How Adobe is Fighting Corporate Disillusionment with Social Media
Cory Edwards is the Director of Social Media and Content at a small company called Adobe. Ever heard of of ‘em? 😉 In all seriousness Cory shared some phenomenal insights into how his team at Adobe is approaching social media and “fighting corporate disillusionment with social media.” His presentation discussed both their internal and external efforts, gave insights into their strategy, and even highlighted specific posts or campaigns they ran.
Garnter Hype Cycle
To get things rolling, Cory introduced the audience to the Gartner Hype Cycle and asked audience members where they feel like their businesses or organizations fell in regards to social media. It’s no secret that a number of attendees responded that we were in the dreaded Trough of Disillusionment with social media. That social media hadn’t provided them with results they had hoped for or that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. The remainder of Cory’s presentation focused on how Adobe has gotten out of the trough.
One of Cory’s larger points of the presentations was that a big reason businesses and organizations are struggling with social media and what it can ultimately offer them is because their social media goals aren’t aligned with their business goals. One of the examples he specifically mentioned was trend-jacking. It’s common for a brand to weigh in on the trending topic, but that it doesn’t actually move the needle for their brand.
NOTE: Adobe social media objectives are 1) to support the corporate strategy and 2) to grow a socially-enabled business. How do your social media objectives stack up?
External Efforts
Cory went into great detail and spent the bulk of his time discussion Adobe’s internal efforts to support their social media and content marketing efforts. At the heart of their program is content in which they partner with subject matter experts. These content pieces are evergreen and are distributed widely. Adobe complement’s the distribution of their evergreen content with real-time. He talked about the Black/Blue vs White/Gold dress “controversy” from last year where a customer of theirs used one of Adobe’s app to reveal the dress’ true colors. Adobe promoted this post on social media and actually outperformed Oreos’ famed “Dunk in the Dark” moment. Impressive!
Together, their evergreen and real-time content assist in activations or the creation of brand buzz-worthy moments. These activations play a significant role in the lead flow across Adobe’s different products.
Internal Efforts
Next Cory discussed the internal component for Adobe’s social media. He specifically addressed how important it is to get employee buy-in. Adobe employees are its best ambassadors and enabling them is key in making an employee feel trusted and validated.
To ensure that Adobe’s employee’s were successful Adobe invested into a employee advocacy training and software. This gave employees not only the resources but “guard rails” they could use to guide their efforts. Remarkably Adobe has discovered that a branded social media post from one of Adobe’s active brand advocates receive 4X the engagement when compared to a post from a brand page!
In summary, Cory’s presentation was enlightening. His comments impressed upon our minds two very important concepts. First, creating and executing brand social media objectives and goals are the key to success. Too many brands are aimlessly engaging in social media and content marketing! Second, employees are just as important (perhaps even more important) as the brand in terms of sharing brand content. Activating and enabling your employees to share branded content can skyrocket the success of your content!
Ejoy the recording!