Nelnet is a student loan servicing company, but it's much more than that. The company's business areas include student loan servicing, private student loans, improving K-12 school management through services and technology, renewable energy, fostering improved workforce education, and telecommunications. .
They have a total of 64 social media accounts and hundreds of thousands of followers across platforms. He was surprised to learn that the team behind Nelnet's vast social presence is just a two-person team (working with the company's customer care and marketing groups).
I spoke to Dan Levey, social media manager and team leader at Nelnet, to learn how his “small, fickle team” balances limited resources across a wide range of business lines. I learned. He discussed the relationship building and resource prioritization required to effectively manage multiple accounts. Keep reading for tips for allocating social resources, especially for agile teams with limited bandwidth.
Dream teams: How social team structures can support product portfolio marketing
According to Dan, “The Nelnet social team is part of the corporate marketing organization and acts like an in-house agency for Nelnet's various brands, each with different goals and identities on social.”
Dan will lead the team's strategy by consulting on strategy, best practices, and interpreting key campaign metrics and trends. Reporting to Dan, the Social Media Specialist handles scheduling, capturing metrics, and monitoring conversations across social channels. Together, they conduct social listening research and produce monthly reports for relevant business areas and internal teams. The team also partners with other in-house creators such as copywriters, graphic designers, project managers, and video producers on content production, and consults with his team on legal and compliance to ensure compliance with industry rules and regulations. .
To facilitate collaboration with each of his business areas, within his first few months at Nelnet, Dan explained the breadth of the social team's capabilities and the different skills each business could bring to the table. I have created a presentation. “We're here to educate our partners on best practices and what it takes for social media management and strategy,” Dunn said. “The big misconception about social is that it's easy. It's more than posting. It's his A/B testing, reporting, interacting with his audience, etc.”
He shares his presentation with each business marketing leader and pairs them with the services they need a la carte. Dan explains: “The presentation I created lists each of our functions: content creation, strategy, end-to-end production, graphics, social listening, reporting, and regular check-in meetings. Each line of business has different needs.”
Make it yours: Whether your social team functions like an in-house agency or uses a center of excellence model, it's important to have open lines of communication with each brand and line of business. Give social team leaders a seat at the table and encourage them to build relationships and educate other leaders on what it takes to manage (and maximize) social.
Achieving each brand's goals requires tough conversations
Managing multiple brand accounts doesn't mean copying and pasting your approach to social from one brand to another. Every brand or business line has its own purpose and audience.
Dan explains: “Each business unit wants to achieve different things. For example, some companies focus more on organic growth, while others invest more in paid campaigns.” It's up to Dan, his team, and the business to decide where to spend and figure out how to prioritize projects with company-wide goals in mind.
Dan's team adapts its approach to social strategy accordingly, while being honest with stakeholders about what is achievable for small teams. In conversations with partners, Dan often counters by asking, “What goals are you trying to achieve?” What is the primary objective of this proposed project?”
The Nelnet Social team has a comprehensive view of your brand's performance and company-wide strategy, giving you a unique and valuable perspective. Dan is tasked with keeping each business line aligned with its own goals and vision for the business.
He leverages Sprout Social's smart inbox and social listening solutions to bring valuable insights to these conversations. Dan said: “We use Sprout's automated rules and social listening tools to provide alerts on brand sentiment, competitive analysis, and customer satisfaction.”
Make it yours: Trust your social team leader that you won't be able to achieve all of your goals. Be their advocate as they relentlessly prioritize projects. Use the information they share about their performance to shape your company's goals and keep them in the loop with your larger business strategy.
Ensure all brands receive the right level of support
One of the biggest challenges facing the Nelnet social team is the fear of making the internal partners we work with feel like other areas of the business are taking priority over them. . As Dan says, “How do we make sure every business unit feels like they're getting the right amount of support?”
This is especially difficult when resources need to be shifted from one product line to another, whether because a company's goals have changed or a campaign has fallen short of expectations. At times like these, Dan relies on the trust and relationships he has built with his stakeholders. She has, in her words, had a “heart-to-heart” with internal partners to let them know that resources from the social team need to be withdrawn.
In some cases, the conversation results in business leaders investing more in their social strategy and even contracting their own teams to take a more active role in social management. Through compromises like this, social teams can free up bandwidth and foster more meaningful stakeholder collaboration.
Make it yours: In the face of tight budgets and plateauing headcount, make sure your organization has the right tools to accomplish more with less. Collaborative enterprise social media software allows your social team and other departments to jointly manage social, ensuring that your brand doesn't fall through the cracks and that you have sufficient resources.
Set up every brand for social media success
Dan summarizes his approach to managing various internal clients: Set clear expectations tied to your goals. Over-communication. ”
When your social team faces an overwhelming amount of requests from many brands, remember to strive for simplicity and get back to the basics of relationship building. Please advise to be honest, accountable and transparent.
To make it easier to share results from social across your company, use a social media scorecard template to give leaders an easy-to-understand view of the health and strategy of their brand (and the company as a whole). Masu.
