Maximize the Potential of Your Colleagues’ Social Media Efforts with Our SRO Framework

What is a Brand Ambassador?

A brand ambassador is typically someone like a colleague who shares content about your brand on their social media. They help amplify your message and connect with a wider audience in a personal, authentic way, as they are seen as trusted sources within their networks. In addition to colleagues, your retailers, dealers, franchisees, or other business partners can also serve as brand ambassadors. We call them "local heroes" because they represent your brand at the local level, serving as your connection to the communities where your brand is present.

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Key Parts of the Framework

We build our framework around three main areas, designed to make social media management and brand ambassador onboarding as simple as possible. Everything is fully integrated into Apostle, allowing you to manage your brand ambassadors directly from our software.

1. Strategy & Structure:
   A clear strategy is the foundation of SRO. It helps align your team with business goals, enabling them to collaborate efficiently and achieve consistent results.

• Set-Up: We help you start by setting up your social media environment, showcasing key features of the software, and scheduling regular evaluations to ensure success.
• Strategy Basics: Define your goals, target audiences, and content areas to guide your company’s and brand ambassadors’ social media activities and align them with your objectives.
• Roles & Groups: Assign roles and organize groups within your team to streamline collaboration, content planning, and ensure relevant content for each group.
• Integrations: Seamlessly connect Apostle with your CRM, ATS, and marketing platforms to keep your workflow efficient.
• Apostle Academy: Access a library of training videos and learning materials to continuously develop your team’s social media skills and align them with your business strategy.

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2. Onboarding:
   Whether your team is large or small, our onboarding process ensures everyone is ready to contribute to your social media efforts.

• Team Activation: Use tools like push notifications, reminders, and automated publishing to engage your brand ambassadors and audience effectively.
• User-Preferred Channels: Allow your team to choose how they receive notifications (through email, the Apostle mobile app, or WhatsApp).
• Company Pages: Manage your organization’s social media pages within the SRO framework for consistency across platforms.
• Small Teams: Personalized onboarding ensures smaller teams get the tailored support they need.
• Large Teams: We scale the onboarding process for larger teams, organizing users by department, region, or role.
• Local Offices: Support local branches or stores aligning with your overall strategy while addressing local needs.

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3. SRO Always On:
   SRO Always On ensures that your social media activities continue to run smoothly with ongoing support and optimization.

• Team Analysis & Reporting: We comprehensively analyze your team to gain insights into current activity and effectiveness. It forms the basis for making improvements, with a report providing practical recommendations for optimization.
• Activation & Scale-up Plan Development: Together, we develop an activation and scale-up plan focused on engaging your team and brand ambassadors. This plan is designed to increase involvement and activity within your organization, ensuring everyone can contribute to strategic goals effectively.
• Activation & Scale-up Plan Execution: After developing the plan, we assist with its execution through interactive sessions such as webinars and key note sessions. This helps to expand your team of brand ambassadors in all layers of the organization. 
• Editorial Meeting with Creators: We organize editorial sessions with content creators to evaluate and refine the content strategy. This ensures consistent, high-quality content that aligns with your team’s and organization’s goals. Besides, you’ll brainstorm new ideas for compelling content. 
• Progress Updates: Regular progress updates keep you informed about the program's results and effectiveness. This allows for mid-course adjustments, ensuring continuous optimization of the strategy.
• ROI Analysis & Insights: With Apostle's insights tools, you can easily track performance and return on investment. We also help generate management reports and prepare for quarterly meetings, giving you a clear understanding of results and progress.

Full Framework or Just the Parts You Need?

Our SRO framework is flexible. You can implement the entire framework for a comprehensive approach or select individual parts based on your organization’s needs.

• Complete Framework: Perfect for companies starting with social media advocacy or looking to overhaul their strategy. The complete SRO framework covers everything from strategy and onboarding to ongoing optimization.
• Individual Parts: If you already have a strong foundation, you can select specific components to enhance certain areas, such as onboarding or optimizing ongoing efforts.

If you’d like to discuss one of the possibilities, please feel free to contact us. 

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Why Should You Use the SRO Framework? 

Whether you implement the complete SRO framework or select specific parts, you’ll notice these benefits:

• Easy Onboarding: A streamlined process helps new users quickly start contributing to your social media efforts. They will learn how the software works, their role, and what’s in it for them. 
• Customizable Program: The SRO framework adapts to your company’s needs and scales as you grow. We collaborate with you at every step to ensure the framework is tailored for optimal organizational impact.
• Better Team Collaboration: SRO improves communication and collaboration across departments and regions, ensuring a consistent message.
• Seamless Integrations: Integrating Apostle with your existing tools creates a unified workflow, simplifying social media management. There is no need to work with several social media management tools anymore. 
• Ongoing Optimization: SRO Always On ensures your strategy evolves with your business, offering continuous support and expert advice.
• Engaged Audience: Automation tools ensure your audience stays engaged through personalized communication and interactive features.

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What will be the results? 

• Engaged colleagues in the long run. A lot of advocacy programs lose momentum after a few months. Initially, colleagues are motivated and enthusiastic but often revert to their old routines and daily tasks. With the SRO Framework, which includes behavioral sciences techniques, you ensure that everyone stays engaged and continues performing at their best over the long term. 
• Expand your reach while spending less on advertising. As your team of brand ambassadors grows and consistently posts about your brand, your organic reach increases, reducing the need for paid advertising impressions. The more they share, the more your brand presence multiplies—at a fraction of the cost.
• Enhance Your Sales and Recruitment Strategy. Employee advocacy through brand ambassadors elevates sales and recruitment by tapping into their expertise and (local) networks on social media. By sharing insights and company values, they attract top talent, build trust, generate leads, and strengthen your employer brand—making your company more appealing to clients and skilled professionals.
• Employees become more engaged and connected to the company when they share brand-related content, leading to higher retention rates. Local heroes are empowered to easily fill their social media timelines, with the brand providing them with marketing content. This strengthens their bond with the brand, fostering deeper loyalty.

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Time Commitment

Adopting the SRO framework requires a manageable investment of your time:

• One-Time Onboarding:some text
  • Strategy & Structure: Around 3 hours to set up goals, roles, and integrations.
  • Onboarding: 2 hours or more, depending on the size of your team.
• Ongoing Commitment:some text
  • SRO Always On: A few hours per month to keep everything aligned and up to date.
  • Content Creation: Add 1 hour to your existing content creation process.
  • Reports & Analysis: 1 hour per month for performance reviews and reports.

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Conclusion

The SRO framework makes it easy for your brand ambassadors to contribute to your social media strategy from day one. With Apostle’s ongoing support, training, and tools, your social media efforts aligned with your goals. The platform’s seamless integration ensures efficient management and implementation. 

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