Fundamentally, FedEx thinks social media is more than a channel or a fad. The company created the Center of Excellence, which includes representatives organizationwide. Together, they collaborate on social goals and strategies.
This group focuses on five pillars: governance (guidelines and education), conversations (conversations the group wants to have), channels (technology and tools), voice of the customer (listening, monitoring and analyzing) and knowledge management (driving adoption). These focuses support the group’s ultimate goal: amplifying and building FedEx’s brand, reputation and culture.
At our last BlogWell conference, Renee Horne took us behind the scenes of how the group built this structure and its role in FedEx’s social campaigns and projects. She had many fantastic ideas and take-aways. A few:
- Build social courage. Horne and her team quickly discovered that social involves change management and getting people to think differently and comfortable with transparency. To do it, the team created a detailed “social playbook” to address tough questions, extensive processes and deep-dive training.
- Get started by using social media internally. FedEx created an internal community that allowed employees to share passions and connect with colleagues worldwide. Though it was intended for internal use, the company made it publicly accessible. FedEx learned so much along the way, and the success eased concerns and fears of legal and senior leadership for external projects.
- Plan for a crisis. If you haven’t had a social media crisis yet, you will. Horne discussed FedEx’s experience with a video that quickly went viral of a rogue delivery driver destroying a customer’s package. It was something completely unexpected, but the company quickly scrambled with a sincere apology from an executive that was posted on YouTube — the source of the backlash — and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
If you loved this, check out SocialMedia.org’s BlogWell conference Sept. 12 in New York.