A social business model nurtures the connections that feed advisory businesses
Where everyone is responsible for success
Who is responsible for social communications within your business? The most likely answer is Marketing. But should that be the case? So many individuals within a business have insights and commentary that could be beneficial for clients. This was discussed at a Marketing Institute breakfast – From social media to social business. Andrew Gill (IBM) spoke about how he advises clients to adopt this model. This is an issue I struggled with myself as an in house marketer and see clients grapple with regularly.
Things that do belong to marketing
It makes sense for marketing to run the “push” communications of the business – firm news, deal announcements, new service lines, new offices, new hires – anything that would normally go out in a press release. It also makes sense for them to maintain an eye on organisational “friends” and keep some good engagement going online between organisations that work together or with similar clients. Clearly marketing should provide market intelligence based on social media based market research & observations, combined with analytics stats and insights (a social media dashboard).
Getting engaged
However, to truly get value from social media, more people within the business (outside marketing) should be engaged in using social media as part of their jobs and to help people build their own networks and profile.
Why create a social focus for your business?
Firstly, because it’s very much a numbers game – the more people you have sharing your Firm’s content and commenting inline with your Firm communications, the broader your social impact for your brand.
But it goes deeper than that. It’s about encouraging natural personal connections that feed advisory businesses. It makes sense for those who represent the face of your firm – those who advise clients on a daily basis – to be active on social networks, where your clients also engage already.
The lawyers, the accountants, the consultants themselves should be sharing their knowledge and commenting on issues that matter to clients. It deepens their connection to specific people at client organisations and gives them an opportunity to reaffirm their expertise. This provides clients and potential clients with a personal representation to your overall brand communications.
This all makes sense - on paper - but in reality, this is a tough concept for most client advisory businesses.
Hurdles to creating a social business
In my view, the hurdles to reaping the benefits of a social business normally fall into two categories:
1) Fear of saying the wrong thing
Issues around client confidentiality, being seen to be providing advise and appropriateness to the brand come up. Approval processes start being discussed. (The death of true social engagement.) Firms want to trust that their individual advisors will “do the right thing” and be careful about what they say in communications, but, particularly at larger Firms, it is hard to know every client or potential client, so an inoccuous post about a new development in the marketplace can ruffle feathers internally (and externally) if a specific company is mentioned or even associated that might be a client of another department or business unit.
There are a million ways to trip up. You can understand why businesses back away and ask their people not to make individual commentary via social networks.
2) We’ve lost the kitchen sink
There is sometimes a fear of “giving away too much”. This is omnipresent – people are naturally wary of who they give information to. But in the context of social media for business, where comments and content have to be general and based on combined learning and experiences, you cannot give away too much (unless you start veering into the below mentioned “what to avoid”s…)
The more you share, the more knowledge people assume you have – they don’t assume you have used up all your knowledge and go to someone else who shares nothing.
Creating an environment for a social business
So what can advisory firms do to engage more via their individual advisors and give their brand more depth and personalisation via social media?
a) Be brave and trust
I mentioned trust. Trust is key. Ideally you have hired people who value their jobs, their clients, the Firm’s brand. This is the case for 99.9% of people. There will always be the possibility of a maverick, but I don’t think that is enough reason to step away from the potential benefit of creating a social business.
a) Be brave and trust
For those 99.9% of people who want to engage appropriately, mistakes can of course be made and most professional people feel more comfortable if they have guidelines. These are a simple couple of pages, added to your communications policy, which help individual advisors understand:
b) Provide guidance
• expectations (e.g. which networks, how often, what firm information and content to share)
• brand themes (the aspects of the brand that can be upheld and supported by social communications – e.g. expertise, openness, sharing culture, industry knowledge)
• what to avoid (e.g. client names, references to ongoing work, strong personal stances on divisive industry issues)
This gives them a framework to support their Firm’s goals and brand through their individual communications and comments.
c) Practice makes sharing second nature
A good “practice run” before encouraging your people to start engaging more externally, is to embrace social technology internally. Many organisations have internal blogs and boards to allow people to share their most recent experiences, what they found helpful, materials they used in specific client situations – all coming under the umbrella of “knowledge”. This has many benefits from an organizational efficiency point of view, but also allows "Appropriate Sharing” to become second nature.
A social business engages social media at an organizational and individual level – providing clients with much wanted information and knowledge, and supporting its own brand and individual expertise along the way.
Triona Saunders is a marketing consultant and founder @ Buckley & Partners Consulting, a marketing and business development consultancy for professional services and other B2B organisations.