Your Social Media Silo X Your Social Media Source [CONCILIATION]

It’s been a hectic week and with Halloween on a Monday, it’s easy to say this week will be crazy. But as the entire office was anxious to leave for Halloween, I started noticing that everybody updated their own profiles, completely ignoring our fan page or any other “corporate” profile.

Keeping the fan page updated, they say, it’s the job of the social media department. There are excellent reasons for it:

  • Getting the tone right
  • Knowing what can be made public
  • Keeping up with appropriate frequency & schedule

See also: Is Your Company Stuck with A Social Media Silo?

But the biggest challenge is that the social media department is not the one producing content. WHAT???

Your Social Media Deparment Doesnt Make Products

Just like the Marketing or Customer Service departments are not directly responsible for product development – yes, they provide detailed feedback, insights, demographics, etc.. -, the real people behind what makes your company successful are usually social media “faceless”. Your sculptors, designers, engineers, technicians, and salespeople are way too often disengaged and oblivious to your corporate presence online.

Today, because of Halloween, this became extremely obvious as one engineer posted about turning one project he’s been working on into a costume. His social circle loved the idea, and had a manager not seen it, we wouldn’t have used it on our page. To make it a bit more personal, we tagged that engineer as the mind behind the idea and turned him into a Facebook celebrity (for a couple hours at least).

There are companies that suffer from social media anxiety, and despite doing awesome things, fail to communicate them. When this happens, it’s not because the staff isnt “savvy”; most of the time, as makers, they fail to recognize the public interest in what they’re working on. Clearly, this is not the case when they’re working on something that cant be made public yet. But we’ll get there.

See also – How Can Social Media Marketing Work For B2B Companies?

Your Social Media Source Fuels Your Silo

In the beginning of the post I mentioned a few issues why social media requires a certain level of training. The worst of those issues is a leak. Allowing sensitive information to be made public can lead to horrible PR nightmares and even lost deals. But there are ways around it.

1. Reach out to Product Managers

Product managers are able to tell you specifics about product development for a cool “behind-the-scenes” post, and they know exactly what can or cannot be made public. For snapshots of development or design, they may be able to put you in contact with a specific designer in charge of the project.

2. Come up with a Development Schedule

With the information gathered from your product manager, you’re able to compile a schedule and base updates and create unique content around it. This becomes an even more precious asset when combined with step 3:

3. Conciliate Development Schedule with Sales

Want to make your entire company happy? Once you compiled the development schedule, conciliate it with the Sales team to see what they’re looking to push, to whom, and when.

If you’re able to increase the buzz around a product launch based on carefully selected “snapshots” and funnel this buzz into a lead capture page you’ve just achieved social media nirvana.

Rinse, Repeat

To optimize the entire process, you can work with other managers to institute an internal shared server, and overtime, educate the staff to add snapshots under the “social media ready” folder.

Of course, this is a longer-term battle. We’ll address it more in depth in the near future. In the meantime, work on your schedules, and become an asset to every department in your company. If social media is an open communication channel, you need to be as well.

Have questions? Comments? Let us know!

QUICK PITCH

The SocialMediaGuerilla.com parent company has started a weekly “free SEO Tips” series where they share a complete SEO blueprint right on their blog. Since Social Media & SEO become more entangled daily, you should definitely check it out. And if you want your company reviewed, you may leave them a comment too.

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