Like many people operating in the social media space, I came into it from a media and PR perspective. The principles are pretty similar - working out how best to get your message from A to B - in our case, from our business to our customers, our brokers and IFAs, to our communities and to our employees – current or future.
From a media relations perspective, that route from one to another is obvious: newspapers, TV, radio, etc. From a wider PR perspective, it may be more about addressing the organisation’s public (to use the old traditional word) using different channels.
The social media world has fundamentally shifted things away from that route one option. Edelman has been telling us for years that trust in the media is very low. The “fake news” acclamation is now common parlance (thanks Donald!)- either in jest or in reality. Social has given communications to the people. It’s given a voice and a platform for anyone to speak. Influencers are no longer the chosen few from the C-suite. They’re on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. And they’re quite possibly your employees!
Fortunately, most companies have now come around to the fact that social media isn’t about to un-invent itself. The vast majority of people use social in some form in their day-to-day lives. So, businesses need to embrace it. Are there risks? Of course there are. All perfectly manageable. But social creates huge opportunities for us as well.
I spend a lot of my time empowering colleagues to step out into social media spaces. Not sharing pics of their meals, or their holiday snaps (well, not all the time). We want them to be engaging with their respective professional communities. Why? Because better connected people do better business. Or they learn new tools, techniques, trends. And as a result, they become better professionals. And then they do better business. And they become more engaged employees. Who share and shout about their work. And then we do better business. Spot the theme and the opportunity here?
We’ve given them ‘permission to operate’ and reworked our social media policy to be more “you can..” rather than “you shouldn’t’…” We’ve helped them with approved content working closely with PR, Media, Marketing and HR. And we’ve shown them how to do it. All in the regulated world of financial services.
We want employees to use social to learn; to use social to connect; to use social to build relationships. Because if they use social to keep networks warm to them, they are effectively using social to keep networks warm to us. And a more social business makes for a good business.
Keith Lewis
Social Media & Social Business Manager, Zurich Insurance UK
More at keith.social or connect at linkedin.com/in/keithlewiscomms or @KeithLewisComms on Twitter or Instagram