How CROC develops their employee's personal brands on social media

We teach employees how to establish their expert personal brands on social media.

This issue has become relevant for CROC because people have lost trust in no-name communications. It was necessary to find new approaches to building direct dialogues with the audience to promote their brand

To make communication with the audience more personal and trusting, the company decided to launch the CROC Voices project, a community of company ambassadors.

As part of the project, participants choose different means of external communications for their personal brand, but social media has become a key development area for the majority. Therefore, we received a request for maintaining the pages on two of the most popular social media sites.

Some CROC employees were brand ambassadors on social media before launching this project, but this activity lacked consistency. There wasn't any consistency with the frequency of posts or the correlation of specialists in areas of expertise.

The project organizers decided to help the participants by systematically creating their profiles on social media. It was important to build a sincere image, so these employees could openly share their work experiences. This includes difficulties and ways to solve problems, not just a general discussion about the company's achievements and successes. A sincere image on social media inspires trust throughout the target audience.

The purpose of the workshops was to bring all community members to a "common denominator". All employees had different experiences using social media and had different levels of progress. It was necessary to synchronize all parts to promote forward movement towards the project goal. Motivating the participants to enhance their social media profiles over the long term was essential, so the activity of the participants didn't end with the last workshop. To conduct workshops on developing personal social media brands, the project organizers attracted an external partner – Social Selling agency ModumUp.

With Natalia's help, we chose the positioning of a promotion. In addition, we selected a packaging specialist of XaaS (X - Anything as a Service), which includes subscription-based products and services that utilize cloud technologies.

Our task was to attract as many solution development companies as possible. We accomplished this by offering a switch to Microsoft Azure. The distributor's team will assist in product promotion, sales on partner channels, and be willing to share their knowledge and experience.

The first CROC Voices batch started in September 2020 with 25 participants. The most active employees who had already taken their first steps as company ambassadors joined the project. They were representatives of different lines of business and at various job levels.

Agency experts held three online workshops for the participants, where they discussed topics such as:

• Social media positioning
  
• Target audience growth
  
• Content writing
  
• Interactions with the target audience
  
• Lead generation mechanics
  
  

Thanks to a highly systematic approach, the participants were able to design their social media profiles fully, grow the number of target audience representatives in their friends' list, and post exciting expert content throughout the workshops.

After each workshop, the participants completed homework assignments, on which the agency's experts gave them individual feedback. Many participants mentioned this as the most helpful part of the program.

In the positioning unit, the participants defined the roles and styles of maintaining a profile. The style is how information is presented, and the role determines the content of the posts.

To formulate expert and personal roles, the participants had to answer four questions:

• Who am I?
  
• What is my business objective?
  
• What is important for my target audience?
  
• What story do I want to tell about myself?
  
  

As a result, the ratio of expert-personal content for each participant was approximately 70-30 respectively. If the profile contains only professional content (product or selling), the page will be perceived as a company blog and become less trustworthy.

Many participants decided to talk about their hobbies and work-life balance as personal roles.

If you want to develop a personal brand on social media, it isn't necessary to reveal the details of your personal life. The main point is that the audience recognizes you as a person, sees similarities in views and interests, and begins to trust you.

When determining the style of their profiles, many participants chose a combination of several styles.

When building an expert personal brand, highlighting the "practitioner" or "analyst" styles is essential. You can choose the "communicator" or "disruptor" for additional styles since provocative topics show your expertise and draw attention to the profile, which creates discussions.

As part of the positioning block, the participants formulated a key idea that would be broadcasted via their profiles.

In the unit about growing the target audience, participants learned about different ways to find the target audience on selected social media sites:

• Through thematic communities and the list of their members
  
• Through groups of companies and interactions with posts (likes, comments, reposts, tags of company employees in posts)
  
• Through profiles of industry influencers and their contact list
  
• Through a recommended contacts list
  
  

As homework, the participants had to find communities on social media that fit their target audience.

At the workshop on preparing content for a personal profile, agency experts showed participants how to prepare a content plan and which frequency of publication is more effective.

• Why the time and day of a publication doesn't affect the outreach of the post
  
• What are the criteria for successful posts and mistakes in the content
  
• How to overcome psychological barriers when preparing content
  
  

The participants learned why they need to alternate posts with different formats into the profile, why videos are gaining popularity, and how to write engaging texts.

The participants had to conceive post topics for each role and prepare the first post for their profile as part of the homework.

During the third workshop on lead generation mechanics, the participants learned about the different types of mechanics used in posts and messages. We also discussed the principles of networking with representatives of the target audience.

The agency's experts also explained which lead generation mechanics can be implemented in a personal profile and the ideal time to do so. Moreover, they remind the target audience representatives about yourself in personal correspondence with them.

After the success of the first batch of CROC Voices participants, the organizers launched three additional workshops where agency experts focused on developing a personal brand on social media. To date, 95 CROC employees have participated in the project, and more than 80% of the participants are active. This includes creating content and developing their personal brand on social media, doing their homework, and participating in activities.

In the first half of 2021, community members wrote more than 1121 posts.

Speaking about the quality metrics of the project, the organizers noticed a change in the perception of the CROC brand. The company is associated more with individuals rather than their skills and expertise. CROC Voices members are often approached directly by potential clients and job applicants.

In addition to the educational side of these workshops, CROC gained some residual side effects internally. These workshops have opened the doors to many cross-functional initiatives amongst colleagues in different departments.