Category "Social Media Marketing"

Diversity on social media is crucial. However, accomplishing diversity on social media is not a job that can be accomplished solely by your social media manager, or by posts alone.
Truly embracing diversity in marketing requires cross-organization collaboration, a sustainable strategy and internal work first.
People expect the companies they shop with and the organizations they support to take a stand. In fact, 40% of consumers will pick a brand over a competitor because the brand aligns with their values.
Your team has likely created campaigns in the past for Black History Month, Women’s History Month or Pride. And you may have made commitments to supporting marginalized communities and DEI. In fact, more than half of marketers say their company has adopted more communication internally and externally about DEI values, according to a recent Sprout Social survey of 300 marketers. That’s all a great start. But diversity in social media must be incorporated into your long-term strategy—not just when a hashtag is trending. And that requires work inside of your organization, and out. Use this article to guide your diversity efforts.
What to consider as you emphasize diversity in marketing
Diversity in marketing isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a must-have to ensure you’re truly representing and building trust with your audience.
According to Pew research, the “post-Millennial generation” is the most ethnically and racially diverse. Truly representing your audience means they can see themselves in your organization’s marketing materials, and within your organization.
This impacts your bottom line, too, and will continue to. According to a recent Sprout Social survey, 66% of respondents said they were more likely to buy from brands showcasing people of diverse races, gender identities, ages and more. From including more diversity in social media images, to identifying when to add your voice, diversity in marketing must be done mindfully and authentically. It’s all well and good to create social content. But developing a strategy for diversity in marketing rooted in your business and values will ensure that you have a sustained, meaningful plan.
As you get started, here are two things to consider:
1. Start from within
Diversity in marketing is external. But we can’t do this work without first looking inward.
Before you can publish anything on social, it’s important to have an understanding of the DEI landscape and values within your organization.
When it comes to DEI, content developed in a communications or creative silo risks coming across as performative if your company’s commitments and activities don’t back it up. After all, 91% of 25-40 year olds think social media has increased accountability for businesses. If you don’t know what your company is already working on when it comes to DEI, start a conversation—here are a few questions to ask internally: What is our company’s DEI strategy? What are the main areas our brand is focused on?
Where are the gaps in our own organization’s education and how can we further our knowledge?
How has our audience responded to communication about these topics in the past? Are there areas of our efforts they were particularly interested in?
How is our approach to DEI integrated with our employer brand? How do we represent our employer brand on social, and what could we add or change?
Does our workforce reflect our audience and our DEI commitments? In the meantime, focus on the elements you and your team can control and change. This might be internal representation when developing new ideas, representation within social creative, who your brand Retweets or where you source user-generated content.
For example, Target’s social feed is visually extremely inclusive, right down to their UGC—and they often back this up with the products they offer.
Every brand and community are different. If you want your social media approach to resonate with your audience, it’s important to develop a plan that’s truly representative of your brand.
2. Know where you can add authentic value
What your brand says and does on social media should be a direct reflection of your organization’s values and actions.
No brand will be able to speak up on every issue (although some will require speaking up), or jump on every celebration. But your brand values can help guide what to prioritize, where you can add expertise and where you can show up authentically—not in a performative way.
Ben and Jerry’s, for example, is known for having strong, clear values—and sticking to them. They have a landing page that outlines their brand values and commitment to DEI. And they use their social channels to back these values up with content they produce, or relevant content they reshare from other people or organizations they want to amplify. In the context of your brand’s responses and actions, take a step back to determine what role your brand should play in larger conversations and what your audience is expecting from you.
How do you determine your brand’s place? Ask yourself and cross-team stakeholders questions like: What are our company values, and how can we connect these to more diversity in our marketing efforts?
What stances has our our company taken in the past? What cultural moments have we activated on? What were the next steps we outlined, or how can we improve?
Where in larger conversations about DEI, equity, policy or systemic inequity does it make sense for our company to weigh in?
How can we be there for those in our brand’s community who are looking for support or resources from us?
Are we living up to the values we claim to uphold? These questions will help you understand where your organization is focused today and develop a social strategy to share those efforts with your audience. They will also help you identify potential problem areas or gaps so you can proactively connect with the right internal stakeholders to support responses and share feedback.
Finally, when it comes to contributing to larger conversations, it’s not all about your brand. Maybe your focus will be on sharing resources, using your data to talk about how this issue relates to your customers or industry, increasing representation in your content or amplifying expert voices where it counts.
Prioritizing diversity in social media
DEI efforts cannot exist on social media alone. They must be backed up by your company’s actions, products, commitments and more.
That being said, diversity on social media is crucial to building trust with online communities and consumers. All consumers want to work with brands that share their values, and want to see themselves represented—27% of Gen Z survey respondents said they’re more trusting of brands that represent them in ads.
Here are a few things to keep in mind.
1. Highlight representation all year round
Diversity in marketing is a year-round effort. When setting your goals, consider the demographics of your core audience, who currently isn’t represented in your social feed and the specific process you’ll use to increase and track representation in your photos, videos and written content.
Clothing brand Aerie and their #AerieREAL Life initiative comes to mind here. They’re known and celebrated for featuring unfiltered women of diverse body types and backgrounds in their social media content, product photos and campaigns… and in the creators, fans and companies they work with. Prioritizing representation on social media also means amplifying underrepresented voices–through content you create, and even passing the mic.
For example, in the #ShareTheMicNow campaign, Black women took over white women’s Instagram accounts for a day. The goal? To center Black women’s voices, work and experiences. More than 40 pairs of women participated with a reach of over 300 million followers, amplifying previously underrepresented perspectives.
Amplifying diverse voices on your brand’s social platforms, as celebrities and influencers did with #ShareTheMicNow, is an intentional, measurable step that companies can take towards fulfilling their commitment to DEI. For example, a brand may set a goal along the lines of, “We will ensure that X% of our social content features Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) or their work.”
How to improve representation: Choose your models and images with intention. Gen Z is the most diverse yet. Keep that in mind while putting together creative assets and gauging representation of perspective, backgrounds, identities and religions.
Credit BIPOC content creators and creators from other underrepresented groups for their work. External representation of your internal team counts, too!
Ensure your content is accessible: Representation also means removing blockers. Ensure your social posts are accessible: add alt text to images, add closed captions (and edit them for accuracy) and, if you have a global audience, consider multi-language campaigns and captions.
Know your audience. Who is in your audience who may not see themselves enough in your marketing materials? And what communities do you want to reach that your marketing materials don’t reflect?
Enlist your followers. Your brand’s social media pages present an opportunity to uplift marginalized voices. Seek out and share UGC from underrepresented followers or their networks to pump up their volume and improve representation. Representation isn’t only about external content, either: It’s about ensuring the internal voices of BIPOC at your organization are heard and taking part in decision-making about your social approach.
2. Show, don’t tell
A corporate statement tells your audience what you believe and what you plan to do about it. A long-term social media strategy shows them how your brand is doing what you promised, and the ways that DEI is a long-term commitment for your brand. Instead of showing me your diversity statement, show me your hiring data, your discrimination claim stats, your salary tables, your retention numbers, your diversity policies, and your leaders’ public actions against racism. End performative allyship.
— Dr. Monica Cox (@DrMonicaCox) July 8, 2021 Make a plan to highlight your employees’ actions and your brand’s ongoing work in your social media strategy. This could focus on education; for example, if one of your initiatives focuses on internal education and dialogue, you can share the resources and organizations your team is learning about with your audience.
If your team is focused on volunteering, use your platforms to highlight your team members and their stories of impact when it comes to serving the community. This gives you an opportunity to promote nonprofit organizations and show the world who makes up your team and what they care about.
And of course, if your brand is making a financial commitment, communicate it clearly and make sure to follow up to cover how that money has been donated or spent. Foot Locker’s LEED initiative includes a $200 million commitment to the Black community. Since the program’s 2020 launch, they’ve regularly provided updates on where this money is going, and how they’re following through on their promises. The ability to make financial commitments ranges from company to company, but fortunately there are many ways to help and to be part of a movement rather than just posting about it.
How to provide solutions: Research how racism affects your industry and create or recommend, promote and amplify anti-racist resources like books, podcasts, industry thought leadership and more.
Get your company involved with the movement via volunteering (remotely if necessary), and invite your followers to do the same.
Learn about your company’s efforts and develop a plan to tell your employees’ stories and show your company’s actions on social. 3. Check yourself
Your approach shouldn’t focus only on sharing the DEI work your brand is doing. Instead, focus on how you bring the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion to all of the work you do. All of your content and initiatives should be evaluated through that lens, even when they don’t specifically relate to your brand’s DEI efforts.
If you’re not thinking about DEI before publishing any of your content, you run the risk of coming off insensitive at best. Take, for example, the fashion industry. Statements about solidarity and diversity in social media posts feel inauthentic when brands’ products, decisions and content have historically showcased a lack of diversity and been hurtful as a result.
But fear of making a mistake should not hold us back. Instead of running from the solution, take time before making a post or finalizing a campaign to think about the impact of your content.
When developing campaigns and content, ask questions such as: Are we appropriating elements of a marginalized culture?
Are we using insensitive language or phrases that have racist origins or insensitive connotations?
Are we amplifying the voice of someone who is considered racist or harmful to the BIPOC community? Make it a habit to filter your content through a lens of equity, and be ready to get it wrong sometimes. Doing the work behind the scenes will give you a stronger product when it’s time to hit publish. And, if you do make a mistake and receive critical feedback, you’ll be able to reflect on the process you went through to determine what went wrong and how to improve in the future.
How to prepare: First, talk with your team about the potential for missteps. Together, you can come up with a social response plan that covers who to inform if negative or constructive feedback appears, who responds or approves responses and anything else your team deems helpful.
Make intentional space in your strategy for feedback to learn from your experience.
Accept criticism with an open mind and a goal of understanding.
Be brave and prepare for mistakes. You will mess up, and you will need to bring it up to leadership when it happens in order to have productive conversations and move forward. Mistakes are how we learn. Growth happens outside of our comfort zone, and we need growth now more than ever. Now is the time to be open to criticism and change.
Hire diverse teams
Remember how we mentioned that diversity in social media starts from within?
Hiring diverse candidates should always be a priority, and there are plenty of reasons why this can positively impact your business (beyond just being the right thing to do).
Diverse teams enrich content and stories
More diverse teams generate more diverse ideas.
This extends to your team, and to the creators and agencies you work with, too.
“Diverse content comes from diverse, innovative perspectives,” Sprout’s Director of Diversity and Inclusion Cassandra Blackburn tells us. “We also know that diverse teams drive innovation–it literally increases the range of perspectives in a room.”
Beyond inspiring more unique content, more perspectives on your team also helps bust bias. This can help stave off mistakes that even the most well-meaning teams can make in social content and campaigns.
Cassandra said it best: “If you build a diverse team and network, your content will follow.”
Next steps: Audit your hiring materials for bias, and review the perks you offer employees and company culture.
For example, research shows that women are more likely to feel they need to meet job postings’ full criteria. Eliminating the college degree requirement can expand your candidate pool. And a recent Atlassian study highlighted that location flexibility may expand your talent pool. Diverse teams have a positive business impact
Diversity sparking innovation doesn’t stop at creative content. These teams can have a serious impact on your company’s bottom line.
Research has shown that more diverse teams create a high-performance environment. And companies with more diverse management teams and decision makers see higher revenue.
As Cassandra put it, “Diverse teams are critical to the success of any company. Research from McKinsey shows companies that have a more diverse workforce outperform industry norms by an average of 35%.”
Next steps: Look at your teams and decision makers—are these as diverse as they can be? Are there leadership opportunities that can be provided or expanded to extend opportunities to more diverse internal candidates?
Diverse teams enforce your values
A company can say they prioritize DEI all day.
But if a company that prioritizes diversity in social media lacks diversity behind the scenes, that doesn’t bode well for their reputation or trust.
As Cassandra put it, “The world’s demographics are shifting and the public increasingly relies on social media to understand which companies align to their values,” Cassandra says. “A diverse social media team ensures you can maintain your brand’s reputation with your target market.”
Next steps: Review those values again, then look within. Are your current diversity goals being met?
Diverse teams improve company culture
Cassandra put it best: “All people want to work with and for companies that live their values. Companies seeking to diversify their talent without investing in their people won’t succeed in maintaining that talent.”
It’s no question that diversity has a positive impact on company culture. In fact, according to a Deloitte survey, Millennials are more likely to feel engaged at work when they feel their workplace fosters an inclusive environment.
Being challenged with new ideas and perspectives also helps teammates think in new, sharper ways than a homogeneous group would. In fact, research has shown that diverse teams make better decisions 87% of the time.
Next steps: Celebrate your teams. Create a meet the team social post series showcasing your team members’ stories and uplifting the diverse voices within your organization. This builds connection with your employees (and with prospective talent) in an authentic way. Tap into employee advocacy to amplify your series. After all, over half of engaged social users are most likely to share employee updates, according to our research.
Prioritize diversity in social media and in marketing now
If you haven’t started prioritizing diversity in social media, now’s the time to start.
But this work cannot be done within a silo, or by one person. Nor can this work solely be done externally.
Your social media efforts should be backed up by your internal efforts. Work across teams and across your organization to kickstart real change. Next up, check out our social media for global brands article to help you along the way. Source link

From snapping selfies with friends to tagging favorite brands in our Stories, social media has become a large part of our everyday lives. Consumers expect brands to have an active online presence and the ability to answer any questions they have fast.
But a poorly timed or worded social post could harm your brand reputation. Yet, 45% of companies don’t have a social media policy for employees in place.
Although people may forgive your brand, the internet never forgets, so it’s better to be safe than sorry! Implementing a social media policy will help protect your company and give employees the space to advocate for themselves while staying true to the brand and it’s values.
What is a company social media policy?
A social media policy is part of a company’s business code of conduct that tells employees how they should represent themselves and the brand on social media. It includes guidelines to protect the brand’s security, privacy and legal interests.
Social media platforms provide avenues for brand promotion, but they also present opportunities to misrepresent your brand, which is why a good social media policy is so necessary.
Why do you need a social media policy for employees
Here are several reasons organizations should adopt a social media policy:
Create brand advocates
Social media policies allow you to unlock all the benefits of employee advocacy, without putting your brand credibility at risk.
When your employees post about the organization online, it can increase brand awareness, establish thought leadership and drive qualified leads. Along with helping social selling, employee posts can support social recruiting efforts, attracting top talent to your company.
Your social media policy is a critical advocacy tool, giving your employees the guidance they need to represent your brand accurately within social networks.
Promote DEI
Brand diversity in social media is more important than ever. Company alignment with personal values is 74% more important to consumers than it was in 2021, so brands need to show and tell audiences what the company values.
Amplifying diverse voices via social media is an actionable step brands can take to prioritize representation and attract top talent from marginalized communities. An inclusive social media policy will empower and encourage voices from all backgrounds to advocate for the brand.
Maintain a consistent brand identity
A social media policy ensures that whenever someone interacts with your company online, either through a brand channel or an employee, they get the same consistent experience. This develops a more reliable, trustworthy identity for your company, turning customers into loyal fans and ambassadors.
Minimize legal action against your brand
Social media presents complicated considerations such as privacy law and copyright law. A well made social media policy will protect the company from potential lawsuits.
Consult with your legal counsel and outline a list of do’s and don’ts for the company to follow. These rules of thumb will help ensure the organization and contractors are compliant with laws, reducing the risk of legal action against the company.
Protect your brand from privacy and security risks
There are many privacy and security risks involved with using social media. The larger your team is, the larger those risks become. A good social media policy combined with security protocols will protect your accounts against hacking, phishing and fraud accounts.
And since social media is a common resource for scammers and criminals, it’s imperative your social media policy includes guidelines that protect both your employees and company. Whether it’s defending against phishing scams or ransomware attacks, make sure that everyone in your organization is vigilant about online protection.
Prevent a public relations crisis
Many organizations make the mistake of waiting until they’ve faced a public relations disaster to put a policy in place. Be proactive and implement a strategy in advance to minimize crisis.
Your social media crisis plan should align with your social media policy. For example, the policy can designate which teams are responsible for handling a PR crisis.
What every social media policy should include
A well-crafted social media policy will provide a variety of benefits, like empowering your staff and protecting your brand. But to relish those benefits, your policy needs to outline clear, comprehensive guidance.
Here’s some essential components every social media policy should have to get you started:
The purpose of the policy
Explain why the organization uses a social media policy. Be transparent and illustrate why your brand needs it. Here’s an example from our social media policy template: Who the policy applies to
Emphasize how the social media policy applies to everyone from executives and managers to interns and freelancers. An example from our template is below: Note how this section also provides the brand’s definitions of company-related information and social media. These clear distinctions ensure everyone within the organization is on the same page.
Personal account guidelines
You can’t control everything your employees do and say on their personal social media accounts. However, it’s important to show them why their behavior on personal profiles affects your company and how they can avoid conflict.
Regardless of whether or not your employees are speaking for you, the world might view them as a reflection of your brand. If your employees are acting questionably online, this raises suspicion about your business too.
Your social media policy will have a list of rules to follow, but the most important thing to remind your employees is that whatever they say on social media, they’re representing the company—even when on their personal accounts.
Outline basic expectations for behavior. For instance, they need to: Check their facts
Respect the law (including copyright law)
Avoid saying negative things about your brand or other companies Company association rules
It’s also a good idea to include a disclaimer on personal accounts to remind customers that your employee is an individual, not a spokesperson for your organization. Many social media policies ask team members to state all of their posts are based on their own opinions, like Best Buy: By separating themselves from their employees’ opinions, Best Buy reduces their risk of a PR crises.
Security and privacy guidelines
Your social media policy should also defend against security risks and privacy issues. Robust social media policies outline the dangers of sharing online and help keep your employees out of trouble.
At a minimum, these guidelines should include details about: Sharing proprietary or confidential company information
Posting defamatory, derogatory or inflammatory content
Posting information or pictures that imply illegal conduct
How to create secure passwords, including two-factor authentication for brand and personal social media accounts
How to keep software updated and devices secure
How to identify potential social media risks and attacks
How to respond if a security breach takes place The safer your employees are with their social media actions, the more secure your business becomes.
Legal guidelines
Your social media policy must provide clear guidelines on how to handle sensitive areas, particularly regarding the law and industry regulations. Legal requirements vary by country and state, so make sure you consult with your legal counsel.
Your policy can cover, but isn’t limited to the following: Credit sourcing: What is the source of the information your employee is sharing? Crediting images and other information is crucial.
Privacy and disclosure procedures: Let your employees know what is considered confidential, such as customer information.
Disclaimers: Let your staff know what a disclaimer means when they use it online. As the City of Edmonton outlines in their social media guidelines, even if someone states that their opinions are their own, they’ll still be seen as a representative of the city by the public.
Regulatory challenges: Certain industries like finance, government and healthcare have specific regulatory requirements. Outline any rules that may be associated with your industry. Responsible engagement
Clarify who can speak on behalf of your company on social media. A small problem could snowball if not handled appropriately. If someone leaves a negative comment about your brand online, make sure your employees know how to respond.
The degree of freedom you give your staff will depend on the nature of your business. If you do allow your team to offer advice to customers, it’s a good idea to train them on the following: Brand guidelines: How to talk about your products, services and company.
Etiquette: How to respond to comments from customers (tone of voice, customer escalation strategies, etc.).
Confidentiality: Which details should absolutely not be shared on social media.
Consequences: What will happen if they fail to follow the company’s social media policy. For some businesses, the best option will be to direct the situation toward the staff trained to manage PR matters and conflict resolution. You may have members of your team responsible for crisis response, message approval, customer service, public relations management and social engagement. An excellent way to ensure conflicts are always handled properly from the start is to set up pre-approved responses to common issues in a social media management platform like Sprout Social. These responses show your brand is aware of their concern and will direct them to the right person to resolve the problem.
You can even use Sprout’s social listening tools to ensure you’re the first to know when someone says something negative about your brand. The faster you’re aware of a problem, the easier it is to fix it before the fire spreads.
Social media policy examples
If you’re looking for inspiration, many social media policies are publicly available. Here are a few great social media policy examples that are specific and comprehensive:
Dell
Dell’s social media policy is digestible, yet still meets the requirements of the company’s needs.
The policy is broken down into several sections: purpose and scope, related policies and consequences of violations, social media account ownership and Dell’s five social media principles. Notice how Dell uses these sections to define expectations and ties the policy back to the company’s code of conduct and equal employment opportunity policy.
For example, Dell Technologies’ Five Social Media Principles mentions the guidelines are reiterated in onboarding. This section also lists zero-tolerance behavior, rules of thumb and specific steps to protect security, privacy and legal compliance. Playstation
Along with implementing a social media policy for employees, some brands create a separate policy for content creators and influencers. Playstation has a great social media policy for influencers.
Playstation begins by stating influencers must follow their rules whenever they post about Sony Interactive Entertainment products and services on any social media platform. Notice how they define collaboration as “free product, event tickets, or any other benefit or if you have an ongoing relationship with us.” From there, Playstation lists specific guidelines that fall underneath four main principles: be responsible, be transparent, be specific and be yourself.
For example, under the “be transparent” section, Playstation lists how to disclose the relationship. They note the disclosure should be visible to viewers without having to click a link or a “see more” prompt. Influencers must include #ad at the beginning or end of the post. They also include caveats for video content: Walmart
Walmart has a comprehensive set of guidelines and is an excellent model for enterprise companies with sophisticated social media presence across several channels. The retailer breaks down guidelines for both customers and associates for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The retail company states that no employee outside of the Walmart social team should answer customer complaints or questions directed toward the company. This kind of rule might seem restrictive, but it’s often best for larger companies to err on the side of caution. Target
Target also does a great job of breaking down their social media policy in a way that’s clear and easy to understand. Their policy begins with a purpose, definition of social media and policy application: Their guidelines are brief, but provide specific dos and don’ts for employees to follow: They include examples of potential policy breaches and best practices when using social media: The retailer also includes a summary of the social media policy within their code of ethics, with actionable steps to follow for specific scenarios and forms of communication: Social media policy tools for employee advocacy
Social media is a powerful tool for your business, but it takes intention to enjoy its benefits. A social media policy will help guide employees across the organization on how your brand should be represented on social.
Social media in the workplace is manageable—you just need to dedicate time and effort into developing a social media policy that works.
Take control of your brand’s social identity by showing employees they have the power to deliver incredible results for your company. Give them the tools they need to best represent the brand and themselves by creating an employee advocacy content strategy. Source link

External communication, marketing and public relations (PR) have been tricky for brands over the last few years. A number of geopolitical, social, economic and health events have triggered a distinct rise in consumer activism. Leading to an ever-increasing emphasis on how corporations reflect these values when communicating with their audiences.
With a documented brand strategy that incorporates a set of core values, companies are better positioned to engage with their audience on a regular basis as well as respond to unexpected events when they inevitably occur. When developed with integrity and incorporated into your business’s operations, your brand values provide an essential roadmap for maintaining your public image and brand reputation.
In this article, we’ll outline everything you need to know about developing and sharing your own brand values. Plus, we’ll share a bit about Sprout’s own journey to do the same just a few years ago and examples of other brands showcasing their values effectively on social.
What are brand values?
Brand values are the beliefs that govern the way an organization does business. Along with several other foundational elements (like mission, vision, story, voice, etc.), brands’ values play a key role in their identity and perception, both internally and externally.
These guiding principles can also act as an “authenticity meter,” helping leaders make strategic decisions and employees and customers gauge whether the organization is living up to its stated values. Deviation from these standards can quickly become a public relations nightmare.
Why it’s important to have and share your brand’s values
A strong set of brand values is important for a number of reasons. Your brand values can help you: Attract and retain employees who are a cultural fit
Make aligned decisions
Engage like-minded consumers
Build goodwill among your audience Of course, fostering a strong culture is important. But beyond that, there’s also a clear correlation between your values and your bottom line.
What compels customers to choose one brand over another? According to The Sprout Social Index ™ 2022, trust and aligned values top the list (at 40% and 36% respectively).
Another Sprout study found that 53% of people feel more connected to brands that share their values. And that feeling of connection is more than just warm fuzzies. It correlates to increased spending, with 57% of people saying they will increase their spending with brands they feel connected to. 3 examples of brand values
The first step toward truly becoming a values-driven brand is to share what you stand for. Values-driven businesses don’t shy away from putting their foundational standards front and center, where both employees and the public can access them. Transparency, trust and visibility are key tenets of everything they do.
One great way to get inspiration for developing your own values is to look to other brands. The following examples of brand values will get you started.
1. Sprout Social
We created a microsite dedicated to sharing our brand identity and beliefs. Here, you can find our mission, positioning and core values, among other details. We take it a step further by also sharing the process we followed to refresh Sprout’s values.
Sprout’s values include: Care Deeply
Embrace Accountability
Champion Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Promote Open, Authentic Communication
Seek Simplicity
Solve Hard Problems
Celebrate Change The following are examples of Sprout’s values on display on social. Finding a healthy balance between your social presence and your well-being isn’t always easy.
Your mental health should always come first. 💚 ⚖️ https://t.co/E7Mti8OAuP
— Sprout Social (@SproutSocial) December 16, 2022 2. For Days
For Days, a sustainable fashion brand, also shares their brand values on their website. With a mission to “eliminate clothing waste in order to benefit people and the planet,” it should come as no surprise their values similarly focus on sustainability and community.
For Days’ values include: Carefree, not careless
Connected, not isolated
Accountable, not irresponsible To see For Days’ values in action, look no further than their social platforms. 3. Marriott International
Marriott International, a well-known hospitality brand, has a set of values that aligns with its global reach and focus.
Marriott International’s values include: We Put People First
We Pursue Excellence
We Embrace Change
We Act with Integrity
We Serve Our World On social, Marriott International’s values are on full display. Meet Melissa Stricker, General Manager for Fairfield by Marriott Charleston in West Virginia. She launched her career journey with an internship at a hotel by the beach. Once Melissa got her feet wet, she realized this was more than a summer job — it was a place to grow a career. pic.twitter.com/mhoW5YcX6P
— Marriott International (@MarriottIntl) December 23, 2022 .@CornellMBA recently launched its Sustainable Tourism Destination Management course. Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano was a guest speaker for the course, designed to train hospitality professionals in using sustainable practices. #Serve360 https://t.co/beUp9M4x5Y
— Marriott International (@MarriottIntl) December 19, 2022 How to define your brand’s values
When we refreshed our brand values in 2018, Sprout’s leaders followed a pretty rigorous process because they knew how important it was to get them right. The steps below outline how the team formulated our current set of values.
1. Establish your team
First, it’s important to bring in a diverse set of voices with different experiences and points of view. Make sure you have a sampling of different levels throughout the organization (i.e., not just senior leaders). We did this by sending an open invitation to the entire company and then whittling it down to a working group of 15 individuals.
2. Gather feedback
Among other responsibilities, the working group led department-based focus groups to harvest feedback from across the company. Our leadership team recognized that for the values development process to be successful, employees should feel ownership in the process.
Similarly, your facilitators should collect input from various departments and individuals. By the end of these sessions, you should have a sizable list of ideas.
Social listening can also help here, providing details about what your customers love about your brand and what they think you could do better.
3. Identify themes
With so many ideas to consider, it could get overwhelming to narrow down your set of values. That’s why we recommend you start by identifying themes among the submissions. For example, there might be 10 or 15 ideas around employee growth that are fairly similar and could be combined into a thematic grouping. Be sure to focus on your existing culture but also your aspirations for the future. Where are you today? But also—where do you want to go?
4. Refine and communicate
Now that you’ve developed a slimmer list of themes, it’s time to present them to the executive team for feedback. This “small council” will refine the themes down to a manageable set of values that reflect the input and research gathered throughout the process. It was through this exercise that we established Sprout’s seven core values. From there, leadership should communicate the final list to the rest of the organization.
How to communicate your brand values to customers through social media
Connecting with your audience on social is a must for modern brands. Regardless of the platforms you choose to show up on, a social presence is required to remain relevant.
And while it’s important to share various types of content to showcase your brand voice and personality, make sure your values are showcased regularly as well. Authentically embodying your brand values in the content you share helps your audience see that they are more than just words on your website; your values are an inherent part of the way you think, act and engage.
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
1. Put them on your website
Okay, this one is not technically a social media tactic, but it’s so important we decided to include it here. The more visibility and transparency your audience has into your values and the things that make your brand tick, the more connected they’ll feel. And we’ve already established that leads to more sales. While social media is a great place to showcase your values, don’t forget to include them on your website, too. 2. Share your story
People like stories. It’s how we make sense of the world. And brands that are really good at telling their stories often build a loyal following, too. Brand storytelling goes beyond the facts to highlight the “why” behind your business. It makes your brand more human and easier to connect with. It also enables you to share your values in action. Did you know going vegan is better for the environment? We’ve teamed up with @weareveganuary to challenge you to #GOVEGAN this January! Swipe to see the 30 Day Impact of a vegan lifestyle ➡️
Posted by Pacifica on Tuesday, November 1, 2022 3. Partner with influencers
Whether your perfect influencer is a precocious child prodigy, a well-known celebrity or a really cute dog (see the example below), borrowing the cache of other brands or creators that share similar values can multiply the effect of your values-driven social content. Get in front of more eyes by finding a shared cause and promoting it together. 4. Partner with nonprofits
Another example of “two accounts are better than one” is partnering with nonprofits that aid causes related to your values. This can go a long way toward helping you authentically embody your brand values on social. You might collaborate on a project (as in the example below) or you might simply interact with each other, like sharing each other’s content. Either way, the symbiotic amplification is a win-win. Today on Giving Tuesday, we’re so excited to debut the Rothy’s x FEED Projects collection designed for good. Meet five…
Posted by Rothy’s on Tuesday, November 29, 2022 5. Showcase your employees
When you think about a company’s values, you can’t forget about the employees. A brand’s commitment to its values is also illustrated in the way it treats its team members. And employees are the ones living your values in action every day. Allow them to share what they love about working for your company and what your values mean to them. Employee advocacy is an easy, organic way to humanize your brand while increasing your reach. Congrats to Dousan for joining the team as an Interaction Designer at Android!#Noogler first impression? «I was really blown away by the learning resources we have access to and how much everyone is willing to lend a helping hand.»
Thanks for sharing. Welcome to #LifeAtGoogle! pic.twitter.com/OsDyhLpp2C
— Life at Google (@lifeatgoogle) December 27, 2022 6. Keep up with current events
Keep your brand feeling fresh and relevant by weighing in on things that are actually happening in the world right now. The past few years have shown that consumers want companies to stand behind what they say they believe. Consider doubling down on the stuff that matters to you and your people, but of course, exercise caution.
While these efforts can be polarizing, they will ultimately help you curate an audience of loyal fans that want what you’re selling. Remember, if you’re talking to everyone, you’re actually reaching no one. When it aligns with your brand values, make it crystal clear where you stand on the issues. Los Angeles City Council has voted to ban new fossil fuel drilling and phase out existing oil and gas wells over the next 20 years. Let’s keep the pressure on and urge @GavinNewsom to stop oil and gas drilling across the state of California
Take action: https://t.co/wCBqbU0PXW
— Patagonia (@patagonia) December 27, 2022 It’s about time our economic leaders start to look a little more like the rest of the country. Economic volatility affects women, and especially women of color, disproportionately.
It helps to have some people in charge who understand what that means — and how to fight it. 👏🏽
— Ellevest (@Ellevest) December 16, 2022 Find the issues that matter to your audience
Your brand values are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to ensuring your internal and external communications are effective. Now that you’ve developed them, it’s time to incorporate them into your larger corporate communications strategy. With this plan in place, your teams can navigate any event, from product launches to public relations crises, with ease.
Download the free corporate communication plan template to get started. Source link

Picture this: You’re in a meeting with top executives and stakeholders. They ask you to quantify your team’s performance across social channels and accounts, and explain how your performance influences company goals.
You know raw social data is complex, and sharing it with people who have limited hands-on-the-keyboard social experience is ineffective.
So instead of getting granular, you provide them with a digestible overview of your most important KPIs. You tell a compelling data story that helps them visualize how your customer care, awareness and engagement efforts matter to your company’s big picture. You captivate your audience and prove the power of social.
Slam dunk.
Using a social media dashboard to glean vital insights from your data will help you successfully convey your team’s impact every time. In this article, we’re highlighting examples of social media dashboards you can use to illustrate the value of social media across your business.
What is a social media dashboard?
A social media dashboard is a tool that aggregates your crucial social media metrics across networks to quickly measure the performance of your posts/campaigns, customer care interactions and community engagement.
Social media dashboards empower you to dissect results, iterate strategy, demonstrate value and influence decision making. What should you include in a social media dashboard? Every data dashboard serves a different function—from tracking brand awareness to aggregating marketing metrics in one place. Your social media dashboards should be built with your unique use cases in mind. While the ingredients for each dashboard might be different, the core component is visualized metrics that help explain why your brand did or didn’t meet a goal.
To help determine the specifics you should include in your dashboard, ask yourself these five questions: What is the goal of this dashboard? (Example: demonstrate positive changes in brand reputation)
Which metrics matter most to achieving this goal? (Example: sentiment)
Who is the audience and how much do they know about the topic? (Example: CMO and R&D)
Which channels need to be measured? (Example: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter)
What is the duration of time needed to effectively measure change? (Example: one month) Ultimately, you should have multiple social media dashboards for different stakeholders and purposes. For example, one for tracking monthly changes in brand reputation and sentiment, as seen in the example above. Another for sharing quarterly customer care productivity.
By using a platform like Sprout Social, you can access and create custom social media dashboard templates that save you time and efficiently deliver presentation-ready dashboards for different business segments.
Social media dashboard templates to use across your organization
Here are five types of social media dashboard templates designed to help marketing leaders level-up their reporting and refine their data-driven strategy.
Social customer care dashboard
Customer care is an essential function of social media. A social customer care dashboard measures, benchmarks and analyzes your team’s efforts, and reveals any critical opportunities to improve customer support. This dashboard is especially important for enterprise brands who typically have larger teams managing incoming requests across multiple accounts. Goal: Provide visibility into customer care team performance
Metrics: Response rate, action rate, average time to action and total actioned messages
Audience: Customer care/support teams, sales, marketing and product development
Channels: Cross-channel inboxes (Pro tip: Sprout’s Smart Inbox unifies all incoming messages and mentions into one single stream)
Cadence: Monthly, quarterly and yearly A customer care dashboard will help you illuminate how many messages your brand receives, your response rate and your average response time, like Sprout’s Inbox Activity Report demonstrates. Business intelligence dashboard
There are times when you need to take social data outside of your social media management platform. For example, consolidating touchpoints between social media and your CRM gives you a more in-depth understanding of your audience.
A business intelligence dashboard will help you access all your consumer data in one place to get a birds-eye view of how social media fits into the larger picture. This dashboard enables you to analyze data, create custom metrics and merge different data sources. Goal: Track the customer journey across digital touchpoints (including social)
Metrics: Customized to meet your goals. Examples include engagements per network/per state, ad impressions and email CTR
Audience: Executives and stakeholders
Channels: Cross-channel
Cadence: Quarterly and yearly As Sprout’s Tableau BI Connector displays, you gain valuable insights by combining the power of social data with other business channels into one dashboard. This ensures social data and insights are included in your 360-degree view of your customers—proving the value social brings to your business. Social media engagement dashboard
Social media engagement is a barometer of how much your audience interacts with your content. When examining engagement metrics across months or years, a birds’ eye view dashboard can help you identify performance trends that improve your content strategy. With these insights, you can continuously replicate the success of your most liked/commented on posts. Goal: Determine if your content resonates with your audience
Metrics: Impressions, engagements, link clicks, ad spend and conversions
Audience: Social media team and other stakeholders who influence content direction
Channels: Cross-channel or channel-specific
Cadence: Weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly Here are a few examples of Sprout Social’s social media engagement dashboards that give you the tools to proactively grow your audience and repeatedly test your content direction. Profile Performance Report provides a high-level aggregation of analytics so you can get a pulse on the performance of your social profiles. With this report, you can view Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok metrics to better understand the impact of your social efforts. The Post Performance Report helps you analyze your published content down to the individual post and understand its performance with your audience. It provides a unified view of your post performance across all social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and TikTok. Our Cross-Network Paid Performance Report consolidates paid campaign-level data from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. From the Overview tab you can see a summary of your paid performance, impressions, engagements, web conversions, video views and a breakdown of key performance metrics by channel. Brand awareness dashboard
Brand awareness requires continuous effort and frequent pulse checks. Use data to determine your reach, earned media value and share of voice. Goal: Analyze rates of target audience recognition and awareness
Metrics: Impressions, reach, engagements, mentions, earned media value and sentiment
Audience: Teams across marketing, including social media
Channels: Cross-channel
Cadence: Weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly Sprout’s Listening tools help brands tap into global social conversation to extract actionable insights that improve brand health and fuel brand awareness. With Sprout’s Listening dashboards, you can track conversations concerning your brand to illuminate consumer attitudes, gain visibility into customer experience and sentiment, conduct competitive analysis and stay up to date with trends in your industry. As many social media managers will tell you, achieving organic awareness and reach on social media is harder than ever. At Sprout, our team uses employee advocacy to breakthrough and track our success with brand awareness dashboards in our Employee Advocacy platform.
Here are two examples of employee advocacy dashboards we use on a monthly and quarterly basis: Sprout’s Advocacy General Report provides an overview of our latest activity. The report analyzes the number of active stories, total shares and shares across each network, and how that translates into potential reach and earned media value. As you scroll, you can see sharing trends, the highest volume of sharing activity and overall story performance, top users by shares and top users by potential reach. Sprout’s Advocacy Content Report dives deeper into data gleaned from your active content. You can see how many shareable or internal stories were active each day along with a comparison to the previous month. The Content Breakdown chart provides stats on shareable and internal content including days, views, shares, engagement and potential reach for each Story. Executive dashboard
Most executives aren’t immersed in the world of social media on a frequent basis. Metrics that are meaningful to you and your team miss the mark when communicating with the C-suite. As a result, you might struggle to secure buy-in and investment to take your social efforts to the next level.
For best results, create customized reports for leadership that bridge knowledge gaps at the executive level and translate the raw data into a narrative that resonates with anyone in leadership. Create an executive summary of your most compelling social media reports to convince even the most skeptical executives about the impact social has on your business. Goal: Deliver clear evidence of social team’s impact
Metrics: Customized to each executive. Examples include share of voice, potential reach, earned media value, customer care productivity and competitor analysis data
Audience: Teams across marketing, including social media
Channels: Cross-channel
Cadence: Weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly Use Sprout Social’s Report Builder features to create custom reports specific to your business needs to easily track your most valued social data. Choose which metrics are included in reports to evaluate performance based on your specific business goals.
How to create a social media dashboard
To set up your own social media dashboard, follow these steps to quickly review/report on your strategy and highlight your team’s performance. 1. Determine purpose and audience
The first step toward creating a social media dashboard is figuring out its purpose. What goal is this dashboard trying to achieve? Who will it reach? How familiar are they with the topic? Clearly define your purpose and audience before doing anything else.
2. Decide which kind of dashboard to create
Decide which kind of dashboard best fits your needs. Choose a dashboard with relevant metrics that align with your goals and demonstrate social’s value to stakeholders. Be mindful of your audience and their social media experience level when deciding how detailed your dashboard should be.
Revisit the five social media dashboard types mentioned in this article for inspiration.
3. Gather the metrics
Next, you’re ready to dig into the data. Scope out which networks need to be measured and the length of time required to demonstrate meaningful results. Collect raw data across those channels during that time period. You can start by using metrics from the native apps, like engagement rate, reach, followers and plays.
To up your sophistication level and boost efficiency with a simpler workflow, use a social media analytics tool like Sprout Social to streamline/automate the data collection process and easily generate dashboards that are ready to share.
4. Share with stakeholders
Transform the raw figures into riveting dashboards and data visualizations. Use key data points, complementary graphs and your expert analysis to give stakeholders a visual depiction of your team’s progress.
After creating your first dashboard, repeat the first three steps for each dashboard you need. Keep momentum going by updating your dashboards on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis and resharing them with stakeholders.
Include everything you need in your social media dashboard by using Sprout Social
Social media dashboards convert your cumbersome social data into influential stories that are easy to absorb. By breaking down complexity and clearly communicating your findings with stakeholders, you will elevate the importance of social media across your entire company.
Sprout simplifies the dashboard creation process so managers have more time to focus on refining their team’s strategy and communicating social’s impact. To access Sprout’s full library of social media dashboard templates, start your free trial today.
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