In early April, Glenwood, Minnesota, distributor American Solutions for Business (ASB) announced a new partnership with SocialHP, a social media management platform. SocialHP specializes specifically in helping mid- to large-sized businesses to leverage employees’ personal social media accounts for branding and/or direct sales. The platform, which offers easy scheduling and monitoring, and provides helpful analytics, will help ASB’s sales associates reach new clients, while growing and strengthening existing connections throughout. Sales associates also have the option to schedule and automate content for their social media profiles, or opt to have another ASB team member do so for them.

ASB’s partnership with SocialHP is one element of the distributor’s larger Going Social™ initiative to stimulate social media activity and adoption. ASB is committed to providing its staff with the necessary education and resources to lead the way in education, marketing and communications.

PPB spoke with Mike Pfeiffer, ASB’s vice president of technology, to learn more about the partnership.

PPB  Tell us about the partnership between American Solutions for Business and SocialHP.

Pfeiffer  At American Solutions for Business, we pride ourselves on our commitment to providing the tools and resources necessary to help our sales associates in the field succeed. So, when I was contacted by Brad Dickinson, co-founder of SocialHP, I was intrigued to learn how this could help save time, money and effort for our salesforce. Although SocialHP had good success in other verticals, they had yet to reach our industry. The timing was great for ASB because we had spent eight months getting our sales associates up to date on digital transformation and video-calling technologies. I was able to negotiate an exclusive partnership to allow us to use and grow adoption of the SocialHP product as part of our overall Going Social initiative through 2022. SocialHP receives high visibility into our industry, and we are working directly with their product team to help introduce additional capabilities that fit our model.

PPB  What benefits can ASB, as a company, achieve from its employees using Social HP?

Pfeiffer  The pandemic provided an immense catalyst for digital transformation across all aspects of doing business. Many customers stopped in-person appointments immediately and most continue to support remove workforces that provide barriers to meeting face to face. Companies also have seen exponential increases in phishing emails that make email marketing less effective. SocialHP has provided new avenues to prospect and customer engagement at a time when it is most needed. Adoption to SocialHP has been swift, easy, and our initial sales associates have raved about the ease of use and effectiveness of the platform. 

PPB  How important do you feel it is, today, for companies to be able to leverage individual employees’ social media accounts? 

Pfeiffer  Now, more than ever, the ability to build your personal brand online is often essential to build trust with certain demographics, especially as a salesperson. We’ve seen many of our sales associates successfully balance a reflection of their personal and professional lives to best reflect their personalities, values and expertise they bring to customers. It’s a great wholistic approach to personal branding. However, if sales employees use social media as an outlet to share political or other divisive issues, we recommend they create a work account to promote to their customers, so they don’t alienate half of their potential audience. It’s all about finding a balance that works for your lifestyle and business.

PPB  How does this partnership fit into ASB’s larger Going Social program? 

Pfeiffer  ASB has an innovative selling model and we embraced this initiative in a very cross-functional way. We offer many options for our sales employees to pick and choose from a menu of services that include assistance in creating a new social media account, reviewing an existing social media presence, and even full services where we help them schedule and launch content. SocialHP has proven a gamechanger for us in getting high-value services to those who need them, and our cost-to-serve is very reasonable. Content can be easily created and then posted automatically with variability in both image and message use. In addition to the strategy, engagement and other efforts centered around our Going Social  initiative, SocialHP provides the powerful technology to drive lasting structure and ROI.   

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Danielle Renda is associate editor of PPB.