Social Media Strategy: How to manage enterprise-level social media with Peter Nicholls, Voodoo CEO
Over the years I’ve worked closely with the team at Voodoo, who are a talented and diverse group of business and brand strategists, e-commerce experts and social media whiz kids. They have an interesting take on how companies can more effectively manage their social channels to build business and importantly, keep marketing teams from getting bogged down in all the admin required to ensure social execution is brand building, lead building and flawless.
I recently spoke to Peter Nicholls, CEO of Voodoo. Here are his top tips for companies with complex social media initiatives:
1) Social media strategy needs a seat at the top table
Social media touches the entire business, it is marketing, product, customer service, HR, media and much more. It is always on, gives your customers a voice and is used by many different parts of your business to put out messages, listen, understand and service customers, converse and learn. ‘It is too critical to the business to not be considered at the strategic level,’ says Peter.
2) Social media is sales
Increasingly, social media is about direct sales. We have witnessed the rise of Instagram as a fashion and lifestyle consumer retail channel offering brands a beautiful, highly visual, engaging and experiential way for consumers to discover them that is dramatically different from Amazon’s utilitarian shopping experience.
From a B2B perspective LinkedIn is now a core tool of the sales department. Sales teams use LinkedIn to network, identify and research prospects, develop rapport, generate and nurture leads, and continue the conversation with current customers.
According to Peter, ‘as social media’s versatility continues to lend itself to supporting the entire business, leaders need to get on the front foot to create company wide models so that all departments can benefit from the power of social whilst not 'leaving it' to the department or person that raises its hands but to the team that has the knowledge and breadth of skill to handle all the areas social media represents to consumers, and also maintaining brand standards and controls.’
3) Social media operations (channel management and execution) is a specialist discipline
Even as social has become a relatively mature part of the marketing mix companies still grapple with how to execute it effectively. They struggle with questions like, Does marketing or product own the social channels? How does customer service utilise social and ensure a stellar customer experience? How do you manage channels across business units and geographies? How do you manage complex approvals processes with multiple stakeholders while preserving the spontaneity that makes social so authentic and resonant? It is a complex series of problems that need experienced operators to help sort through and manage.
Peter observes, ‘Voodoo has been in the business of supporting businesses with digital issues for almost 20 years, what we have learned over that time is that often the operational and practical day-to-day activities are not just hard for clients but for their social agencies to properly support as well.’
He continues, ‘companies and their creative agencies love the creativity and immediacy of social but get overwhelmed by management and execution. We have a client with over 46 social channels across Europe alone. That needs expertise to manage properly!’
‘Unfortunately, oftentimes senior management teams do not have the exposure to the potential power of social media’s high profile role until something goes pear-shaped and they end up trending for the wrong reasons,’ Peter cautions.
To harness the power of social across the business and keep the appropriate level of control, Peter feels strongly that social media management should be elevated to a professional endeavour to be managed by subject matter experts. ‘It is just too important to business, B2C or B2B, not to take it seriously. You have hundreds, if not thousands, of your staff directly engaging with consumers, clients, channel partners, distributors, etc. in public, on social channels. You need a strategy and plan to harness all that power.’
Torrence Marketing and Voodoo collaborate regularly to help clients get the best out of their marketing and social. Get in touch to learn more.