One of the drivers of growth in the social shopping space is the recognition that personal recommendations are among the most trusted marketing communications. What many companies in the space, including Zavee, are trying to accomplish is to maximize the timeliness, reach and relevance of those recommendations. This need is most acute for smaller merchants, who don’t have the option of simply buying reach through conventional media.

Word of Mouth (via Mo - Creative Commons 2.0)

Smaller merchants do have one significant advantage over larger competitors: because they are close to their customers they should be better able to deliver the kind of customer experience that results in credible, actionable, recommendations. Because they know that word of mouth is so important, and because they are more likely to be competing on service than on price, smaller local merchants are uniquely positioned to provide the Wow! factor that launches word of mouth recommendations.

Smaller merchants also have a related advantage, one they should leverage more fully. Unlike much larger competitors, most small company employees are customer-facing at least part of the time. These employees should be hired, trained and required to promote significant, relevant brand equities at every customer interaction. They also should be encouraged (and empowered) to provide the same Wow! factor as the sales associate or the owner/manager herself.

But just as word of mouth is no longer restricted to face-to-face interactions, the role of employees in promoting the brand can also extend beyond individual encounters. In particular, merchants should require – or at least encourage – all employees to actively promote the company’s brand equities through social media.

As companies consider how to implement a social media program, the role of employees should be an integral element of the strategy rather than an afterthought. What role might employees play in a social media program? Here are some suggestions:

• Create a group blog for employees. It’s easy to do, you can link from your web site and blog posts are indexed by search engines. Some content could be expressly about the company (e.g., as a workplace, if that is a key equity) but most of the content could be about what interests the bloggers. Here the message is more subtle but potentially very effective: You should shop here because this company hires people like us. Amazon now has numerous blogs with this subtext – even a car blog – something they may have learned from having acquired Zappos, which pioneered the concept.
• Let your employees run your Facebook page. Facebook is now so flexible that a company’s fan page easily can accommodate both “official” content from the company and less structured content from employees. Employees can leverage their own social graph to expand the company’s reach. One objective should be to pierce the wall between the company and its customers. Here’s a simple example: instead of the company simply announcing its “Employee of the Month,” why not post nominations (perhaps including video clips of the employees in action) on Facebook and let the community vote?
• Get your employees Tweeting. There are many ways in which employees can use Twitter to benefit their company. One is simply to tweet actively about topics that relate to the company’s business. This does not necessarily mean promoting specific products or deals, although (with disclosure) there is nothing wrong with that. But the employees of, say, a fashion boutique should be on Twitter constantly providing value-added content about fashion, art, music or anything else the clientele would find interesting (and bringing useful information back to the company). Employees also can be the “canary in the coal mine” for their company. By setting up keyword and hashtag searches on Twitter they can see and respond to mentions of the company, its products, suppliers, etc. and respond appropriately. The scope of this task will vary by company and it needs to be handled carefully, but any established company that isn’t using Twitter in this way simply has its hands over its ears.

One final note about empowering employees to use social media on behalf of the company. It’s in everyone’s interest to clearly specify what employees must, can and may not do. Transparency and disclosure are vital to every social media plan, and it’s important to have someone in charge of ensuring compliance. Mistakes are inevitable but they need to be addressed promptly, lest your lawyers come in and advise you to prohibit employees from using social media altogether (note: pdf download req’d).

The Zavee takeaway:

• Your employees can help provide the kind of experience that produces word of mouth recommendations.
• They also can help you increase the reach and impact of your word of mouth marketing if you integrate them into your social media strategy.
• There are countless ways to leverage employee involvement in social media – be creative!