After conducting a brief survey, the company realized that 80% of the employees belonged to at least 5 whatsApp groups (i.e. family, former workmates, Church, Old Tertiary mates, Old secondary school mates, current course mates, neighbourhood friends, associations, soccer fan base, etc.).
60% had at least 2 other social media pages (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.), and had 500 followers on the average.
They estimated that if each employee is connected to more than 1000 people online, then their 50 employees can reach more than 50,000 prospects with their products and services, great!
They then decided to tap into this underutilized channel to market their products and services by doing these;
Going digital with their marketing:
The company decided to shift greater attention to marketing their products online but this time not entirely via the typical business social media platforms.
This was done purely via their employees’ connections in the social terrain. Usually before undertaking such exercises, your employees might have been engaged and have aligned to the vision and objective of the exercise.
Preparing employees for online:
The company made sure all employees have access to high speed internet which kept them connected to the world with just the tap of a button. The employees were heavily involved in taking this decision and so they rallied profoundly behind the campaign.
Periodically gave the employees contents to push on Social Media:
All the products and services were explained in short, 20 to 30 secs, videos and animations and periodically sent to the employees to broadcast on their various social platforms.
Remember, that the video explaining the benefits of your products to your prospects may not particularly be your typical TV commercial.
Employees who did not have social media pages begun to sign up and those that were not very active increased their participation.
This could be your company that is finding it difficult to reach more prospects as a result of a limited sales team or budget to print brochures and erect billboards.
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By: Alex Offei Lartey
Digital Marketing & Communications Consultant