Employees play a critical role in providing authenticity and trust and scalability in this new social media era. More customers are moving online and making peer-to-peer decisions and want to connect with everyday employees. Liz Brown Bullock shares how Dell and other companies are training and activating employees to further connect with customers and prospects online. Additionally, this presentation shares how to strategically think about preparing your organization to activate employees as brand advocates.

1. 1
Using Brand Advocates for Influence
Liz Brown Bullock
CEO & Co-Founder Social Arts & Science Institute, SASI
@lizbbullock
LinkedIn: Liz Brown Bullock
#SMSsummit

2. Employees are key ingredient in new social era…
More than ever – a company’s
brand is influenced by what
consumers are saying about the
brand
An everyday
employee is 2x
trusted vs. Chief
Executive
(Edelman Trust Barometer, ‘13)
Confidential©2013 Social Arts & Science Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved
90% trust recommendations from
people they know. 70% trust
consumer opinions posted online.
14% trust advertising (Nielsen, 2009)
How companies
market, sell to
and support their
customers is
changing…
What roles do
employees play in
this
transformation?
How do you
activate
employees?

3. Companies must fundamentally rethink how
they connect with the marketplace…
Challenges:
• Companies are seeking “authentic” and “genuine” ways to build
customer relationships.
• How do you scale across customer online conversations?
• How may companies and customers collaborate in useful ways
(products & services)?
3
How do you use social media authentically and engage with the
marketplace to deliver results?
Answer: Companies must train, activate and scale brand advocates
(employees) to build long term relationships with prospects and customers.
©2013 Social Arts & Science Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved

4. Companies empowering brand advocates:
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IBM
• 500 Thought Leaders
• IBM VOICES
Dell
• 10K Certified
employees
• Engage on behalf of
brand
Cisco
• 1.3K employees
amplifying company
message
Sprint
• 2K employees
• Ninja Program Black
Belt
Best Buy
• 3K employees
• Answering customers
Intel
• 300+ employees
• “Experience Intel”
• Content generation

5. Case study: Cisco Twitter analysis
• Employees have 10xs more followers vs. corporate accounts
• Only 2% of the audience overlaps with corporate accounts
• Employees share 29% more URLs about the company vs. corporate
accounts
• Employees account URL reach is 2x vs. corporate accounts
• The reach of hashtags about the company shared by employees is 24
times that of corporate
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Source: http://www.slideshare.net/socialook/cisco-global-
february2013socialook?from_search=2

6. Activating brand advocates can go beyond
amplification…
• Dell asks certified employees to do various social
activities on behalf of Dell that speak to their
level of interest and expertise
• Goal to deepen their social expertise
• Portal serves up activities, tracks, reward and
identify the right employees to activate
Listening
Thank You
Social
Development
Events
Employee Training
Recruiting
internal external

7. Additional benefits: engaged & result driven
employees
Recent study from National Business Research Institute:
• Engaged employees produce 2x as much work product in the time as
unengaged employees
• 40% – 80% of customer satisfaction is affected by employee attitudes
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1. Believe in their organization
2. Have the desire to work to make things better
3. Understand the business context and the bigger
picture
4. Are respectful and helpful to colleagues
5. Are willing to go the extra mile
6. Stay up to date with developments within their
industry
NBRI Identified 6 Traits of Engaged Employees:
Source: http://www.nbrii.com/blog/employee-engagement-
customer-satisfaction-financial-performance/

8. Employee Activation Maturity Assessment
Competency
Maturity Ratings
Stage 1: Hierarchy Stage 2: Emergent Stage 3: Synergistic
Employees feel restricted to share
any content about the brand, even
on personal social media
platforms
Handful of employees are sharing
brand content and some
engagement with customers and
prospects
Robust organization armed and
working collaboratively to connect
with customers, prospects,
advocates & Influencers
Leadership Command & Control Consensus Collaborative
Policies & Governance No Guidelines Restrictive Inclusive
Education No Training Ad hoc Formal Program
Metrics & Measurement Anecdotal Activity Tracking Behaviors & Outcomes
Tools & Technology
Consumer tools used by
individuals
Mix of consumer tools &
enteprise tools
Social Functionality is
integrated throughout
©2013 Social Arts & Science Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved
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To activate employees you need 5 critical competencies: Leadership, Policies &
Governance, Education, Metrics & Measurement and Tools & Technology

9. Leadership
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OrgExecSupport
1 – 2 Executives
supporting social
business
Handful of Executives
supporting. Most
likely in Marketing,
Comms orgs
Tops down priority
with leadership
across the board
supporting
Goals:
1. Launch
2. Adoption
3. Better
Relationships
• Do these
Executives have
the support to
drive training and
activation of key
teams?
• What are key orgs
to train and
activate?
• Do these Execs sit
within these
organizations?
• How can you
leverage top
Executives to
launch & sustain
employee
advocacy
Leverage Executive support to build program + reward &
recognize key employees
• Dell’s CMO, Karen Quintos schedules private meetings
to celebrate Dell’s brand advocates
©2013 Social Arts & Science Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved

10. Policies & Governance
• Yes, social policy is a must…
• More importantly, you need to define
employee advocate roles, plus how you
will activate them
10©2013 Social Arts & Science Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved

11. Education: Dell’s Social Media & Community
University
Policy
Principles
Governance
Training & Tools
Activation programs

12. Metrics & Measurement
• RISK: Dell witnessed reduction in employee incidents after training
• ACTIVATION: Certified Dell employees were activated to create powerful
customer driven programs
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Awareness
Activation
Business Impact
• 9,000+ employees trained
• 30 courses in 55+ countries
• Marketing, Sales, PG, Custome
r Service
• 1,600 employees Twitter
handle with Dell bio
• 2,000+ Brand Advocates
• 150+ Subject Matter Experts
• 2.2 engagements and 6.8 clicks
per employee post (SME’s)
• Incremental 17K traffic to Dell
• Improved reach, earned media

13. Tools & Technology
• Internal portal to capture key data
around employee advocates
• Portal served time bound activities for
employees to sign up and participate
• “Wall of Fame” touting strongest
advocates
• Log activities + Leaderboard
• “Find network members” to connect
with like-minded employees
13

14. Dell Superbowl ad
• Dell launched 2013 Superbowl ad
solely online and via social media
• Activated Dell certified employees
to share Super bowl ad
• +6.5M views on YouTube
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Source: http://www.pmdigital.com/press-events/super-bowl-commercial-index/

15. Tools & Technology: SocialChorus
• Develop Advocate strategy
• Identify brand’s best employee advocates
based on:
– Social media savvy & influence
– Position within company hierarchy
– Departments
– Location
• Make it easy for advocates:
– How, why & when they should communicate
– SocialChorus Platform training
• Make it easy to see success: custom analysis of
program performance, broken down by:
– Individual advocates
– # of endorsements
– Social channels
– Time period
– Top advocate content
• Continual optimization
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16. Closing with Final Thoughts
• Employees are key in building and scaling customer relationships, but
they need governance, training, processes and tools.
• Activating employees goes beyond content amplification. Find your needs
and employee’s passion points.
• Leadership is critical for adoption. Plus, leverage leaders to reward &
recognize.
• Define employee roles and how you will activate employees.
• Ultimate goal is to authentically deepen customer relationships and be a
better business.
16

17. Employee Manifesto: Gautam Ghosh
17http://www.gautamblogs.com/2010/05/social-business-
employee-manifesto.html?m=1