Building a Human Network
Cisco Systems enjoys the social media playground
by Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest
Think back 25 years. Can you believe we didn’t have cell phones and a computer in every home and on every desk? The precursor to personal digital assistants, the Palm Pilot didn’t debut until 1996!
The networking company, Cisco Systems, is celebrating 25 years. (Can you believe the company didn’t exist before 1984?)
What do you see in 25 years? The innovative company has a CiscoIn25 video contest, which appears on its Facebook page with over 100,000 fans. The big question behind the contest is “How do you think technology will evolve in the next 25 years?”
The human network strategy
As you look at Cisco’s Facebook page, you can tell the company is having fun with social media and bolstering its “Together we are the human network” campaign. Employees managing the page know they represent a business and balance fun with business (see the evidence on the Facebook Page Guidelines).
Yet developing a human network requires more than fun — widespread resolve. Cisco integrates its social media strategy into every aspect of the company from product development and sales to human resources and communications. The company relies on social media to interact with employees, customers, potential employees, press, investors and analysts.
From an organizational chart perspective, two teams manage these efforts. Although the two teams have separate objectives and audiences, they work together on social media governance and training.
The social media communications team falls under corporate communications, and John Earnhardt, director of social media communications, leads the team. This team manages the overall content and strategy across Cisco corporate social channels including Corporate Newsroom, @CiscoSystems Twitter feed, Cisco Facebook page, Flickr and YouTube.
“The social media communications team focuses on those ‘influencers’ who, if you will, get a vote against our uber-company goal of being the most important technology company in the world,” says Earnhardt.
Jeanette Gibson (@jeanetteg) leads the other team, the social media marketing team housed in the central marketing organization. This team oversees integrated social media campaigns, lead generation, online brand strategy and overall monitoring and listening programs for the company. Its focus is on customers and lead generation.
Earnhardt says, “We both use the same tools, although they tend to focus on smaller communities that may lead customers or prospects into the sales funnel. In communications, we certainly point to our products and communities if people want to go there, but we don’t measure how much revenue we impact or leads we create.”
Building the business case
Using social media is a no brainer for a technology company like Cisco. The fun began with the company’s first external blog in 2005. “It was an experiment to ‘extend’ the experience and voice of our public policy team members within our government affairs group,” Cisco Senior Social Media Strategist Autumn Truong says.
“We’ve learned that we can have richer and more engaging conversations through social media. We are a customer-centric company that doesn’t fall in love with any specific technology. We ask customers and deliver what they want. Social media helps us listen and respond.”
The company added its YouTube channel in 2007, its Twitter account two years later and the Facebook page in 2009. The business case needed no help when the proof was in the conversation.
Measuring success
For Cisco, social media is about interactions. Truong says, “Regardless of your respective social media programs, engagement is at the heart of what we want to measure and achieve. Whether it’s as simple as someone retweeting your content or as involved as commenting or blogging — these connections provide great insight into the level of interest people have on a particular topic. If we can help our community engage and participate in the conversations, based on the content and information we share across our social media channels, that’s a win for us.”
To facilitate an upcoming redesign, Cisco plans to fine-tune and redefine how it measures content engagement on its site and across all its social networks. In fact, the company will use the redesign opportunity to ask readers if it should have a new name for News@Cisco in its blog and to receive suggestions from Facebook fans. A poll in Facebook will provide valuable information.
Currently, the company is experimenting with coupons on its Facebook page. It rewards new fans with a discount on two of the company’s products. This effort is helping the company gauge its Facebook community engagement.
Advice to businesses
Employees know that social media is still new from a business perspective. Cisco’s social media teams continue to learn while sharing insight and best practices, especially on its blogs. The company also shares its Social Media Guidelines handbook.
Social media’s low barrier to entry makes it easy for B2B companies to dive into it. Cisco believes that — after identifying your audience, goals and proof of success — you “Just do it.” You learn by doing and making mistakes.
A word of warning: Cisco used to rely on anonymous bloggers, and employees have talked about stuff they should not have revealed in public. These types of things can be damaging, but may ultimately hurt the employee more than the company.
Earnhardt says, “Fundamentally, employee training should be along the simple and clear lines of ‘offline and online rules are the same.’ For example, if policy says don’t talk to the media on the phone without your PR team, then certainly don’t talk to them on Twitter or Facebook.”
The teams rely on valuable online resources like Mashable for social media advice, but nothing replaces figuring these things out for yourself.
Social media elements
Goal: The company’s vision is “changing the way we work, live, play and learn.” You may see this as a big, hairy, audacious goal or as Cisco affectionately calls it, BHAG. Earnhardt says, “We believe it’s something that networking technology inherently does. We connect. We make the world a smaller place through video and collaborative technology. We bring people together.”
Social media tools: Cisco uses every social network with fervor. It doesn’t simply set up at Facebook page and forget about it. Staff updates content regularly and engages with its audiences in five different touchpoints:
- Corporate newsroom: The corporate newsroom takes the form of a blog with the latest news. It also seamlessly integrates Cisco’s other blogs giving visitors a quick overview of each.
- Twitter: The @ciscosystems Twitter feed — managed by John Earnhardt — tweets news and information about Cisco and its executives. The account’s bio includes a link to Cisco’s support page.
- Facebook: Cisco Facebook page doesn’t just provide information and news. The company has Facebook Page Guidelines, posts a fun contest, provides an offer and links to its other social network pages.
- Flickr: Cisco’s flickr photostream has over 50 pages of images and photos related to company events, executives and other interesting photos like the Doobie Brothers showing up at Cisco. There’s that fun thing again.
- YouTube: CSCOPR YouTube channel contains over 800 videos including a series by Greg Justice, who calls himself the company’s “World’s Most Interesting Intern” where he raps about his experience at Cisco — meeting the president of Russia, sitting in an ergonomic chair and sounding like C-3P0 spouting out corporate acronyms.
“There are so many conversations going on in the technology space, and we want our voice to be relevant and important in those conversations,” says Earnhardt. More important, the team considers listening to be a critical part of the social media formula. Its Facebook page not only polls fans about Cisco’s News@Cisco name and favorite Cisco Internet video, but also asks about Facebook privacy changes and favorite holiday movie. (We like It’s a Wonderful Life.)
Results: Cisco’s social media success is easy to see. Just look at its impressive numbers across the social media board. However, numbers only tell you part of the story. After all, people can easily follow a company, but it doesn’t mean they’re listening. So look to the multi-way conversations happening on the various networks. “While we still have a lot to learn and to uncover about the power of social media,” Truong says, “we’ve seen early success in terms of volume and the type of people we reach and impact in a real-time environment.”
A transparent engagement tool
To Cisco, social media isn’t a business driver, but a transparent tool to communicate with its audiences. Truong says, “At Cisco, social media is viewed similarly to corporate social responsibility … It doesn’t necessarily have a direct business impact, but it is good for business.”
The company is implementing many social media behind the firewall that the company calls the “quad,” an enterprise collaboration tool that borrows from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The quad helps employees better collaborate, build teams and share information. When these products start to be monetized, that’s the ultimate measure of their efficacy.
All of this makes you wonder: Which company is forming today that will be known by 2035? What technology are we living without right now?
Think about it. Today, 25 years is what 100 years was in the 1800s. Things that didn’t exist 10 years ago: Wikipedia (2001), iPod (2001), BlackBerry smartphone (2002) and Nintendo GameCube (2001).
What a difference a decade makes.
About the interviewees
John Earnhardt is director of social media communications at Cisco where he manages the social media team responsible for the award-winning News@Cisco news site, the corporate blog and Facebook pages, and the Twitter @CiscoSystems, Ustream and Flickr sites. Follow him at @urnhart.
Autumn Truong is a senior social media strategist at Cisco leading amplification, community management and influencer engagement programs within the corporate communications department. She works closely with various organizations within Cisco to drive alignment on social media measurement, strategy, policy and governance. Follow her at @autumntt.
About the author
Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans, LinkedIn or on Facebook.
