It’s time to hand over the reins to the many exciting brands we’re proud to work with in our client portfolio.
So, here is everything you need to know about Carol McGrotty (pictured), head of operations and compliance at Vapour Cloud, as the enterprise delves into how it effectively utilises social media and what employee advocacy means to them…
1. Describe your company in your own words
We’re a cloud technology specialist, providing secure voice, video, network connectivity and infrastructure services to the partner channel. We’re almost seven years old and – despite being founded probably before the market was ready – we’re now a trusted, multi-award-winning team, known as much for our people as we are our tech.
2. And why is social media important for your brand?
The world of IT and telecommunications is sadly crowded with smoke and mirrors. A number of tech firms unfortunately use a LOT of jargon, at the same time as making false promises, often due to a lack of true cloud tech knowledge. It’s far from straight-talking, and this is something we’ve been trying to change since day one.
For us, social media isn’t just a fantastic way to communicate with our partners, customers, peers and wider industry – it allows our employees to have a voice too. The conversations we generate, help to amplify Vapour’s commitment to communicating with the market, and while everyone is individual in their approach there’s a real sense of consistency which hopefully evidences the authenticity of our brand.
3. Why did you choose SoAmpli?
We are also Force24 customers and when we knew they were extending their martech stack to include a savvy social media tool, we wanted to have a play!
Colleagues throughout the business, from senior management through to our techies and most junior colleagues, have embraced it, quickly, because it’s easy to use.
4. Describe our social sharing and employee advocacy platform in one word?
Amplifying (naturally!)
5. And your favourite feature?
The leaderboard – nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition!
6. What’s your biggest challenge as an organisational leader?
There are many challenges, especially in the current climate when businesses need to be able to rely on their tech/comms partners more than ever. However, I think everything centres around honesty and knowledge. There are people in industry, who profess to know everything about cloud, but this is a complex space and false promises made by some providers means organisations can often be left feeling – at best – misinformed, if not extremely let down. This can make it difficult for those of us in the tech space, who are trying to challenge this norm.
However, we have worked hard to recruit like-minded colleagues – the best in the industry – who don’t just have an incredible amount of expertise. They are full of integrity too. We can therefore turn these industry challenges into an opportunity. That’s why we’re known as a new breed of channel partner.
7. And what do you love most about your job?
We’re a solid, hardworking team and each of us practice what we preach.
8. Do you have any specific social media and employee advocacy goals for the next 12 months?
That together we keep projecting an authentic voice during a period of rapid growth. Communication matters now more than ever, so our strategy is to maintain our straight-talking approach, share insight as much as we can, and – where appropriate – keep everything light-hearted. Our people really make Vapour stand out so we don’t want our tone of voice to become monotonous or overly corporate.
9. What’s the top skill that a firm needs so that it can truly engage on social media?
It’s more a mindset than a skill, but to not be inward looking. Talking about yourself all the time is hardly sociable – great social conversation is about promoting multi-way dialogue which is relevant, informative, interesting, and even sometimes entertaining!
10. And your must-know social media tip?
Keep your posts visual – great snippets of video, graphics and pics of real life behind the scenes at your company, lift your content and make it all the more stand out.
If you’re a SoAmpli client and you’d like to take part in this Q&A, drop a quick note to our PR manager: hayley@scribapr.com
