Purely empowering Arbonne employees

We live in a world where we can buy anything, at any time, from anywhere. When you’re sleeping in Canada, your order could be processed in Australia, Africa or Hawaii. Isn’t it great?

Thanks to globalization, “the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale,” it has allowed companies to expand into different countries and create jobs for local people. But with growth and opportunity, comes the need for quick, simple and translatable communication.

Que social media.

Nowadays, the majority of the population has a smartphone and is always connected. Dialogue and networking have also evolved and taken on a new way companies do business and communicate. The need to have instant information at our fingertips is at an all time high and the expectation to respond, share or view something has become a 24-hour, 7 days-a-week responsibility.

This is where social media has delivered. It has transformed how we communicate, broken traditional communication channels, and given companies the power to be creative with what they need to say and to whom.

Arbonne International, LLC

A brand that comes to mind that is rapidly growing and has grasped power of social media is Arbonne International, LLC.

Not only is Arbonne a beauty/cosmetics company that sells “safe, pure, and beneficial” products, but it has become a worldwide network marketing community that empowers, motivates and inspires its employees through pictures, videos, real stories and training. They have created marketing pieces, training modules and communication updates that never need to be shipped – just sent over email, shared over Facebook, retweeted over Twitter, reposted over Instagram, posted in a Google Hangout, or updated on their Digital Toolkit portal.

Arbonne employees, who are also called independent consultants, sell the Arbonne products and share The Arbonne Opportunity, and can be at various management levels in the company [see Arbonne Success Plan]. They are encouraged to provide ongoing support, training, and opportunities for growth for each of their team members. A team doesn’t succeed unless everyone does. Arbonne teams can be created in many ways – friends from the same community or neighbourhood, online friends that have similar interests or goals, or a little of both. Regardless, they all have the same goals: grow their business so that each person can live the life they dream and sell botanically-based, vegan certified products‎.

“What I really didn’t realize [before joining Arbonne] was that ‘pure, safe and beneficial’ extended well beyond the products, to the incredible community of our independent consultants.” – Kay Napier, Arbonne CEO, The Arbonne Opportunity video

Arbonne Social Media Examples

Twitter

We are constantly inundated with information coming from all forms of communication channels, but when a person we know takes the time to mention you in a post, tweet, or comment, you know it’s important or something worth taking the time to see.

Arbonne tweets about upcoming employee incentive conference and asks its employees to tag their team members (employees) in a reply. Why? To help notify their staff in a word-of-mouth style of communication to help keep everyone informed.

CNTC registration is now open! Tag a team member, and then hop over to our registration site to reserve your spot. https://t.co/7Nq78A721x pic.twitter.com/3oz0TDTrO5

— Arbonne Canada (@Arbonne_Canada) June 1, 2017

Facebook

A great way to build a stronger, informed community is to share information that is easy to incorporate into training or business information sessions.

Tuesday Tip, for example, is a weekly, short video that Arbonne shares on Facebook and can be used as a simple resource. Combine this video with a comment section and you’ve opened up a channel for dialogue about the product and allows new ideas to be shared. Beauty products and their uses change all the time, so this is a great way to provide real-time information to a large group of people.

Instagram

Pretty colours, captivating words, simplified images, and showing pictures of people we may know are just some of the ways Arbonne grabs the attention of their followers.

In Arbonne’s case, they weekly share employee success stories (a.k.a #MyArbonneStory) in addition to their overall social media strategy of sharing real pictures of real employees.

Katina Mandylaris was stuck at her sister’s home with a basketball game injury when a friend invited her to an Arbonne Presentation, and that was the start of her transformation with Arbonne. The one thing she hears from people who see her journey on Facebook is, “Is your life really that fun?” And she can confidently say it absolutely is. What’s your story? #MyArbonneStory #Arbonne

A post shared by Arbonne International (@arbonne) on May 31, 2017 at 9:33am PDT

We gravitate towards objects or people we are familiar with, so when a group of employees sees a team member or coworker featured in anything, public or internal, we are more likely to stop, read and possibly interact with it.

Arbonne celebrates and shares what their employees are up to and the achievements they’ve made. Nothing says, “great work,” and, “you’re important to us,” than public, social media acknowledgment from the Arbonne International company social media channels. Be sure to give your employees the recognition they deserve.

Arbonne Employee Interview

My friend Jessica Smith, who is an Arbonne Executive District Manager and Independent Consultant since 2011, was kind enough to answer a few questions I had about the company, and how she and the company use social media to be successful. Here is what she had to say:

KP: How does Arbonne engage its employees?
JS: Arbonne engages employees through face-to-face and online interactions, conferences, a consultant intranet called The Source, incentive programs and through the network of various vice presidents (VPs) who work with their teams.

KP: Does Arbonne encourage and promote employee involvement in company decisions? If so, how?
JS: Yes! Arbonne uses a variety of ways to gather employee feedback – through an open suggestions inbox, consultant surveys, VP support, and conversations with a fantastic support team.

KP: Do you believe employee engagement is important? If so, why?
JS: Absolutely! An engaged employee is connected to the company, the core values, the people. They are less likely to quit, more likely to put in the extra effort and more likely to speak highly of the company and the employee experience to others.

KP: What is Arbonne’s management style?
JS: As a multi-level marketing company, each independent consultant is a business owner with their own cloud franchise. Management can vary from business to business. At the corporate level, Arbonne provides a plethora of tools, incentives, and information to help each consultant succeed, and a team of knowledgeable and friendly staff to help with any questions that may come up. They empower consultants to become entrepreneurs – providing choice and flexibility in their business.

KP: How does Arbonne engage its employees using social media?
JS: Arbonne is incredibly active on social media. Each country that Arbonne operates in has a strong online presence – most notably on Facebook and Instagram. Arbonne uses these accounts to share product information, opportunity info, user generated content (from consultants, bloggers, and fans), and even do social media takeovers with VP level consultants.

KP: Is there a social media channel that Arbonne uses more to engage its employees directly?
JS: Arbonne has a consultant specific Facebook persona that is used to post its “shareable” content on Facebook as well as host Facebook Live trainings and videos.

KP: How do YOU use social media to motive and inform your team members?
JS: I am very active on social media. I ask questions and contribute answers in consultant groups, tag team members in posts that are relevant to them or their business, use messenger to stay in touch, and do online presentations through Zoom or Skype. My online social persona is an extension of myself and allows me to support and be available to my team members even when I can’t be there with them in person.

KP: What benefits do you see when your employees/team members use social media?
JS: Social media is brilliant for this business. We can post and share about the products and business opportunity, create Facebook events to invite others to learn, build groups for training or product information purposes, and stay in touch with team members and clients in a format that fits into their daily activities.

KP: Have you run into any problems using social media for your Arbonne business?
JS: Keeping an active presence while making sure posts are relevant and compliant with the social media policy of Arbonne can be time-consuming but hasn’t caused any real problems for me or my business.

KP: Does Arbonne have a social media policy or guideline for its employees?
JS: Yes – Arbonne has very strict social media guidelines that are enforced to ensure that each independent consultant has the same opportunities for success.

KP: In your opinion, what has been Arbonne’s best use of social media to communicate, engage, or motivate its employees/team members?
JS: The Arbonne community is so social by nature. Arbonne has been working with top leaders in the company to continue to develop amazing social content that supports all consultants including a host of “my story” videos and more. The Arbonne ICC Facebook connection is an amazing support to our day-to-day use of social.

(J. Smith, personal communication, June 12, 2017).

If you are interested in learning more about Arbonne, you can connect with Jess on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

Lessons for Others

• A company must understand that not everyone is familiar with social media, so providing best practices, training, examples, or resources will help everyone succeed if that communication method is required or highly encouraged.
• Having social media accounts for the various company locations throughout the world, and communicating in the native language, is key to making employees feel like they are valued within a company. For example: Arbonne Canada has a Twitter account that shares information in both official languages – English and French.
• To avoid social media blunders on employee’s accounts, companies should create social media guidelines. Make it known that employees do not represent the company online, unless it has been established that an employee is an ambassador or company voice.

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

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