Good news used to come in the form of a letter or a cheque. At Wiser, however, it usually arrives as a series of frantic WhatsApps. “WE DID IT,” “G’warn,” “Ding ding dinggg” or even “sorry for yelling.” This was very much the state of play at the EBMAs (Employer Brand Management Awards) where we were chuffed to pick up several awards. 

Amongst our prizes, we took home 'Best Social Media Strategy' with our long term partners Knight Frank.

Want to know more about how we did it?

Here are some tricks of the trade:

As our friends at Knight Frank will tell you, the first step in building a stable structure is establishing strong foundations. What’s the first step in crafting a successful strategy? Research.

The first step is to find out what Knight Frank means to the people inside it. The best way of getting to know someone isn’t by listening to all the gossip from their friends. It’s by sitting down and talking to them directly. 

Our skilled team finds out what the people working for Knight Frank think of the organisation. This is done by listening to the employees’ stories – understanding their experiences, wants and needs when it comes to their careers – and use this to build our strategy.

Now we’ve got our foundations in place, we can start to focus on the ground floor and the interior of our house. We want this place to be looking presentable before we start inviting people in. It’s here that we find our EVP and pillars – the front room and four walls.

Our research team will have found the reasons as to why employees join in the first place, and the reasons why they’ve decided to stay as long as they have. By having these in mind, our social team can start thinking of ideas to illuminate why people love working where they work; making sure that we are always asking the ever important question.

‘What’s in it for me?’ 

This is the mantra of every potential employee, customer, business partner, romantic partner in the world! People want to have their time and effort validated with an outcome they perceive to be equal to, or greater than their input. If you aren’t constantly asking that question, then you’ll find yourself quickly losing touch with the most important factor – the people.

The plate spinning commences. Approaching the task from as many different angles as possible will prove the most fruitful for you, your team and the client. Try to find multiple ways of remodelling the social strategy – it doesn’t start and end with a new Instagram account and a LinkedIn banner. Don’t forget, with a social strategy, you’re not simply competing for space on the village notice board – you’re in competition with the entire internet. That’s make-up brands, global conglomerates and even videos of otters being silly.

You need to think about how to reconstruct a social media image, right down to the smallest details. What’s the new aesthetic? The colour palette? What kind of content are you going to be shouting about? In the case of Knight Frank, this is where the idea of @lifeatKnightFrank on Instagram came in. Each aspect of the page was designed to demonstrate that our client is much more than people currently think.

Don’t underestimate the importance of internal advocacy. It’s no secret that 84% of us trust recommendations from our peer group over a brand’s job endorsement. It explains why content shared by employees has 800% higher engagement compared to a company employer branding content. This is exactly why we set up a global advocacy programme for Knight Frank, encouraging employees to post about their life at Knight Frank. This is very effective for inspiring potential employees to apply. It's human nature: people trust people. You can look towards changing an external perception by highlighting and expressing internal observations. 

How do we find the right content? Let me tell you about a little technique called Social Listening. Looking at the employees personal pages, engaging with their posts, seeing who’s tagging who and what they’re getting up to. A sponsored bike ride? A fundraiser for Pride? We’re seeing it and we’re talking about it. This is where we would find the most authentic stories to shout about within Knight Frank. Instead of reaching out for stories, we embedded ourselves within their community and soon enough, the stories came to us. By showing off the person behind the suit, we curated content which was genuine to Knight Frank, and to their people.

So how did it all play out? Off the back of our Social Strategy, Knight Frank’s impressions grew by 13.5%, their follower count by 32,200 and the number of total engagements with their posts increased by 95.4%. 

In terms of internal advocacy, we found the new social platforms being flooded with positive feedback from employees. They recognised aspects of the company they appreciated and they wanted to shout about it.

Just like how building a house takes several different elements: wood, cement, polyfilla, sand, grit. Building a strong house is a case of combining these elements in the right order and in the correct measures. The same goes for crafting an award-winning strategy. The key components are research, a truthful EVP and a load of ideas to match it up with. Be clear and be creative.

Oh, and maybe pop your phone on silent when it comes to awards night.