Author: Danny Bermant

Here is a copy of a presentation I recently delivered at the Education Facilities Forum

When parents and students are choosing a new school, they’re as likely to go to your Facebook or Twitter page as they are to your website. 

BUT… unlike your website, they can talk to other parents and students and find out what you’re really like – or at least the picture painted by others.

If your establishment doesn’t have a social media presence, it doesn’t have a voice. 

I’m going to talk to you about why you need a Social Media spokesperson.

A spokesperson really is the public face of your company. You may for example have a Twitter page or a LinkedIn Company page but you need a person within the company who is the public face, who essentially gives the official statements of what is happening at the company, shows the companies values and views and also that person really needs to set the tone on how everyone else speaks on behalf of the company. You need to think about who is going to be fulfilling that role. Very often you will have a Managing Director filling that role or a senior person in the company; the head of PR or something. What you need to think about is who is actually going to be doing that on a day to day basis.

I’m going to talk to you about why your company needs a social media policy.

Regardless of what industry you are in or what business you are in you need to set up some clear, simple guidelines for your staff. They are going to be doing 2 things with your guidelines.

I’m going to talk about how to sell the complex product or service on social media. It is often referred to as solution selling because it is not a straight forward sell. You don’t turn up at someone’s office or on the phone and have a quick conversation and then close. Often you will be meeting with somebody 4, 5 or 6 times or spending time on the phone to do that and you are going to go through some steps really of asking people about their problems, discussing the implications of their problem, they are going to be telling you about the pay off they need to solve that problem, so it is quite a complex process.

That style of selling is often referred to as solution selling and social media is perfect for that. The reason that social media is perfect is you don’t actually sell; you ask people questions about their problems and about their implications and by doing that you are having a public conversation which many other people will see and learn from. For example if you are a manufacturer looking for a particular piece of equipment, by explaining the benefits and explaining some of the solutions that this equipment will offer, other people who follow you or are connected to you will also be a part of that conversation and can learn from that.