An Alan See CMO Temps white paper on DocuStar

1. How to Engage
Employees in Social
Media for Sales Results
Alan See
CMO, DocuStar, Inc.
by

2. Executive summary
Social media is driving a wave of human interaction around the
world and its use in the workplace has become an important
discussion among companies. No one will question the rapid
growth of social media and its impact on the customer experience,
but many organizations still struggle with allowing employees to
engage on social platforms due to risk and regulatory compliance
issues.This white paper will examine three key competency areas
in relation to the use of social media among employees: Strategy,
Processes and Technology. Highlighted are
key components and detailed steps that will
help employees engage in social media and
improve the company brand.
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
The average
number of
in-house social
media employees
today is 4.1
1. CMO Survey Report by Duke University, McKinsey and the American Marketing Association, February 2014.
http://www.cmosurvey.org/results/

3. Introduction
The customer experience
refers to all touch points
people have from the moment
they are aware of a need until
they have fulfilled that need.
At a high-level, social media
has the potential to influence
the customer experience
when employees are able to
engage in dialogue with the
customer and begin building
trust-based relationships over
time. To make the social-ready
transformation an organization
may need to adopt a new
mindset. Most transformations
involve strategy, technology
and processes and a social
media transformation is no
different in that respect.
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
On average,
when employees
share something
– anything –
with their social
networks, each
one reaches
20 times more
people than a
typical brand
sharing with the
same number of
followers.2
2. Unleashing Power Employee Advocacy, Social Media Today, April 3, 2014
http://socialmediatoday.com/Beyond_Engagement/unleashing-power-employee-advocacy

4. Competency Area #1: STRATEGY
Identify your goals and objectives
A solid strategy begins with goals and objectives. Many companies are
trying to increase sales by improving brand awareness and the customer
experience through social media. Others look at reducing costs by
becoming more efficient. Whatever your situation, your social media
goals and objectives should support your strategic marketing plan, which
supports your overall business goals and objectives. Your goals should
be supported by SMART objectives so that you can properly track your
progress:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timed
4
How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results

5. Create a social media policy
There are many challenges associated with social media, especially when
it comes to a company’s social media use at work. Companies should
encourage employee advocacy and engagement on social channels, but
there need to be rules and guidelines. The use of the Internet can affect
the way customers view a company’s products and employees. Negative
comments or a hostile environment
can tarnish the reputation of the
company. Does your company have
a policy regarding social media,
blogging or posting information on
the Internet? If one doesn’t exist,
create one. Educate and train
your employees and partners, and
add it to the corporate employee
handbook or intranet for reference.
Recognize the importance of participating in online conversations but
provide a clear policy – to help protect both the integrity of the business
as well as employees.
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results

6. Address compliance concerns
Is there a mandated compliance restriction in your industry? Discuss any
confidential or legal issues that could harm the company’s image. Inform and
provide guidance for your employees on do’s and don’ts.
Don’t let it collect dust
Social media and technology are constantly changing, so social media policies
need to be updated every few months. Ask yourself if it’s still relevant or helps your
employees do their jobs. Do any legal updates apply? If a policy is developed well
enough, it can support and empower employees to be more engaged online.
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY KEY POINTS
DEFINE: Define what employees can/can’t do.
IDENTIFY: Identify corporate values and help employees
understand the impact of their online behavior on their personal
“brand” and the permanence of online posts.
REFERENCE: Reference other corporate policies that also
may apply in the social media space such as confidentiality,
discrimination and harassment policies.
INFORM: Inform employees who to contact if they receive a
question via social channels about the company that they can’t
or should not answer and who to contact if employees have
questions about the policy itself.

7. Competency Area #2: PROCESSES
Empower your employees and make it
measurable
Social media is becoming more of a function of the company and less of
a role of just one person or department responsible for Facebooking and
Tweeting–more than just the marketing department needs to be active
on social media channels. Employees, partners and distributors are the
ambassadors for your brand, and empowering them to become brand
advocates can go a long way to amplifying your company’s message.
How do businesses leverage social media through their employees and
partners? Companies can engage their employees by doing the following:
Grant your employees access
Your employees are already more than likely using social media while they’re at
work. And let’s be honest: if you block access to these sites, you’re only doing
damage by getting
rid of a direct link
to your customers.
Embrace the use
of technology and
let your employees
engage in online
conversations.
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
Source: The Rise of Social Salespeople, Forbes, November 5, 2012.3
3. The Rise of Social Salespeople, Forbes, November 5, 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/11/05/the-rise-of-social-salespeople/

8. Meet them halfway
Make it easy for your employees to be engaged on social media. Gather existing
company material and make it readily available for them to post and share.
Education and training
It pays to have a good foundation, and training is a critical step in
engaging employees and partners on social media. Some of your
employees might be socially savvy and will only need to be educated on
corporate policy; others will need a complete guide to social media.
Lead from the front
Identify company executives or employees who are already doing a good job on
social media and highlight their activity. Use their success with social media as
leverage to get others in the company involved.
Set realistic expectations
Each individual in the company can be a voice for the company, driving
engagement from their profiles back to the company. Some will need to be brought
up to speed on social media and how to use it professionally. Recruit interested
employees but recognize not every employee will want to participate.
Employee profiles are their own
Every company should respect any employees’ online activity as self-expression,
however, employees who choose to identify themselves as a member of a
company may be viewed as a spokesperson for that brand. It should be clearly
How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
8

9. stated in their social profile, “Opinions expressed here are my own.” Even so,
any post is a reflection of that employee as well as the company, so they should
always act professionally.
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
BE REALISTIC: Meaningful relationships are not built overnight
LISTEN:
Understand what
your network is saying
PARTICIPATE:
Jump into conversations – but don’t go
straight into a sales pitch
CREATE: Content is King. Be a resource – or find the resource
BE POSITIVE: View the process as an opportunity to help others
BE PREPARED: Spend time thinking about what information & insight you can share
BE PROACTIVE: Nurture and maintain your network
RESPONSIVENESS
TRANSPARENCY
AUTHENTICITY
TRUST
NETWORKING
FOUNDATION
NETWORKING
PILLARS
COVER YOUR
NETWORK
Social Networking Basics

10. Competency Area #3:
TECHNOLOGY
Leverage
social media tools
All too often employees don’t know what
to say and aren’t always up-to-date on
company news, so they refrain from
posting corporate content on social media.
Social content distribution platforms,
also called social employee advocacy
software, can solve that problem and help
you reach your audience by empowering your employees, partners and
distributors to become effective brand advocates. The platforms house
a content library where users have access to a full inventory of posts
that have already been created by marketing. An automated corporate
approval review process within the online portal can also be in place to
ensure compliance. Employees can track real-time metrics of likes and
shares and marketing can track and report results on not only corporate
social accounts but across participating employee accounts as well.
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
Members of the
general public
trust ordinary
people like
themselves
nearly twice as
much as they do
company CEOs.
(2014 Edelman
Trust Barometer)4
4. Who do people trust? Peers and Regular Employees Over the CEO, Edelman Trust Barometer, 2014
http://jackiehuba.com/2014/01/who-do-you-trust-peers-and-regular-employees-over-the-ceo-apparently.html

11. How Social Content Distribution Platforms Work
1. Load the content library with corporate content – social posts with
links to blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, etc.
2. Configure employee accounts and provide individuals their personal
login for accessing the platform and linking their social accounts.
3. Encourage employees to post content from the content library to their
social media channels.
4. Provide control (for highly regulated industries) and create automated
process for approvals/edits.
Be sure to benchmark statistics before you start using a distribution platform. This
allows you to track engagement improvement as participating employees advocate
for your brand over time. The content library
needs to be continually loaded—
ideally with a combination of owned
and third party content—in
order to achieve success.
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
The best advocates
for a business are the
ones who understand
it; educated employees
can help expand reach
and maximize followers
by tapping into
their own internal
networks.

12. How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results
DOCUSTAR SOCIAL EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY CASE STUDY
CHALLENGE
DocuStar’s social media presence was undersized and not positioned to
help employees engage online or drive revenue goals. Total social reach
was minimal with less than 1,000 collective followers for the @DocuStar
Twitter handle and DocuStar’s active employees.
SOLUTION
Educate and train: Employees went through rigorous training to help them
understand the value of social media to both their personal brand and the
DocuStar corporate brand.
Lead from the front: As the most followed CMO on Twitter, DocuStar’s
marketing executive was instrumental in inspiring employee participation,
but the entire executive team provided full support for the social media
transformation.
Develop content: New thought-leadership content was
created and made available for employees to tweet and
share online.
Provide enabling technology: DocuStar developed a social content
distribution platform (SpeakSocially) in order to make it easy for
employees in each department to become social brand advocates.
Website Traffic: 300% increase
Online Leads Generated: 275% increase
Twitter: 650% increase in followers of @
DocuStar; followers of key DocuStar
executives went from 300 to more
than 30,000
Klout: 70% percent increase
RESULTS

13. Conclusion
Engaging employees in social media marketing provides an excellent
opportunity to reach your customers and build your brand. Remember:
All company departments should be involved, especially sales. Executive
leadership should articulate “What’s in it for me?” to non-marketing
employees and set an example for engaging in social media. Providing
a useful and clear social media policy for everyone in the company to
follow will protect both the business and its employees. It will take time
to materialize, but it’s worth it to expand your company’s social network
by empowering your employees to become brand advocates. It will
foster high engagement with your customers and followers in addition to
building a close-knit company culture.
Next steps
Are you engaging your employees in social media marketing? As you work to build
employee advocacy, DocuStar can provide an interactive social media workshop
to energize your employee social engagement initiatives. Our SpeakSocially social
content distribution platform can further accelerate your employee advocacy by
making it easy for employees to share corporate social posts. You can request a
“Social Media Networking for Sales Results” workshop or a personal demonstration
of SpeakSocially at: http://docustar.com/marketing-resource-management/
speaksocially/request-a-speaksocially-demo/
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How to Engage Employees in Social Media for Sales Results

14. @docustar
facebook.com/docustar
linkedin.com/companies/docustar
pinterest.com/docustar
google.com/+DocuStarIncCincinnati
youtube.com/user/DocuStarInc
1.800.426.7921
info@docustar.com
www.docustar.com
DocuStar provides businesses with web-
based marketing resource and creative
production management services, email
and social media marketing tools, and
digital print and fulfillment services.
Combining 20 years of print fulfillment
experience with business and marketing
software, DocuStar is uniquely equipped
to provide customizable solutions that are
local, mobile and personal.
DocuStar, Inc., 1325 Glendale Milford Road, Cincinnati, OH 45215