It’s some story, and this is some team!

Founded in 1996, COSMO CONSULT is one of the world’s leading providers of Microsoft-based industry and end-to-end business solutions.

COSMO CONSULT accompanies companies through the digital transformation and develops forward-looking Industry 4.0 solutions together with renowned industry partners.

COSMO CONSULT had already adopted social media strategies to amplify lead generation through social selling, but they wanted to take things to a whole new level.

They knew that sharing company content and industry news played an integral role in an effective social selling strategy, so they knew they would have to make it easy if they wanted to encourage this.

They also recognised an opportunity to maximize the reach of their content through word-of-mouth marketing. As a switched-on and forward-thinking organization, they were all too aware of audiences’ increasing scepticism of branded messages. They knew that their employees would prove to be a much more authentic outlet for their content 💪

While COSMO CONSULT’s employees (or “COSMOnauts”) are predominantly digital natives, only a small number of them were actively posting content on social media for professional purposes (eg on sites like LinkedIn) before DSMN8 was introduced.

The team knew that if they wanted more COSMOnauts to post regularly on social media, they would have to effectively communicate the benefits of having a social media presence for professional purposes, while also making it easy for them to manage this.

The challenge was set! 🔥

How would COSMO CONSULT leverage their employees’ networks as a way to channel their content while also using this opportunity to level up their social selling strategy?

The solution was obvious to the team – If they wanted more of their employees posting on social media, they knew that they would need to introduce a tool that made sharing frictionless and less time-taxing.

They were already familiar with DSMN8, having featured in a number of our popular leaderboards. Couple this with the recent appointment of a very determined Julian Wachowiak (Corporate Campaign Manager & DSMN8 Legend) to take the reigns, they decided that now was the time to start a dialogue.

Peter Dibbern (CMO) was super receptive to the idea and didn’t think twice about signing off on this new initiative. Peter recognised the need for a more modern marketing approach, and a later trial period would support this by demonstrating the potential ROI 💰

From some of our earliest conversations with the COSMO CONSULT team, we knew that educating employees on the benefits of personal branding (both for career and social selling purposes) would be an essential part of ensuring this new initiative was a success.

To put it modestly – the COSMO CONSULT team got everything right from day one 🚀

After an initial “Employee Advocacy 101” workshop session with the brilliant Emma in our Customer Success team, they launched their employee advocacy program and invited 30 carefully selected employees. The employees they invited were considered to be thought leaders on social media and had already established their own personal brands.

During this time, they were able to slowly and effectively create teams within the DSMN8 platform that would allow them to segment content. Ensuring that employees in different departments/geographies were able to see content that was relevant to them. They also appointed dedicated platform admins who were shown how to curate content for the wider workforce to share.

The COSMO CONSULT team were getting ready to scale, and they were planning to go BIG. Starting small (with just 30 users) and beginning this planning process now meant that they were ready for anything!

The program quickly went from “planning to scale” to hypergrowth. A number of the first 30 users began conversations with potential partners and even generated a number of leads through their social posts, which (once word got out that DSMN8 was their secret weapon) resulted in an internal surge in demand for DSMN8 access… which Julian and the team were all too happy to accommodate for!

FOMO isn’t always a bad thing! 🤷

They quickly began onboarding new users and were hosting frequent workshops on best practices and the benefits of having an active social media presence (though most were already eager to get stuck in!) The program has since tripled in size and now boasts 90 users (at the time of writing).

DSMN8 offers admin users and content curators the ability to write suggested captions to use when sharing content. It saves time and makes sharing quick and easy (see image below for the user experience). However, the team communicated the how and the why so effectively that employees frequently take the time to add their own take on a piece of company content or industry news.

Now THAT is an example of a motivated employee advocate 💪

DSMN8 also offers an automation feature that means that content can automatically be shared by employees (with their permission) without them needing to log in to the platform. This is typically the preferred method of sharing for time-poor users who want to share without thinking about it.

DSMN8 uses publicly available data to determine the best post time for each user based on their location and the performances of their previous posts on that site 👇

Why are we mentioning this? Because less than 35% of COSMOnauts choose to use this feature, meaning most are logging in and taking the time to share because they want to and because they understand the value in doing so.

This was exactly what Julian & co had set out to achieve – they knew that employees’ voices were a more effective way of communicating their brand message, but it HAD to be authentic. They knew they wanted their employees to be motivated to share more and they achieved exactly this.

Hats off to you all… This is how it’s done! 👏

And hey, this partnership has been a two-way street! Through the use of DSMN8’s Product Portal, the COSMO CONSULT have also played an important role in our own product development. Their feedback and fanfare have led to us putting a few new features into development. Shout-out to the Cosmonauts!

This was never a numbers game for COSMO CONSULT.

They knew everything there was to know about social selling, and every good marketer knows that word-of-mouth has always been a double-edged sword – incredibly effective yet notoriously difficult to measure.

However, with the help of DSMN8 and our analytics suite, the COSMO CONSULT team were able to attach a monetary value to their efforts, while also providing their employees with the tools they needed to succeed with social selling.

Since they launched their employee advocacy program with DSMN8 (8 months ago at the time of writing), COSMO CONSULT employees have generated over 1,575,669 impressions on the company’s content and over $26.5k in earned media value.