Neal talks with Glenn Gaudet, the CEO and Founder of GaggleAMP. This tool helps companies and social media manager create employee advocates within their companies, and makes it easy for employees to share company-created social posts. They discuss how employee advocacy has grown, and how you can get started doing employee advocacy if you havenât tried it yet. Glenn will be present at the Social Tools Summit in just a few weeks and also hosts AMPlify, the employee advocacy conference, directly after the Social Tools Summit in Boston.
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spk_1: 0:02
welcome to maximize your social actionable advice on how your business can maximize your social media presence. Now the host of Maximize your Social Social Media Author, Speaker, consultant, founder of Maximize Social Business, The Social Media Centre of Excellence and the Social Tool Summit Neil Shaper, Everybody, this
spk_0: 0:28
is Neil Shaper and welcome to another episode of Maximize your Social As we gear up for the social Tool Summit. I'm really happy tohave on and I don't do a lot of interviews. If you've been listening to this podcast, I think this is gonna be episode 106 or 107. But for the first time, I am having an encore performance by some one. That means the second time they've been on my podcast like to introduce you to Glen Got debts. The CEO and founder of Gago, AMP. Glen. Welcome to the podcast,
spk_1: 0:57
Neil. Thanks for having me on.
spk_0: 0:59
You know, it's funny, Glenn, because when I met you in October of 2014 when I was speaking of marketing props, that day was the inspiration for the social tool. Someone not your event. Obviously, I know you have the amplify event coming up after the social tool, some which I'm really proud to speak out. And that's gonna be part of the whole social Innovation week we're doing in Boston that weekend, May 11 15. But it was the meeting that I had after your horse with Brian Mahoney, who is now my uh, co founder and partner in crime for Social Tools. Some of it really started it also, you know, thanks for the inspiration and looking forward to having you out there and, you know, talking about employ advocacy. And it's funny as well, because in the six months since I last talked to you, there's just been a lot of buzz, and I almost like to say we're starting to turn the corner into employ advocacy, not being what is it, or how would I leverage it, but more more companies looking into really starting formal programs and investing in in tools to do that. So, I mean, is that how you see the market is woodland? Give us your insight.
spk_1: 1:58
Well, when I started the company four and 1/2 years ago, we had this focus on the employees as as an asset within the company that was totally being underused, at least from a social media marketing perspective. Right? Right? And so I think employees advocacy means a lot of things to a lot of people. So when I think of employees advocacy, I I put it in that realm of how do I activate my employees to do things not just sharing of social media messages, but also get involved with some online marketing activities? Right? So I mean, if you think about it, uh, if you've got a recruiting issue, maybe you get your employees all to write a rite of review on things like Glass Door and indeed right. There's lots of ways to leverage employees, and most of these employees, if they have the affinity for the company, would be happy to do it. You just have to make it easy for them. And I think that's the challenge that a lot of people have had because, you know, the traditional outreach to employees comes in the form of an email or some sort of some sort of employee newsletter. And of course, you know, those are never easy, cause now you're asking people thio read something and then go do it on their own without having some nice, smooth flow of literally just clicking a button and making something happen.
spk_0: 3:20
That's a great a great analogy because, you know, I know companies that you share a point or using e mails, but that the concept of leverage in your employees has really been around for a while even before, you know, we talk about employ advocacy, but it is interesting to see how it's calm with. And, you know, you need to have a certain number of people in the general demographic that use social media for to make sense. But, you know, as we age and as the millennials enter the workforce more and more. And these are people that already using a lot of these social networks and we become uses a multiple social networks that sort of, you know, that the stage has been set right, and from the corporate perspective, you have more more cos they've been doing social media marketing for a few years now. They see the are why they're wondering how you could do more. So it really seems like we're out at this convergence of these two trends and that age old how do we get our employees. How can everybody be a sales person that our company, It's really a combination of the perfect storm for employ advocacy, right?
spk_1: 4:13
Well, I I think so. And I think people are starting to see it because they're They're, you know, even when they test it out through the email approach, they're just seeing results. Because if you think about it, a company spending a fair amount of time in resource is now to create content for inbound marketing. Right? So there, creating blog's there, they're creating infographics. They're they're doing traditional white papers. But the whole idea is to get people to really consume that content so they can provide another call the action, which hopefully will be, You know, try my product by my practice, whatever. Um, but the the the challenges is you spend all this time and money creating all this content. But if you just put it out on Twitter and linked in once or twice, you're not gonna have an audience where that piece of content confined a tipping point. But now, if you can tap into 100 people ah, 1000 people, 10,000 people who can take that Take that tweet, maybe retweet it or share that on on Google plus on Facebook wherever. Now, all of a sudden you just tremendously amplify that potential audience. And it really didn't cost you much because these are already employees who, you know, if you just make it easy for them, they probably want to do it.
spk_0: 5:38
Yeah, yeah, and I think you've read the same reports that a lot of employees are scared to post anything on social media because I don't wanna get fired for writer from legal contacting them. So
spk_1: 5:49
But I think it goes beyond that, Neil, because I think I think there's an expectation sometimes, particularly with with marketers that, you know, we'd love to get all the employees to do something. How come they're not writing their own content? Well, it's because they're not. They're not marketing folks, you know. They might be sales folks. They might be finance folks. They might be engineering folks, but their their core job is to not craft tweets. Their core job is to not write blood posts, and so if you can make it easy and you can deliver to them content and maybe you'll change that content But if you can give them the the kernels of what to do, it just makes everything so much easier.
spk_0: 6:31
Yeah, I know. Without a doubt. So, um, you know, it's funny, because I did this was moderator for it. And, you know, it will be interesting to see where our conversation unemployed Advocacy takes place at the Social Tool Summit, obviously. And then, obviously, how all your the users of gag lamb talk about their experiences at at at Amplify. But when I did, the, uh, moderated the social media marketing Worldpanel on employ advocacy. So we had Martin Jones from Cox. We had a Justin leaving from C tricks. We had Maria. Oh, I could never pronounce her last name. I'm really sorry, Maria from Adobe on and and
spk_1: 7:04
these are
spk_0: 7:05
companies that so they're beyond the Evangeline. You know, they understand, and in different ways they've started to create their programs. I want I want to shift our conversation there, so we've bought into employ advocacy and we're starting to do it. What are the problems that you see your clients run into? And what are the ways in which either got Guam can help solve those problems or, you know, what advice would you give them? And I you know, I have my own sort of preconceived ideas based on what I hear in the market, but I want to hear what you know, what you found with your clients.
spk_1: 7:36
I think one of the big challenges that many people have is they think in terms of an all or none scenario. So let's say you have a 5000 person company they're thinking about. How do I get 5000 people enrolled in the concept of being an employee advocate? And what we tell them is don't start with 5000. Start with 100 start with 500 build up from there. So So I think a lot of people try to boil the ocean prematurely. Right? Um, you can get that you get to 5000 but it doesn't have to be in the first week, month or even year. I mean, think about think about just doing a staged approach, because here's the thing. You may think you know what's going to take place with 5000 people, but you're probably gonna know a lot better if you start with 100 and then figure out what went wrong, what went right for them. Because you may not have had the right conversation with with 100 people to get them enrolled, right? Right. Um, and then you can learn, just like anything you would never you would, you know, from a marketing perspective, you put your marketing hat on. You'd never roll something out without testing it first. So it's the same thing employees advocacy. You want to find out what they're willing to do, the profile of the employees that's going to be most likely to participate and that you want to participate. So there's a lot of things you can learn by taking baby steps rather than going for a full roll up. And I think I think the challenge with a lot of particularly with very large companies, is they think about Okay, I've got to figure out a way to get 40,000 people engaged, and I think that the answer is that may be a great goal for down the road. But think about how you're going to get your 1st 500 engage first,
spk_0: 9:33
right? And you know I have Ah, I have a new formula for that Glenn I did a weapon are with, and it's also based on the feedback of that panel. I did its ultimate marketing world, but I did a webinar with the director of social who's in charge of the employees, obviously program Pitney bows and the number that I got. I'm just gonna call it the Schaefer Rule, but, you know, trying to brand everything I d'oh, it's it's think in terms of 0.5% of employees pick the top 0.5%. So if you're a 500 person company than that's two and 1/2 people, right? So if you're 1000 person company that that's five people but really start to think in terms of starting 0.5 to 1% right, think in terms of starting really small like that and just picking those people that you know are already talking about you that are also reactive and social, and that will help propel things for very naturally, right?
spk_1: 10:24
Well, the thing that I would be careful about that is, if you pick the people who are already active, right, they have a preconceived notion already right and really what you want to be able to to get to the 5000. You want to be able to understand the habits, the desires, the challenges that those folks who are not overly active today. So think of your rank and file sales person, right? How active are they on social? You know, they're probably on linked in doing, ah, lot of prospecting on there. But how often are they putting in a status update?
spk_0: 11:03
Yeah, yeah, that's and that's a great point because I think of the last year we've seen that social selling programs are really pushing. A lot of employees obviously programs, right, and and they want to begin with. So So, yeah, that's that's a valid point. On the other hand, though, that brings up a lot of issues and sort of that panel that I did it socially marketing world. Most of the talking about training and education, you know, regardless of the platform, right?
spk_1: 11:24
Yeah, well, I mean, if training and education is an important component, do you just can't train and educate people and then expect them to go and do everything on their own? We just We've seen this time and time again. We we've worked with companies. They invested $2000 per employee to train and educate them and then certify them to be an employee advocate. Wow. And they still didn't see the return because at the end of the day, the employees make it easy for them. Give them some content, give them some guidance on who to follow on Twitter and what to do on some of these different platforms. Right? And that's where you see the mo mentum actually take place is when you make it easy for them. And I think I think too many people, just they, you know, the train and education. Pardon? The train training and education portion is important, but you can't stop there. You still need to take it to that next level and then make it easy for them and still let them know what they need to do and when,
spk_0: 12:32
right? Right, You almost need to be a ah, an implementation coach to get them from the training to become an active participant. If they're not already,
spk_1: 12:41
Yeah, and that's not that's not a weekly weapon are saying, Oh, here's here's all the tweets we want you to do here to the five people you should follow etcetera.
spk_0: 12:49
Yeah, you know Martin Martin Jones from Cox was talking about, You know, really, it came down to teaching a lot of people about personal branding and what they could be doing in social to to improve their personal Brandon, throwing out things like, You know, let's follow these people. Let's tweet out this type of content. Let's see if we can get to 1000 followers in a cloud score 55. Not that it has any meaning, but that we can set these goals. And by doing this, we can hit those goals. And when they when they hit the goals, I mean, employees were absolutely, you know, ecstatic. Right? And they they became really and they provide a lot of great feedback as well. So
spk_1: 13:22
well, and that's something that we hear a lot because you know it. We've got a lot of these examples somebody somebody uses gag lamp, and within the first week or two, they have. Their salespeople are part of this, and they start sharing, and then all of a sudden they're actually getting people engaging with them, and those engagements turn into sales for them. So in a very short period of time, just by being active on Social, with great content that's being provided by the marketing folks. They're seeing some direct result from that. In this case, it's being sales, right? So they bring in revenue just by doing a couple things. You know it. It's not a lot of heavy lifting to get people engaged with you,
spk_0: 14:07
right? Right. And, yeah, I'm sure that a lot of your clients, once they start to see that happen, it's, you know, the light bulb goes on and it's like, holy smokes, Right?
spk_1: 14:16
Well, it's instant cost justification. You know, when you know within a week or two you actually see some sales from being active on social through gaggle lamp. Oh, right, it's It's a no brainer at that point.
spk_0: 14:28
And I love how you've actually included that in your dash board. Um, you know what? What are you paying for? Quick. What do you paying for? Lead. And this is how much you've generated, you know, especially cost per click. This is how much you've generated this. How much you saved using ya grams. I think that's a great way of ah, helping people see the value and the R Y
spk_1: 14:47
well in and for us. We needed a way for our our prospects and customers to see, you know, the value that Social was bringing to the organization, because in many cases, the social media marketing folks are the last people in in marketing right there, the most recent, and they may not necessarily have a lot of budget right. But the advertising folks d'oh! And so at least you you can provide them with a conversation to say, Well, listen, I've Jenna generated this amount of reach. I've generated this amount of click throughs. So if you want to compare it to what you're spending on advertising, I think Social Media is a better play.
spk_0: 15:24
Yeah, definitely. And that's, you know, hopefully cos when they first started in social media. Those are the areas you know, the part of the marketing budget where they took money out of to begin social media efforts. It's now time to look back at that when you know whether it's in black, because your social selling, um and you know there's probably as companies become more effective at social and as traditional forms of advertising just aren't as effective as they used to be. You know, it makes sense. So, you know, we could go on for an hour.
spk_1: 15:52
We could, couldn't we? Just
spk_0: 15:53
talking about the subject. And I know that even though our Panelists social tools, someone's gonna be short. But I know that you're gonna be there the whole day and obviously I'm gonna be the whole day. And it's gonna be a lot of conversations both on that panel and off that panel. But is there any you know, there's a lot of directions we can go with this, but I just want to give you a chance. Is there any, you know, advice? You wanna offer companies that are still on the sidelines in terms of employees have a CSI Or maybe they began their journey, but they chose the wrong tool. I either not using Jagland Any advice that you can offer to those people?
spk_1: 16:28
You know, it's funny because we don't want people. We don't want customers that don't use our product to begin with. Meaning don't just come and buy the product. We want you to use it so you can come to our website, and you can try it for free. Get some folks in your organization t part of what we call a gaggle and share some content and get the feedback. Because, you know, when you're talking about an employee advocacy platform like gaggle lamp, the feedback from your employees is really important because you want usage. So if they don't like it, they're gonna tell you. But if they like it, they also tell you that. So So that's the thing. I mean, whether you're using another platform, whether using gaggle on whether you're using nothing, just try it out first and get the feedback from the employees because the last thing you want to do is have marketing. Make a decision that's going to impact a broad base of employees without the feedback and buy in from those employees.
spk_0: 17:31
That's great advice, Glenn. I will say. I won't throw out the name of the company, but at Social Media Marketing World A have a conversation with a company. They're actually gonna be another sponsor of the event, and they had worked with a different employ, a pixie solution. But the comment that this person made was that gag Wamp offers the lowest hurdle to actually trying out a technology. And it seems that works for your company or not, and that you have that reputation. Well, if you want to try out, employ Agassi. You know Gaga. Let's get started for 30 days. Ease you into it, and you get to test experiment and get that feedback. So what you're doing is aligned with, you know, the people that I know in the market that are looking at the different solutions, and that's a really good way to sort of end. This conversation is, if you haven't started. Well, there's no excuse now, even for just a few employees trial. God went for 30 days and be honest with you clan. When you first reached out to me as the founder and editor in chief of maximize Social business, I wasn't sure how God Gwen would fit in with my own marketing, you know. But it was after I started using it, and, you know, a lot of you may say, Well, you know, what's the power? A few people sharing things, but it is amazing that I know. And when I was at marketing prop six months ago, actually showed my dashboard statistics. I know if I send something out there, I'm gonna get, you know, for every link that I send out, I get between 50 and 100 clicks. It's it's pretty incredible.
spk_1: 18:53
It's amazing, isn't
spk_0: 18:54
it? Really is. And I know it's coming from My diverse group of people on these people are helping them with their personal brand. It's helping them with their content, carriages and their business subject. And there's some they're just fans. It's like, you know, I really love the continent, Max of my social business. You know, there are people that well, you know, whenever mashable post something new, wait an hour, do a search in the title and you'll see all these people that just automatically re tweet things from from mashable that they have an R s s feed set up instead of doing it that way, you know, strategically think about the content that matters to your company, to your branding. And there you have it. So, Glenn, thank you so much. I really looking forward to spend more time with you in Boston in two weeks. Obviously, if you're on the sideline about the social tool somebody should come out because it's gonna be all about conversations like this. And if you even just a little bit curious, you just wanted to start, you know? Ah, try, employ. Obviously, program 30 days with just a few of you and marketing or a few of you throughout the company. You know, there's no more excuses. Go to goddamn dot com and start.
spk_1: 19:48
Neal, thank you so much.
spk_0: 19:49
Would you agree, Glenn?
spk_1: 19:51
I would totally agree. You know, I would. And you know what? If nothing else, you're going to get some data. We're going to get some data about the employees that you invite in, You know, if you ask, you know, 50 employees to join and you get 25 to show up. Okay, Great. And then you'll see of the 25. How how active are they? What kinds of messages and actions did they want to perform for you? Maybe they like to follow people for you, but they're not so interested in sharing something on linked in. That's okay. You know, it all adds up. And that's the key.
spk_0: 20:24
Yeah. And going You know what? I really, um Well, we've already talked about 20 minutes. And, you know, these used to be eight minute podcasts extended, but just one more thing. And I think I really think one of the unique things about your platform. You do a lot of experimental things, creating new sorts of tools, you know, let link trackers would have you And one of the things I love about your plant from the really been added a lot to are these actions. So why don't we end? I know was supposed to end, but I just know people listening to us one more Can you talk about those actions that you have and how how receptive your clients have been to adding those in the platform?
spk_1: 20:57
Well, it's actually our customers that have inspired so many of these things. So, you know, in instead of, you know, think of steady state sharing social media messages. Yeah, we have that. Right. But But also maybe what you want to do is you wanna have your employees follow, say, a particular industry analyst? Maybe Neil Schaeffer, right? And then what happens when ah 100 people from the same company start following you? You all of a sudden pay attention to that company and say, Hey, what's going on over there? So you can do things like that. You can actually engage people in a way where you help them be better on social. But beyond that, there's also a lot of online marketing activities. Maybe you want all of your employees to vote for you because you're up for some Webby Award. We can do that through gaggle, and that's an action. Maybe you want everybody to take a survey cause you want some feedback. You can do that. Maybe you want everybody to watch a video. You can watch a video. So what the platform is really developed into it is an employee engagement platform that allows you to do marketing, online, marketing, social media, all of these activities. And so what you're doing now is you're transforming your employee base into a grassroots marketing and engaged advocacy group for you, and it's incredibly powerful, and I get a little excited about this, but it really is powerful. I mean, that's the thing, because I get the validation every day from our customers.
spk_0: 22:34
Yeah, so if you're if you're sort of, hopefully you understood this. But But in addition to sort of the sharing of the message. There's all these actions that you can ask your employees who are now your advocates. Your you know, your brand advocates your internal fans. Hey, you know, if if you weren't following us on Twitter, please make sure you do it. It's a little as one of the voting or special things, but it's a really, really cool additional value out of technology that I know you've invested a lot in. And now you have, like, 20 different of these. He's very, very
spk_1: 23:01
hour almost have 40 now.
spk_0: 23:03
Wow. Okay, Holy smokes again. And they're all So it's in addition to service here in the convent. All these little tactical things you could do It all adds up to a tremendous power. So I'm really glad I remember to ask you that the end, because I think that's something critical. It's, you know, it's all about Hey, we have an internal tribe. What can we do with them? What? How can we help them? But, you know, how can we ask for them to help us? All right? And
spk_1: 23:26
and make it easy for them
spk_0: 23:27
and make it easy. Make it easy. All about making it easy. That should be the other key word that comes out of this podcast. Glenn, thank you so much.
spk_1: 23:35
You know, Thank you.
spk_0: 23:36
And yet we'll see you in Boston soon and for all you're listening. I look forward to seeing you in Boston. There's gonna be a lot of people tweeting using the hashtag social tools. 15. It's sort of a long hashtag, but I wanted to brand itself. That's the story. They're so be on the lookout for May 12th. And if you're still on the sidelines, you can't visit. We do have a streaming past available. Go to social tool summit dot com right now and buy that so you can see all these conversations as they unfold on the stage. Thank you. Glad and wherever you are in the world, as always, make it a great social day. Bye, everybody.
spk_1: 24:09
Thanks for listening. To maximize your social. We appreciate all of your iTunes subscriptions, ratings and comments. If you would like to appear on this show or recommend content, please contact Neil Shaper at Neil at Maximize your social dot com. Please also make sure to check out Neil's new community, social media Centre of Excellence at social media. C o e dot com as well as meals. First social media event. The Social Tool Summit, which will be in Boston on May 12 and in the Bay Area this fall. Thanks again and make it a social day.