Social Signals by Social Hills: ‍The organic reach sitting inside your business

Last month, I wrote about advocacy and paid reach, and why I look for both when assessing a business’s social media potential.

Advocacy is the reputation, people and goodwill you already have in and around your business. Paid media is the reach you pay for.

One of the biggest sources of advocacy is often sitting inside the business itself. Your people.

Your business appoints a new CEO and CFO. Between them, they have thousands of relevant LinkedIn followers, established professional networks and years of expertise.

Your design team is active on Instagram. They post regularly and have built their own following of people interested in your industry.

Your sales team is on the road every week talking to customers. They know what people are asking, what problems are coming up and what is changing in the market. They have big personalities and plenty to say.

Meanwhile, the marketing team is planning next quarter’s content for the company account. There is a lot more potential sitting there than the company account alone can capture. 

Businesses spend time and money trying to build audiences from scratch while overlooking the audiences, credibility and expertise already inside the organisation.

This is advocacy.

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Look beyond the company account

When I assess the social media potential of a business, I don’t just look at the company follower count. I look at the people and networks surrounding it.

Who has an established professional audience? Who has recognised expertise? Who is speaking directly with customers? Who represents the business at events? Who already has something credible to say? Are they already saying it, or do they need the structure and support to get started?

That might include:

• executives with established LinkedIn networks
• specialists with deep industry expertise
• sales teams hearing customer questions first-hand
• employees already creating content in their field
• founders and leaders with strong industry relationships

Your people already hold audiences, expertise and credibility of their own. Advocacy connects that back to the business.

That is a very different opportunity from simply asking employees to share company posts.

Employee advocacy isn’t everyone reposting the same content

One of the quickest ways to flatten advocacy is to give everyone the same branded tile and ask them to repost it with the same message.

People follow people for their perspective.

An executive commenting on a change in the market brings something different to the conversation. A salesperson can talk about the questions customers are actually asking. A specialist can explain something complex in a way a corporate post often cannot.

The company account still matters. Paid media still matters too.

But neither needs to work alone.

A strong social strategy brings together the company voice, the expertise of its people, the advocacy of customers and partners, and paid amplification where additional reach makes sense.

Before investing more money in trying to build an audience from scratch, look at the audiences, expertise and goodwill already connected to your business.

Your organic social reach may be far greater than you realise..

By Christina Vetta
Director, Social Hills | Board Member, Surry Hills Business Precinct
Founder/Editor, SurryHills.Sydney Instagram

Social Hills helps brands identify and activate the expertise, audiences and advocacy already in and around their business as part of a broader social strategy.