Ajax CEO Jason Seiden spoke again at LinkedIn's Talent Connect conference this year... he provided 4 strategic "stop doing" points, 3 "start doing" points, and 1 strategic model for helping HR leaders leverage LinkedIn to engage their employees and amplify their employer brands. Here is the deck...
2. Knock It Off
A 4-Point “Stop Doing” List That Will Make
You 9 Gajillion Percent* More Effective On LinkedIn
Jason Seiden
CEO, Ajax Workforce Marketing
(*Rough Estimate)
6. Personal branding vs. employer branding
on LinkedIn profiles
For Fortune’s top 25 Best Companies to Work For
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
company branding
personal branding
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
max
mean
min
info@ajaxwm.com
7. Stop expecting executives and
professionals to see social media the
same way.
–me again
info@ajaxwm.com
22. Applying traditional marketing to social:
Expensive.
Need people
following the
company.
Message
impact
=
Limited.
People
have their
guards up.
reach * resonance
effort
Expensive.
Weight is born
by corporate
and/or an
agency.
info@ajaxwm.com
23. Applying traditional marketing to social:
Expensive.
Need people
following the
company.
Message
impact
=
Limited.
People
have their
guards up.
reach * resonance
effort
Expensive.
Weight is born
by corporate
and/or an
agency.
info@ajaxwm.com
24. Applying traditional marketing to social:
Expensive.
Need people
following the
company.
Message
impact
=
Limited.
People
have their
guards up.
reach * resonance
effort
Expensive.
Weight is born
by corporate
and/or an
agency.
info@ajaxwm.com
25. Applying traditional marketing to social:
Expensive.
Need people
following the
company.
Message
impact
=
Limited.
People
have their
guards up.
reach * resonance
effort
Expensive.
Weight is born
by corporate
and/or an
agency.
info@ajaxwm.com
26. Who do you trust…
when it comes to a company’s employer brand?
63% 21% 11%
Employees
CEO
Spokesperson
2013 Edelman Trust Barometer
info@ajaxwm.com
27. In other words…
Here’s how much of every dollar spent has impact:
63¢
Employee
Messaging
21¢
CEO
Messaging
11¢
Spokesperson
Messaging
info@ajaxwm.com
32. Applying workforce marketing to social:
Amplified by
size of
employees’
personal
networks.
Message
impact
=
Amplified by
employees’
knowledge of
their networks’
interests.
reach * resonance
effort
Distributed to
the shoulders
of employees
around the
company.
info@ajaxwm.com
33. Applying workforce marketing to social:
Amplified by
size of
employees’
personal
networks.
Message
impact
=
Amplified by
employees’
knowledge of
their networks’
interests.
reach * resonance
effort
Distributed to
the shoulders
of employees
around the
company.
info@ajaxwm.com
34. Applying workforce marketing to social:
Amplified by
size of
employees’
personal
networks.
Message
impact
=
Amplified by
employees’
knowledge of
their networks’
interests.
reach * resonance
effort
Distributed to
the shoulders
of employees
around the
company.
info@ajaxwm.com
Thanks for being here…I take it we’re all here because we want to be more effective…Here’s the deal: I’m going to walk thru 4 things you need to stop doing immediately.But then I’m going to go a little deeper. I’m going to give you 3 things you need to start doing immediately.And between the stop doing list and the start doing list, I’m going to share a strategic model with you that will help you understand why you need to change your behaviors. This is important because when you get home, you’re going to say to the people you work with, “stop doing these four things, and start doing these 3 things instead,” and they’re going to say, “why?” I’ll give you the why.Sound good?4 things to stop doing, 3 things to start doing, and a strategic model to tie everything together?And everything you’re about to hear all relates back to a very simple idea:Getting your employees to say the right thing to the right people at the right time.
Great.Let’s get started.
Thing #1 you need to stop doing right now: stop telling people on your teams and in your organizations how they should and shouldn’t be using LinkedIn.Wait… WHAT?!What on earth does this have to do with being more EFFECTIVE on LinkedIn?!Yeah, well, I’m sure some of you may have figured this out already, but to achieve the kind of efficiency gains I promised in the title of this program, you’re going to have to do more than fix your profile or tweak your status updates. You’re going to have to work as a team.So this presentation is about what you need to do to maximize how you use LinkedIn as a team.My team is optimizing profiles at the Rock My Profile booth—and I encourage you to stop by and have them take a look at your profile. Right now, we’re going to fry the big fish. Starting with how you communicate internally.
Here’s the deal. If you’re not teaming up with your employees, you’re creating a problem. You’re not just missing out on opportunity… you are creating. A. problem.I don’t know about you, but when I think about social media problems, the first thing that comes to mind for me is the rogue tweet or blog post where an employee shows poor judgment and the whole thing goes viral in a bad way.But it turns out, there’s another social media problem companies have. This one is much bigger, but it’s harder to see because it’s chronic. It puts a slow drag on your results every single day.And you can see it in this chart.Just a few years ago, my company did a research project. We analyzed how the top 50 digital ad agencies used LinkedIn. We looked up the companies themselves, and then we looked up their 51,608 employees who had LinkedIn profiles. This chart shows the frequency with which the companies and employees used certain keywords.Digital, for instance, was used by about 61% of the companies we looked at. Why that number wasn’t 100%, I have no idea, but that’s a different story. Only 17% of employees, however, had the word digital show up anywhere on their profiles.The other 83% either said nothing, or had undifferentiated profiles about how they were passionate, innovative program managers… just like everyone else. Overall, we found that if you looked up an employee from an ad agency, you had a 90% chance of learning zero about the company where the person worked.Why is this a problem? Because the way people look for jobs today starts online. It starts with people looking up their friends and peers online to see what companies look good. If you don’t show up in that initial orientation that prospects are doing, then your recruiters have to work that much harder to catch up later.
And by the way, I know that the ad agency market isn’t exactly known for its stellar corporate cultures.So this year, we did a quick follow up study where we analyze the top 25 best companies to work for.On average, about 20% of the employees we saw had any sort of company messaging in their profiles. 38% had messaging touting what amazing individuals they were, though. Even the best company we saw still had fewer than 50% of its employees aligned with the company message. So this is a problem that effects everybody.And you know how you’re NOT going to fix it? You’re not going to fix this problem by yelling at everyone to start using company messaging. All that will do is create new compliance costs, degrade morale, and create more acute problems for you as employees start venting on Glassdoor.How many of you have had your company outed on Glassdoor?So stop with the cram down communications, it stops teamwork dead.
Next, you need to stop expecting to be able to create one approach to social business that works for everyone in your organization.Again, this may not be a problem you think you have, because like the last thing you need to stop doing, it’s not something that’s immediately obvious.But let me show you what I’m talking about.
How many of you recognize this poster?You’ve seen these in offices, in airplane magazines… everywhere.Well, meet one of the guys responsible for making these happen.
Meet Peter. Some of you may have already met him at the Rock My Profile Booth. Peter’s the guy responsible for all those Successory posters we’e all seen on office walls, about teamwork and leadership and perseverance. He founded that company, he’s taken firms public, and private, and he’s a mentor to me and I’m lucky to have him as part of the Ajax team.When Peter first said to me, “Explain this LinkedIn thing to me,” here’s what he was thinking:I’ve been doing this for 30 years plus. I know who my network is. I have personal relationships with many of the people I work with, and I know what work my friends do in case I have a business opportunity for them, too. When I reach out to someone, I’m very careful about how I do it because everything I do has meaning to someone…. So show me how I can shift from phone calls to LinkedIn without creating risk.”Peter’s problem is partly technical. But ultimately, peter’s problem is political. He needs coaching on how to leverage linkedin in a fixed network where all the players are set and relationships are set and there’s a delicate balance to everything.
Now meet Ben.Ben graduated from Northwestern University in 2011. He’s making a documentary. Ajax is his first real gig.When Ben looked at me the first time and said, “Explain this LinkedIn thing to me,” he was thinking something totally different.He wanted to know what a professional profile was, how it differed from a resume, and how he was going to put one together.And, he wanted to know how he could appeal to 3 different networks with one profile:• his current professional network, • the professional network he was still trying to build, • and his personal network, where he already had a “brand,” but maybe not one that would work for him professionally.His needs are 180º from Peter’s. Ben needs training on basic communications. What is a professional persona, how does it differ from a personal persona and why is it important and what should I share and what shouldn’t I share. Ben needs help building a story. And Ben doesn’t need any technical training at all.You can’t just put Ben and Peter in a room together and expect them to figure things out. You need a translator to challenge their assumptions and make sure they understand each other before they start trying to solve the social business problem. And if you don’t have a translator? You end up creating guidelines and policies that work for some and create problems for others. And if you’re creating problems, you’re holding people back. Knock it off.
This lookssimilar to what I was saying before about cramming down rules about how to use LinkedIn, but it’s just different enough that I thought it merited its own slide.Earlier, I was talking about the way in which communication happened. This is about how decisions happen.Even if management is nice about how they ask employees to engage on LinkedIn, if they try to control the process from the top, they immediately run into two problems:
First, you’re trying to control something that’s bigger than you. When it comes to social media, you the company, you’re the tail, not the dog. This is my inmap. If you’ve never seen an image like this before, go to inmaps.linkedinlabs.com and create your own. Very powerful.This is a picture of my professional network. Every dot here is a person I’m connected to.Let’s pretend that the gray area to the left is ajax. If my boss tried to tell me what to do, I could quit tomorrow, and you know what changes about my network? Nothing. At worst, a few people in that small gray cluster don’t like me. so what?By making everything explicit, Linkedin makes it far easier for me to move through my network. So if my company tries to control me, I can hit the eject button. Even if I don’t quit, I can certainly stop trying and start looking for my next job.How many employees are ejecting from your company because they resent being controlled? It’s an interesting question, right?
Here’s the 2nd problem with control: it’s slow.You’re employees are out there right now, today, and tomorrow, and next week, and every day between now and next year when your management team finally gets itself aligned and puts out approved guidelines.Which means that between now and then, you’re at the mercy of each employee’s sense of professional judgment.This is Pat, btw, another Ajax team member, and despite the photos, Pat actually shows good judgment.
Finally, the fourth thing you need to stop doing. Stop putting 100% of your social budget into broadcasting status updates.It’s a failed strategy.
Any chicagoans in the house?This is buddy ryan, who was credited with changing the way football is played in 1985 when he changed the way the chicago bears played defense.
Offense is more glamorous, and in football, we all love the quarterback and those last minute heroics. But the beauty of having a great defense is this: it buys time for the offense to do its thing.A strong defense reduces risk and keeps you in the game, which is especially important when it comes to social business because you may not know what the secret to success is yet.As buddy said, “offense wins games. Defense wins championships.”
So those are the four things you need to stop doing:Stop dictating.Stop trying to come up with a single solution for everyone.Stop trying to control social communications.Stop playing 100% offense.
Here’s what you need to be doing instead.
Actually, hold on.
Slow down.Turns out, the reason company leaders engage in these practices is because they’re trying to move too fast.they’re either trying to skip a step (like going all offense all the time, or trying to establish one policy for everyone) or they’re trying to scale too quickly (controlling things from the top, cramming down communication).True leverage comes from slowing down just enough that you can get everyone on the team to see what you’re doing and buy in.Win-win thru opt-in is the phrase we use, which was coined by Lisa Cervenka, self-proclaimed brand nerd, but to me, she’s the powerhouse behind Ajax’s understanding of how to help companies optimize their branding to work on social. Some of you may have met her with me on the 2nd floor… Lisa, would you please stand up?This is the way to become 9 gajillion % more effective on LinkedIn!So before I get into the 3 things you need to be doing, let’s talk about the strategy behind it all.
This is what you’re working with.This is the communication equation according to ajax.
Let’s look at the traditional marketing approach, which is also the “run like hell” approach, where a few people at corporate drive things,They work under the assumption that employees at large either can’t or won’t support their efforts.
Resonance is tough…When you speak as a monolithic company, you’re trying to be all things to all people.Very difficult.And besides, who here would prefer to to talk with a company when you could engage with a real person.Seriously… show of hands… how many of you would prefer to connect with a company?’Actually, I have some data on that in a moment…
…one we call workforce marketing.We need something new here.We need a phrase that we can use that will help remind people that we need to change our habits, that the same old same old won’t cut it.The phrase we use at Ajax is Workforce Marketing.
Here’s what workforce marketing is about.Engaging employees in making simple, effective optimizations to their linkedin profiles so that they…
Project a polished, professional image to the world, and…
Communicate a clear and consistent company brand message.This is a win-win… it’s good for companies and good for employees.The 3 steps are all designed to help achieve that very thing: employee buy in.So let me talk about the company benefits for a moment. I’ll get into the individual benefits when I talk about the 3 new behaviors you should be engaging in.
So, how do we do this?
Very simple.3 steps.Step 1.
There is a big difference between being on LinkedIn and using LinkedIn well.If you bought me a great set of paint brushes, it wouldn’t change the fact that I can’t paint.Even if I learned how to use them all, it still wouldn’t make much of a difference.I’d still need to learn how to paint.On social, people need to learn how to deliver a message. LinkedIn is just the paintbrush
In terms of social, here’s what that means literally.Let’s say we all worked for Nike.Any Nike people here?Adidas? Reebok?OK, Nike. Nike has one of the most well known brand statements of any company in the history of ever.But as employees, we’re not going to run around saying “just do it, man!” to each other. That’s great for a at-shirt or magazine ad, but it doesn’t work as interpersonal communication.
What employees need is a framework for turning the idea of “just do it” into messaging that will work on social media.This is akin to what knowing how to use a paintbrush. Literally, this is knowing what message you want to communicate via linkedin.
Step 2.
You need to get your message into the hearts and minds of your employees.But how?
Any company that has ever tried to get employees to work together has faced this challenge.And when their efforts failed, here’s what they said.I’ve been in talent development and communications for nearly 2 decades. This isn’t a social thing—this is a management thing.But in terms of social, here’s what’s often missing:
Looking at a program from the perspective of the people who will be going through it.Taking the time to walk a mile in employees’ shoes to ask, what does this look like from their perspective?What’s in it for them?
Remember Peter and Ben?They have totally different problems.So your solution needs to address both of their needs.For Ben, you need to help him optimize his profile for 2 and possibly 3 networks—personal and professional, and maybe even personal, current professional, and future professional.Peter, meanwhile, needs a more strategic understanding of how to use LinkedIn without losing a feel for all the the political delicacies that exist in his network.At ajax, we have a protocol that gets people what they need, all underscored with a technology that keeps things consistent and scalable.If you have a solution coming together, great… if we can help you, great. We’re here to help!
Finally…
Use a process that creates feedback.When you direct things from the top, the only feedback you get about your employees is how compliant they are.But when you set the stage right and give employees a chance to opt in to good messaging and use it to their own benefit, then you get all sorts of feedback.You learn who your employee advocates are. You learn what company messaging resonates with employees, and what messaging doesn’t.You learn which managers are building teams of advocates and which aren’t.It’s rich stuff!
And here’s the real power of all this feedback.Even thought the technologies change, success metrics don’t.
THAT’S IT.4 things to stop doing as an organization.Stop dictating.Stop trying to come up with a single solution for everyone.Stop trying to control social communications.Stop playing 100% offense.3 things to start doing:Focus on messaging.Help employees understand how they can benefit from using company messaging in their own profiles.Set up feedback loops that track engagement rather than compliance.And one strategic protocal:Workforce marketing… amplifying the communication equation by asking employees to take specific, tactical steps to optimize their profile that make them look more professional and leverage consistent messaging to make everyone—employee and company alike—look better.That’s how you get to be 9 gajillion % more effective on LinkedIn.Now if you want more:If you want to optimize your personal profile, come to the 3rd floor. Meet Peter and Ben and Pat and the team.If you have questions about how to put this in produce for your company, come to the 2nd floor. See lisa. Lisa, stand up!We’ll be there tomorrow!Thank you.
We have a few minutes left for questions?
If you have questions that we didn’t have a chance to answer, or if you want more information about how Ajax helps companies maximize the value they get from LinkedIn, email me or connect with me on LinkedIn. I look forward to talking with you!