that's what I do. I know that that's basically what we were trained to do. Again, just building up our connections and making them meaningful connections. So moving over to the customer facing team marketing, customer facing. And then I think it's really important to have C level execs, C suite on the advocacy board. I think it leads by example. I think that if we have CEOs and CMOs on the board, employees within all of these departments are going to be much more inclined to share. When it comes to resources, we have endless resources. So specifically for Optimost, we have a whole advocacy toolkit. It includes checklists and what to do before, during and after. Well, not after but before and during an advocacy program, what to measure, how to incentivize really everything that you could possibly think of along with blogs and case studies and webinars really galore where you're able to learn from so many different verticals and also so many different size companies. So you know, everyone's telling their story of what's effective for them and you can really take the bits and pieces because at the end of the day, you know, you're the ones that know your organization best. So you're going to be able to adapt the program to make it as successful as possible for your program. I hope I answered that.
39:57
Jennifer Gutman
All right.
40:00
Shanie Zimerman
We'll be happy to. I think we'll definitely be sending out that advocacy toolkit in a follow up. Otherwise you can certainly reach out to us at the end. So I want to take one more question. I do want to be conscious of time, so bear with me. Can you explain a little bit more about our advocate listening process?
40:22
Jennifer Gutman
Is that the like the active advocate listening? Like I'm guessing that's what it like.
40:28
Shanie Zimerman
I believe so.
40:29
Jennifer Gutman
Okay. So yeah. So.
40:30
Shanie Zimerman
And in case that's not the case, you can always let us know and we'll be able to give you a better answer.
40:35
Jennifer Gutman
Yeah, no problem. So that process was really brought about. It's like active listening, right? Like you really. So. Okay, let me, let me take it back. So what I would do in that process is I would first look at, I would log into Oktopost and in Oktopost you can see when the last time somebody has logged in. So when it comes to the active listening, the advocate listening, I kind of split the advocates up into three groups and I actually wrote a blog about this with like, if you think about advocacy on a bell curve, right. You're going to have at one end your social enthusiasts and they're awesome. Right? Doesn't really matter what you put on board, they're sharing it. You're gonna have a big chunk in the middle. And I'm still seeing this, by the way, in the work from home environment. So it's still standing in the middle. Yeah, still in the middle. You have kind of your, your advocates, they're gonna log in, they're gonna share content. They're not your enthusiasts. They're not your. Sally's in the front of the Zumba class going crazy. But they're the ones that are in the middle. So I don't know why that came to my head. I guess I miss working out. But they're the ones in the middle who are. Sorry, that was really weird.
41:52
Shanie Zimerman
They're the ones you got this.
41:54
Jennifer Gutman
And then the ones what I call social curmudgeons, they're the ones that like, no matter what you do, they're gonna give you a hard time or complain or just not share. So I take a look on a daily basis at kind of like who's doing what. And I group our employees into that graph by myself and say, okay, you know, Joe is here, sue is here, Sue's probably here, Joe is here. And then you have, let's say, Larry, who's the curmudgeon. And in the active listening process, I've come up with questions to engage each type of Persona in my advocacy program. So, right, so maybe Sally, who's sharing all of the mega, like all the content, maybe I'm, I want to actively listen to her. Like, okay, you're sharing Sally, but what are your engagements? Can we walk through if you're getting any traction? I see here you have a conversion. Who is that? And we can take the program and get a little bit more advanced with her. And I feel it where that active listening comes in is she starts sharing with me, like who her audience is and what, what she likes more of. And because she's utilizing the program, I do want to make sure I give a little bit more weight to the Sally, the guys in the middle. I definitely reach out, I'd say more frequently to. And I have questions for them. And for them, their questions are, what's going to get you to, what's going to get you to share more? What content are you finding interesting? Or where we're going wrong? Right. I'm not afraid to hear what, what might be working at all. And then from the social curmudgeons, I basically kind of just asked them like straight up, why are you not sharing? And they'll tell me, like, I don't want to be a part of this program or I am not interested, or I've had people say I don't have time or what. You know, there's a million different reasons. So I'll pick one social curmudgeon a month to like personally get a little
43:44
Shanie Zimerman
bit more shift, slay them to the, to the salary, bring everybody up one
43:49
Jennifer Gutman
more of where they are. And I do see it working. And I can definitely send over those questions to who, but whoever is asking and try to help there. But I do think the more that I listen, I think the better engagements my content is getting. And. Right. So I manage both the corporate channels and the advocacy program. And so something to keep in mind is that it's okay. If your advocacy content is different than your corporate channels.
44:20
Shanie Zimerman
Yeah, totally.
44:21
Jennifer Gutman
Okay. So I find that sometimes someone asked me to share. The other day, like in the uk, there was an article that came out about if you unplug your microwave during this time, it was written in the BBC that if you unplug your microwave during this time, you'll have better Internet connection. And an advocate suggested to me to share that content and I went with it. And that actually got a lot of engagements in the uk. So I was really happy trying that.
44:47
Shanie Zimerman
When we jump off of this webinar. Amazing. Jen, thank you so much for delivering these points. It was super, super helpful. And thank you to everyone who was able to join us today. We're going to be continuing these from the Expert series over the next few months just to make sure we're providing you all with the necessary information and resources to really be able to see continued success with social media during these times. Additionally, if you would like to consult with Jen directly on your organization's transition during this time or how to better leverage social media advocacy, whatever it might be. I didn't mean that slide. I meant this slide. Don't hesitate to reach out to her. Jenoptopost.com you're also more than welcome to reach out to me. Shaniactopost.com we'd both love to help and share any tips and tricks of the trade with you. The last point that I would like to leave this webinar on is that advocacy, really, it's a major platform to keep staff, employees, customers, the entire audience educated and engaged during these certain times. And if you're running advocacy, currently, amazing. Take these points and tips that Jen delivered today and run with them. If you're not yet running advocacy, now is the perfect time. And again, Jen and I are here if you need any guidance. If you just want to consult, have a little chat. We'll be more than happy to do that. So till our next episode from the experts, stay happy and stay healthy, guys. Thank you again for joining.
46:19
Jennifer Gutman
Bye.
