Building a Social Media Strategy One Follower at a Time
“So I was watching Tara’s TikTok last night and finally splurged and bought the facial cleanser she is always raving about…” said one millennial employee to their millennial coworker during a Monday lunch.
It is no secret. The new age of marketing has transitioned to personal branding with social media, the catapult for products and services. So if TikTok stars can influence their viewers to buy into a facial cleanser (and it ends up sold out at all the Targets near you), how can this sales template work for other “traditional” businesses to market their products and services?
Being a large not-for-profit health system in a small town, our leadership team members have become well-known individuals in our community. From local news segments, speaking events, and volunteering, they have become recognized personalities at the grocery store.
Specifically, our Bellin Health VP of Business and Community Health, Randy Van Straten is a hometown native. He has been a member of our organization for over 40 years and is the face of our award-winning community 10K race, the Bellin Run. As we battled the COVID-19 pandemic, Randy’s use of social media developed as a way to help inform the community about testing and vaccine updates. With his online presence growing, we noticed whenever he posted something on LinkedIn, or was tagged in a Facebook post, the engagement on that particular post skyrocketed.
His presence alone is like that of a TikTok star – people want to know what he is thinking, doing, and talking about. Due to Randy’s growing virtual popularity, our team also looked at his LinkedIn profile as an opportunity to help drive business through a different lane.
Instead of posting through the organization’s platform which is the face of over 7,500 followers, we decided to post on the platform that is the face of one; and the face that our employer clinic community learned to trust during weekly employer town hall calls.
Using the social media-influencing template as our starting point, we started engaging more through Randy’s LinkedIn profile. We helped him craft more posts, kept an eye on other posts he should be sharing, and encouraged him to respond to comments and direct messages. We then encouraged other team members on LinkedIn to share or comment on his posts.
This was an attempt to push past the algorithms and reach a broader audience by keeping him the source of truth. As time went on, association began to grow between his name and the services we provide within our industry. Before we knew it, new prospects were interested in learning more about what our team does and how we can help meet their needs (just like a good facial cleanser meets the need of clearing up your skin!).
We encourage you to pause and think about someone influential within your organization. Have they made a positive impact on your community? Are they an experienced voice in your industry? How can you take advantage of their positive image, build their personal brand, and help share the amazing opportunities your business has to offer with them leading the online charge? How can they help push your products and services forward organically and influence people to listen?
By the way, if you’d like to follow Randy Van Straten on LinkedIn, you can join him (and us) here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyvanstraten
