How to Use Snapchat for Talent Branding

How to Use Snapchat for Talent Branding Snapchat is a craze that doesnt seem to be going anywhere. Apart from allowing individuals to take selfies  through  fun filters and film life around them, its also a modern marketing tool for reaching millennials and selling an employer brand. Cisco is the largest networking company in the world with over 70,000 employees.  How does it use Snapchat for employer branding? Ive spoken to Carmen Collins,  the social media lead for talent branding. Have a listen to the podcast interview embedded below or  keep reading for a summary of our conversation. And be sure to subscribe to the Employer Branding Podcast. What do you do at Cisco? I have the best job in the world. I am . So rather than sitting in the marketing department, my team sits in the HR department. And my job is to use social media, which Im super passionate about. How does Cisco use Snapchat for talent branding? The talent brand team has been thinking for about a year now, how could we use Snapchat, because Snapchat is the new shiny social media tool and its different to all other social media tools, which made it a little challenging as we thought about how we were going to use it. And its also very age specific. Its very very young; millennials, Gen Z  and they dont use it exactly for branding. Its not a marketing tool, right?  I had to take some time off from work to have surgery and maybe it was a drug-induced idea, I dont know, but I came back and said, You know, I think I know how we should use Snapchat. I think we should hand the keys over to our employees because I dont think anyone on Snapchat particularly cares what, you know, a marketing team or, you know, what marketers want to say on Snapchat. Oh snap! Were on #Snapchat our employees are taking over! Use our #snapcode follow the #WeAreCisco fun. pic.twitter.com/STDr2PzMih We Are Cisco (@WeAreCisco) April 15, 2016 What are the steps to get started with Snapchat? Well, the challenges for Snapchat is that its about the quality of your followers. Snapchat does not give you a follower count. Snapchat gives you a score, and you can tell how much and engagement youre getting, but the idea of followers goes out the window. So that was one of the challenges, is how are we going to measure success with Snapchat because its not a traditional channel? And another challenge, which for me as a social media manager, was the scariest thing, is how are we going to roll this out to an employee base that is 70,000 people strong? So, you know, we have a global company, we have offices around the globe and how are we going to make this work because were giving the username and password, you know, to our employees. So what we did is we started by setting up the Rainbow Kitten Unicorns. Thats because they are so awesome.  So in our social listening over the past year, weve been able to identify certain employees that are super ambassadors. Theyre always talking about how much fun it is to work at Cisco, they come up with the neatest photos. It was a blast! We will call this group Kitten Rainbow Unicorns of Awesomeness! #WeAreCisco #LoveWhereYouWork https://t.co/1Cq8tEyEgk We Are Cisco (@WeAreCisco) April 12, 2016 How do you organise a Snapchat team of 30? Well, this is whats great about our Kitten Rainbow Unicorns. They sort of came together and self-organised. So if one person said, I have a few snaps that Im on the East Coast of the U.S., and I know that Ill be done at 11 oclock, but thats just about the time that San Jose is waking up, does anybody want to take over that day? And they email each other back and forth, and they send cute little memes back to each other, back and forth to each other, and so they really self-organise. Usually its one person per day, but we have had times where for example, our CEO, Chuck Robbins, has been on our Snapchat account, and thats because one of our Snapchatters was working with him on a project to film a video. And the two Snapchatters, the one that had that day originally and then the one that was with our CEO just emailed back and forth and said, Hey, is it okay if I cut in the middle of your day because hey, our CEO wants to say hi? And so they just talk amongst them I mean theyre such a g reat group of employees, that I cant say enough good things about them. What type of content normally gets posted on WeAreCisco on Snapchat? Well, Cisconians, thats what we call our Cisco folks, Cisconians really like food. So youll see a lot of food. They love the cafes, they love the chefs, they love their snacks. So youll see a lot of food. But one of the things that weve really tried to do is tell our employees to be them. We have a social media policy at Cisco for all of our employees to sign that gives them, you know, general guidelines. I like to call it, Would you show it to your mom guidelines, right? Just keep it clean, keep it smart and other than that, we dont over architect it. Sometimes theyre goofy and they love the lenses. I think the most popular one is the dog, where the tongue comes out when you open your mouth, I think they really like that one a lot. Do you keep Snapchat content on that platform only? No, actually we do cross populate the content. It depends on the content. So if we get really great Snapchat photo, well put that on Instagram. When our CEO, Chuck Robbins, appeared, he was so magnanimous and he actually thanked our followers. He said, Thank you for following WeAreCisco. And so of course we took that video and we put it on Twitter and put it on Instagram. So it really depends on the content, but I would say for the most part, the content on Snapchat is not exclusive to Snapchat, but best viewed there because of the format, because of the lenses and the filters that they can use. So its not exclusive content, but I think its more Snapchatty, if thats a word. Did you see my takeover on wearecisco @Snapchat today? T-shirt fun abounds! #Snapchat pic.twitter.com/cWzuWhWReE Carmen S. Collins #Wahoowa #NationalChampions ?? (@CShirkeyCollins) July 6, 2016  How do you calculate ROI on Snapchat? Ah, yes, the ROI question. Well, heres the great thing, weve partnered with a company called Delmondo. And Nick Cicero is a friend of mine, its his company, and he is a social media person too, and so thats how weve connected with our social media tribe. But he has a company that works with Snapchat influencers. And if you work with Snapchat influencers, you have to be able to show Snapchat metrics. He and his company help us with our metrics. And so what we do know is that since weve started two months ago, weve grown our follower base by about 600% per week, which is huge because on Snapchat as you know, you cant discover new accounts as easily as you can, say on Twitter or Facebook. You have to know the username or the snapcode to follow someone. Were really proud of that metric, that weve grown as much as we have so quickly. And then one of the other stats that we know, is the rate of engagement. So when someone starts watching our Snapchat story, 70% to 80% of them finish watching the Snapchat story. So they are engaged and theyre interested in whats going on, and we keep growing our reach each week as we grow our percentage of followers. Follow Carmen on Twitter @CShirkeyCollins  and dont forget to subscribe to the Employer Branding Podcast.