Managing The Corporate Brand

via Team Performance

tt
Your Guide to Social Media Success©

The New Brand Molecule

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 Hello

Paul Stillmank 7SummitsAgency.com

President & CEO, 7Summits @7SummitsAgency

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 This presentation
has been modified
to include the
speaker’s notes as
text on each slide.

Paul Stillmank
President & CEO, 7Summits

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 Social Context Evolution Then
June, 1999: Harvard Business Review introduced a concept called The
Brand Molecule

Harvard Business Review, (June), 125-133. Urde, M. (1999).

Focus was brands, sub-brands, and related brands. Companies were trying to understand the perceived
relationships, proximity and positioning among these brands in the market place in an effort to better
market to their target audience.. This was a very technical way of looking at companies trying to
understand, manage and control their brands.
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 Social Context Evolution Then

The cover of that

article pictured a
molecule (the
brand), being built
by people standing
on the particles that
make it up.

The reference
focused on how they
“see” your brand.
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 Social Context Evolution Then

Never was a graphic

more prophetic – as
now it truly is people
that are building,
modifying and
transposing brands
based on their own
personal perceptions
and experience.

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 Social Context Evolution Then
Traditional brand models focused on shouting with little peer to peer
influence.

Sure, customer’s talked to each other – word of mouth is age old. However the Company and its
Marketing department created the message that dominated the media…

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 Social Context Evolution Now
Customers are more connected through social networks where they
can relate to like-minded peers. Key Opinion Leaders emerge as a
Social influence. Employees are out there doing their thing!

That’s changed now.

•Social media has connected
consumers with like-minded peers
like never before.
•We are hyper-connected.

•Key Opinion Leaders have

emerged with a bigger voice…as
have Customer Advocates.
•This has lead to new categories
like Social Influence Marketing and
Customer Advocacy Programs as
companies jockey to take
advantage of these newer,
connected media.

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 Social Context Evolution Now
Customers are more connected through social networks where they
can relate to like-minded peers. Key Opinion Leaders emerge as a
Social influence. Employees are out there doing their thing!

The other big change, and the one

we are here to talk about, is how
your employees feature in this
evolution of marketing and
brands:
•They are also “out there” – on
Facebook, on Twitter, commenting
on blogs, posting status on LinkedIn.

•And their profiles on LinkedIn, on

Facebook, on MySpace, on Bebo,
and more – they may all carry your
brand (their workplace).
•Employees represent your brand ,
influence its perception, – whether
you know it, whether you like it or
not!

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 Social Context Evolution Next
Corporations respond by adding social context inside the
enterprise and connecting that knowledge outside as well.
Companies have begun to embrace this as
well:
•By connecting partners, customers, and
customer service to provide better support.
•By supporting key opinion leaders in their
causes; altruistic for sure, but also in hopes of
garnering some of their social influence to
their brand, their product, their service.

All of this has an impact on the Customer

Perception:
• A Company’s brand influences and is
influenced by the relationships it has with key
stakeholders. There are many organizational
entities (and employees) involved in
supporting those relationships
• So when we talk about “Managing The
Corporate Brand via Team Performance”, we
are talking about this newer idea of Social
Influence.

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 Social Context Evolution Next
The result is employees becoming empowered like never before.

Never has it been more important

than now to have high performing
teams; engaged employees –
employees that understand how
to behave in these conversations
so that they become additive and
not a detractor.

The key point is that how your

team behaves externally is
predicated on how they perform /
behave inside your organization.

And that is something that you

can influence and support.

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 Your internal teams affect every phase of this socially integrated model:
• Awareness  driving more impressions to your brands,
products and services. Each is a potential brand ambassador.
• Relevancy  influencing conversion through user (employee)
generated content, tagging, rating, commenting
• Involvement  promoting and maintaining contact through
solution teams, online chat, and more.
• Ongoing Engagement  building brand-entered community with
active participation.
The Social Context has permeated this spectrum and employees can
and do have an effect on this model.

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance
First, change must come from within.

Employees are talking

about our brands,
products and services
everyday online. They
need to be engaged in that
brand experience
internally in a way that
lends itself to getting the
messaging right when they
engage externally.

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance

High performing
teams sharing
their excitement
about their
company, their
work, and their
brand create
excitement and
share an inside
look at a company.

This is a force multiplier for large companies that get this

right – leveraging the power of user generated content
from internal brand ambassadors.
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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance
So how is this approached from the inside? How can a company light
the spark and energize employees to this level and benefit?

Alignment! Embrace social as part of your internal culture as

well.
One sure-fire way to get on this path is to embrace social as part of your internal culture as
well. Community is the new collaboration. So we need to get after that: people collaborating at
work the same way that they do at home/online makes it easier to promote the behaviors
inside our organizations that we want to see when the workday ends.
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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance
Engaged, satisfied employees become brand ambassadors.

This style of internal collaboration and communication creates brand

alignment, boosting employee productivity and therefore satisfaction.

Hopefully this is hitting home. This greater level of understanding and engagement with
brands, products and services inside the enterprise reflects on both the style and level
of engagement when employees represent your brand outside of work.

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance

It’s more important than ever to

launch internal brand
communication initiatives so that
employees understand and can
articulate your brand attributes
when communicating online.

Many companies have designed programs that

completely engage their teams in the brand and
its key elements. This often includes relating
brand attributes to their specific work area or job,
arming them for communications inside and
outside the enterprise.

Internal branding efforts like these prepare

employees to present a credible, compelling, and
differentiating story about your organization,
products and services  an essential ingredient
that goes well beyond Social Media Guidelines.

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance
This helps us to make the leap from controlling the message, summarizing cautions, and
providing guidelines to creating an entire workforce of brand ambassadors that are active online.

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance

Let’s Get Tactical! • Marketing and Human Resources need to work

together to make sure that brand is clearly aligned
with vision, mission, and values.
• Recruit for success. Hire candidates that can support
your brand. Ask specific questions during the
interview process to determine whether a candidate
“gets it” and can represent your brand online in the
fashion that you want them to. This also tells the
candidate something about your company  brand is
important and the discussion starts at the earliest
point in the process.
• Corporate communications needs to keep brand
attributes in the forefront until they are instinctive /
natural:
– Create brand alignment exercises for individual groups
and departments.
– Share brand alignment stories to help reinforce.
– Add a communication program surrounding brands,
applied brand attributes, and products/services.

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance
• Create your own internal community for
Let’s Get Strategic! gathering and disseminating market information
to employees – knowledge is power.
• Create a centralized location / community on
your site that allows them to communicate
internally and externally. This adds fresh
content and provides a centrally located set of
examples for others to follow.
• Create dedicated internal communities:
– Foster understanding of brands, products
and services
– Sub-communities created by the
community
– Make part of employee on-boarding
– Create a roadmap for the future
– http://www.slideshare.net/7Summits/applie
d-social-media-for-a-social-business

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 Where to Begin?
Assess Where You Are Today – Then Formulate a Plan
Cultural
• Balancing point between self-direction and top-down mandates
• Organizational attitudes about transparency

Social Business Planning

• Types of social media already being used in your organization – for what
purpose and by whom.
• Types of problems being solved or desired to be solved
• Success profile for problems being solved. Impact of those successes.
• Social Business Policy status and impacts of policy breach.
• Content organization: topical, hierarchical(by division, group, unit); roles &
responsibilities.
Social Business Models
• Communities of Practice versus decentralized social community
• Accommodating discovery of people through content, content through
people, content through content, and people through people.
• Reward, recognition and recommendations

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 Our Approach – Example Assessment Areas - Continued
Assess Where You Are Today – Then Formulate a Plan

Community Launch Activities

• Launch strategies to drive traffic, participation, and creation (rewards,
competitions, forcing through changed processes, individual and team
performance measures, events, etc.)
• Moderation and reporting strategies
• Identifying internal champions and key influencers – before launch and on
an ongoing basis
• Other corporate initiatives that enterprise community is coupled to –
additive and detractive
Community Management
• Member management policies and enforcement
• Role of senior leadership in contributing to community
• Marketing of successes and the growing value of community affected
content
• Promotion of new content, new members, new groups and new topics
• Leveraging of Web 2.0 effects to accelerate community ease-of-use

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance
What about those guidelines?

Well-written Social Media Guidelines steer employees to:

 identify themselves and the capacity in  know how to handle and route customer
which they are participating complaints

 be selective about who they allow into  know when NOT to engage in
their network conversation

 Treat colleagues, customers and  use forum etiquette

competitors alike with courtesy and
respect
 be factual and participate where they
actually know what they’re talking about
 remember that if it’s online, then it’s
discoverable
 state when it’s their personal opinion

 be genuine, be themselves, and talk in the  focus on areas where they have valuable
first person knowledge to share

 give appropriate recognition – respect  Realize that participation in social

copyrights and fair use guidelines computing on behalf of your company is
an opportunity

Social Media Guidelines do not create brand stewards – they enable your employees to be brand
stewards (policy, communications, training, engagement)
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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance
Furthermore….a few cautions
• There are many laws and SEC
regulations that govern what,
how and when companies can
disclose information that may
affect the financial markets
• The FTC now requires a
company to disclose its material
connection to employees
posting messages or blogging
with they are “off duty”.
• A well written policy should
guide employees to refer
inquiries on such topics – from
any source – to the appropriate
company communications
department

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance

Paulie’s Picks: a list of public domain best practice

documents on Social Media Guidelines
Mashable’s “10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy”
http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-policy-musts/

Intel Social Media Guidelines

http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_us/social-media.htm

IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines

http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html

Sun Microsystems’ Social Media Guidelines

http://www.sun.com/communities/guidelines.jsp

Mashable’s “Presenting: 10 of the Smartest Big Brands in Social Media”

http://mashable.com/2009/02/06/social-media-smartest-brands/

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 Managing the corporate brand via team performance

So get out there! Get your

employees engaged to build
your brand molecule…they
are already influencing how
your customers view your
brand.

Closing Remarks
Understand your customer, draw together relevant content and serve it up inside the organization first!
•This type of “ internal listening” affects how you participate and react externally – strengthening brand
perception. Apply social listening tools to understand customer perception, find relevant groundswells and
apply them to serve your customers better.
•Exploit the social context inside the enterprise to make difficult jobs more easy and to connect customers
with each other to do everything from solve problems to ideate new products.
That’s how you can gain alignment and momentum between corporate and personal brands!

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In the Vast Expanse
of Newly Evolving
Social Media, What Should You
Focus on First?

Your Guide to Social Media Success©

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