Why you should share your social media strategy internally

Question: Who can help develop your company’s social media profile?

Answer: Almost anyone in your organisation.

Whether a part of your marketing, sales, customer support or even financial teams, your organisation is full of people with ideas – and many of them will already be avid social media users. By sharing your social media strategy you can get ideas out of their heads and supercharge your social media strategy.

How?
You need to create a space where people can share information and ideas in a collaborative fashion. If you’re using a system such as Lync, Yammer, or any tool that can host a chat room or forum, that’s the place to start. Invite the people you want to get ideas from, share your strategy with them, and see how they react. If your organisation doesn’t use these tools, then you could hold a face-to-face meeting to brainstorm ideas and responses to your strategy. You can use email as a last resort, but it’s much harder to be collaborative via email – not to mention heavy on the inbox!

Why?
There are more than a few benefits to getting social media enthusiasts within your organisation to comment on your plans, but these are HN’s top three:

1: Spot hidden pitfalls
Other people in your organisation who know how social media works may see hazards that you or your team have missed: openings for people to hijack your campaign (like the ill-fated #waitrosereasons campaign from a few years ago, for example), or important calendar events that aren’t in your schedule, but really should be. Not an opportunity to be missed!

2: New angles = new opportunities
The fresh perspective that people from other parts of your organisation bring to your strategy isn’t just good for spotting problems. Someone in sales might know about some content that would be perfect to build into your campaign; someone who uses Pinterest regularly might show you a feature you hadn’t known about before, but would be perfect for your strategy. A few little tips like these can make a big difference to the success of your strategy.

3: Harness the power of your people
Getting internal teams to support campaigns, or even the day-to-day activity on a feed, is one of the trickiest things we see organisations attempt with their social media. By sharing your strategy with social media enthusiasts within your organisation, you show them exactly what’s coming, when it’s coming, and how they can support it. Make them feel a part of the plan, and they’ll be much more likely to engage with it – and to encourage others to get involved, too.

Do you have any stories about using your in-house talent for social media? Let us know how it went in the comments section, or on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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