Why does General Motors need an ambassador community?
When we were trying to figure out how to get ourselves known in the Israeli ecosystem, we realized that people want to hear from people like them. They don't want Shani the employer branding manager telling them what the company does and how fun it is to work there. They want to hear from other engineers, from people like them. At some point I heard about ambassador communities, and I realized that an ambassador community would let us tell the story of General Motors Israel to the outside world in an authentic way.
How was the community built?
Getting approval from management was a big moment for me. Back then there wasn't much information out there about ambassador communities. So what do you tell management? There's not much information, no examples, no benchmarks. What actually wins them over? I had one strong card: we need to hire, and to hire, we need people to know us. That's the story, and from there I could explain why an ambassador community in particular could help. I put together a presentation with a mathematical formula showing how one person who posts reaches 5 people, who each reach another 5, and that's how it keeps growing. The idea was to show how social media lets you reach more people, and the relevant people. After all, as HR, marketing or employer branding managers, you can't tell the story of your people who work in the field every day. It isn't credible. If I talk enthusiastically about our amazing autonomous vehicle and the incredible technologies we work with at the development center, coming from me it sounds semi-promotional.
At first, management raised an eyebrow. "You'll post, the team will post, you tell the story. Why isn't that enough? Why bother people and spend money on it?" In the end, what convinced them was that the employees' network is what matters, not mine. They said okay, and then my stomach started to churn. This was the stage where I had to prove it really works. That it's meaningful. That I hadn't just been throwing words around. I'm happy to say we succeeded very quickly.
What is the ambassador community and how does it work?
I knew that for this to really work, it couldn't depend on me alone. I make room for it to happen, but the community is the one doing the work. And at the beginning, I had my worries. I started thinking: what if they say something they shouldn't? What if it does damage? What if they're not interesting enough? What if I have to shut the community down not long after launching it? This is the place to say it as simply as possible: support from a professional partner who knows what they're doing is priceless. I reached out to Glue, and at first I wanted to learn how to run the community and then go our separate ways. That's not what happened. We're now starting our third year together, and as far as I'm concerned, it's not something I can give up. I know some places allocate a headcount for this or use someone internal, but I truly believe there's value in someone who comes from the outside. There's something about the methodology, the tools and the confidence that "anyone can write," you just need to know how. The knowledge is theirs, and our role is to be enablers: to help them figure out how to write, what to say and how to go viral. It matters to know how to put it out into the world.
Building the community was a learning process for me too. When we thought about who might be a good fit, we worked in 2 ways: picking out specific relevant people, and an open call. To my surprise, the people we'd picked in advance weren't necessarily right for the community. Yes, they're involved in company life, they have a lot to say, and they're key people who can contribute, but they weren't people who like to write on social media. They said yes, but it didn't hold up over time. They wanted to take part as ambassadors, just not on social media.
We also wrote an outreach message with a registration form, but the response was weak. What worked really well was something completely different: we held an info session and invited the whole company. Anyone who wanted to hear more joined for a quick half hour, and a lot more people signed up as a result. A very diverse group joined: senior managers, juniors, women and men, from every group and role. We looked at how active they were on social media. Some weren't active, but we felt that if they were motivated, that could be enough. We gave most of the tech people a chance. We decided not to include functions (HR and non-technical people in the company), because there's a big gap between people who live online and tech people, and it makes people feel they can't measure up. Our starting point was that we want the tech people's network, so the people who need to be in a community like this are the tech people.
We kicked off with a celebratory event with Gil Golan, the CEO at the time, who shared why this mattered to him. The training program was the first filter for anyone it didn't suit, but for those who did connect with it, it helped them get oriented, understand what was expected of them and learn the skills they needed: how to live in the world of LinkedIn, storytelling and how to tell a story, what's interesting and what's less so. The training was long. Throughout that first period we did nothing but learn, and we jumped in quickly. There was something very bonding about the training program. We were a few hundred employees in the whole company at that point. People joined from different groups, discovered each other, and found connections and common ground. Early on we discussed whether to limit membership by tenure at the company. We quickly realized that the perspective of someone who had just joined is interesting too, and that connecting with veterans could amplify it. Once the community was already active, we decided to get people excited at the company's end-of-year event. We walked around in branded gray shirts and had a booth, and the gray-shirt group had a strong presence, with everyone wondering who this tight-knit group was. At the event we told people what we do on the team, and through that we reached even more interested people.
Right now we've reached a point where we have a tight-knit community that runs really well day to day, and that's exactly where the challenge lies. We meet once a month, and since COVID ended we've moved back to meeting face to face. Every meeting has different content: external, internal, led by Hadar, by management, or by ambassadors sharing what they've been doing. We try to make the activities experiential. We have a WhatsApp group and a Facebook group with more professional content.
As for the community's goals, we have a target of 2 posts a month. It sounds simple, but it isn't. You have to find the time, the idea and the motivation. And beyond that, we also want to see a certain number of likes, a certain level of engagement and so on. Every quarter we measure the number of posts and the level of interaction. We have an Ambassador of the Month. It all ties into the whole idea of personal branding: building yourself on social media. Management itself is active on social media and invests in its own personal branding. They're also very present with employees, and they show employees all the time that they're seen.
When did you realize the community was succeeding?
I started seeing posts and comments, and hearing managers say they'd seen activity online, and candidates too. Suddenly it was just there. There's also a lot of exposure for the management of General Motors Israel, and for the Israel development center in general, with General Motors globally. One day, for example, we saw the CEO of GM, a company with 200,000 employees, share a post by one of our ambassadors here in Israel. Or one of the SVPs at global GM commenting on an ambassador's post. That's when we started to understand the impact of every single post.
Over time, once we understood the community's impact in the organization, we realized we could try all kinds of special projects. Recruitment days, for example. The day before one of them, I said to myself, "Let's publish this through the ambassadors." I posted it in our WhatsApp group, and the next morning I saw sign-ups I never expected. No marketing effort, no spend, and just from them sharing and writing, it became an event. The community as a community has value. I see the impact they have as a community, on each other and within the organization.
Another example: in one of the meetings we tried to connect to one of the organization's goals, hiring more women. We asked how we could hire more women and how the community could help. We ran a hackathon and thought together about how to influence the hiring of women in the organization, then realized we wanted to have an impact on women in tech in general, and that's how "A Friend in Tech" was born. The campaign grew out of the understanding that women hesitate to take the next step in their careers and don't rush to apply. Often they're also alone in the process, with no one to consult. The campaign has a group of women ambassadors, plus one man, who become your friend through the hiring process. Every woman who reaches out gets a mentor to help her through the early stages of the hiring process. A real friend all the way through. It's a great example of how ambassador communities can be so much more than likes and posts: real work that connects the organization's goals to what the ambassadors do. The most important thing is to avoid imposing it from the top. Instead of telling them what to do, invite them to do it themselves. And we'll back them.
Ambassador communities can be so much more than likes and posts: real work that connects the organization's goals to what the ambassadors do.
Cracking the win-win: how do you make sure both the community and the organization get value?
The win for the community
Employees get tools for personal branding and build their reputation in the company and across the ecosystem. On top of that, it's fun, they're a tight-knit group, there's laughter, and they feel good. In the special campaigns we ran, for example, we also saw employees who wanted to be mentors and invest their own time in it.
The win for the organization
The organization reaches its relevant target audience with ease, stays connected with standout employees who invest their effort, and benefits from successful internal and external employer branding.
What challenges did you face?
- Keeping management on board is an ongoing effort. Convincing management that there's a strong business case for the community is the first step. After that, you have to make sure they stay on board the whole way and keep providing strong sponsorship. To do that, I show them the community's impact all the time.
- Making decisions about community members who aren't the right fit. We had wonderful community members who really contribute to the organization, but they just didn't connect with the concept of writing online. In a case like that, you need to have a conversation to try to connect them to the goals, and if that doesn't work, to part ways as friends.
- Keeping interest and momentum going. Bringing in content the community finds interesting. Connecting them with interesting functions in the company. We're on it, but it's a challenge, and an important one for running the community.
- As the community matures, we have to reinvent ourselves, because the ambassadors have already been exposed to so much content. One approach that worked really well was bringing in the ambassadors themselves to share and tell their stories.
- In addition, one thing to think about in a mature, tight-knit community is how we grow, and how to bring in more of the right people who'll connect with its DNA. We asked the ambassadors how to grow, and they said they don't want to grow... The community is mature, there are connections, there's laughter. And with every new ambassador who joins, there's a worry about whether they'll fit in. We handle it carefully and with tact.
Tips for a successful community
- Build a training program for the ambassador community, followed by an ongoing effort within a steady, well-held framework. Create a safe space to experiment, so that when people jump in, it's already a safe zone where they help each other.
- Don't set out on this alone. That applies to the organization and management too, and beyond budget: give the ambassadors the time and the appreciation their investment deserves. Also get professional support to help build a strong foundation for the community and its activity.
- A strong internal team that leads the program and helps make things happen.
- Swag and food!