Nick Cicero: Director of Client Strategy, Expion
In this episode recorded on location at social media conference, Social Fresh East, I interviewed Nick Cicero. Nick is Editor of SocialFresh.com and Director of Client Strategy at Expion, an enterprise content marketing and social relationship platform.
The Social Business Journey
In Nick’s role at Expion, where he has the privilege of working with enterprise brands such as Coca Cola, Oreo, Univision, etc., he sees companies progressing in their use of social. The trend Nick sees most is scale, and breaking down the corporate silos. Each department in an enterprise is thinking about how they can use social productively. More departments are fast becoming aware of ways to use social. Some departments are focused on listening to learn from customer conversations. Some are publishing content to engage with customers. Over all, Nick points out that the awareness of the value of social is accelerating in the enterprise. It is fast becoming about how to operationalize and organize social in the business.
The Employee’s Role
Nick points out that advocacy is the new role for employees. People are a brand. Most employees understand that now. More importantly, most companies understand this more than perhaps they did in the past. The employee is at the ground level and often hears things directly from customers and partners that can be valuable to the organization. Employees empowered to be an ambassador of the company can make good use of these insights. Employees have the domain expertise that can be used productively through a strategic employee advocacy strategy.
Advice for Newbies in Social Business
Nick’s advice to organizations early in their social business journey is to listen to online conversations before engaging. Arm yourself with tools to succeed at listening. Most brands are great at storytelling. Nick suggests prioritizing listening to learn what their audience wants to hear before creating stories.
Catch the entire interview with Nick Cicero in the video above.
Photos by: Anthony Quintano
