Supporting a company from zero in its wish to build social media marketing capability in-house

b-style Holdings Inc. delivers added value to companies in the form of high productivity, through diverse ways of working and the advance of digital transformation. The company wanted to build a digital marketing capability, especially social media marketing, as a new way to win customers. But it felt a lack of know-how and of the management capability that goes with it, and in November 2020 launched a new social media marketing project and began work with us.

We asked Mr Mihara, president and representative director, about the background to asking NowVillage for social media marketing support, the aim, and what they expect from us next.

The problem at the outset: a lack of social media marketing know-how

First, could you tell us your role and about the company?

I am Kunihiko Mihara, president and representative director of b-style Holdings.

Under the principle of best basic style, creating value suited to the times, since founding in 2002 we have kept creating places where women who have married or had children can return to the office and work shorter hours. Today, with diverse needs around work beyond women alone, our services have grown too. Specifically we run staffing and recruitment businesses, the job site Shufu JOB, and Gokinjo Work for working in spare time.

Beyond the use of people, we also support companies in raising productivity through digital transformation, providing services suited to the times, including total support from introducing robotic process automation through development and maintenance to developing people.

In April 2020 we also moved to a holding company structure, to further realise the group mission of raising happiness in Japan. That lets us run the business with quick decisions while making the most of each business’s strengths.

We work across the whole company with the daily wish to increase the choices in how people work and build a society where people can work happily, and to advance efficiency at companies and build a society that is easy to work in.

―What is your goal now? And how did you see the problems in reaching it?

Our goal now is to build a new social media marketing capability inside the company. At b-style Smart Career and b-style Media, both part of the holding company, the problem was how to get our services to women struggling with how they work.

And at b-style Value Technologies we ran seminars and sales activity on the themes of robotic process automation and digital transformation, but with the pandemic on top of that, attendance and other results fell short.

Until then our internal marketing team had led acquisition through search advertising, SEO and email newsletters, but with social media now widespread we felt the need to build awareness of our services through new methods.

To have many more customers know our services, we believe we should market through social channels such as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube as a medium-term strategy, and widen awareness that way.

However,

we also had the organisational problem of having no social media marketing know-how at all.

With sales or inside sales we have experience, so we know the orthodox approach, how to set appropriate goals, work standards, how to manage the numbers and how to build the organisation; in social media marketing neither I nor anyone internally had the knowledge, so we did not know where to begin.

And because simply building a new social media capability would mean nothing unless it led to business results, we felt we had to raise the probability of success at the same time.

Why we asked NowVillage: know-how, hands-on execution and management, all three

How did you come to know us?

In fact I first met Mr Imamura through a business network, the HR Business Council. We have known each other a long time, and in his previous role we often went out for a drink.

Hearing that he was founding NowVillage in digital marketing, and given his qualities as a manager, his character, and his know-how and knowledge in marketing, we asked him to take the role of our chief social marketing officer and support us in putting a social media marketing capability in place. NowVillage also had strength in social acquisition and could manage the social media marketing project team, so I thought they would deliver value aimed precisely at our problem.

Could you tell us what you are working on?

From November 2020 you have supported us in earnest, from the planning stage.

Specifically, in running social media marketing at three group companies, b-style Smart Career, which provides staffing and recruitment services for diverse ways of working, b-style Media, which runs the Shufu JOB job portal aimed at homemakers, and b-style Value Technologies, which supports corporate digital transformation including the introduction of robotic process automation, you began by choosing which social channels each organisation should take up, according to the size of the business, what it does and the characteristics of its customers.

Next we placed one dedicated person at each of the three companies and launched a new social media marketing project team, and you handle the initial account design, advice on draft posts, setting the publishing schedule, setting the top-level goal, the key performance indicators and the activity indicators, and monthly reporting on effect. Beyond providing know-how you also follow through on actually running Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, which is a great help for a company that had no know-how.

Each operating company has different goals, but we set follower numbers on each channel as numerical targets. We see social media less as something with a marked short-term effect than as a strategy with a large effect on each business over the long term, so under the concept of activity indicators you set detailed goals with us, down to the number of Twitter and Instagram posts and the number of YouTube videos produced.

Expecting accumulated knowledge and management in social media marketing

―Is there anything you expect from NowVillage next?

It is only about three months in, but as things stand each company is hitting its monthly activity and performance targets, and results are gradually appearing. We want to keep winning awareness from each social channel.

What I expect from here is that you establish the organisational capability so we can produce results in social media marketing. I believe the era ahead is one where companies themselves must be able to make attractive content. For that, setting the purpose and the goals, guaranteeing quality, raising the speed of the work, management, and the ability to compare with other media and companies are all essential.

We want to accumulate best practice and failures in social media marketing, and to build the mechanism for managing that knowledge together with you.

―Which companies would you recommend NowVillage’s services to?

I would recommend NowVillage’s consulting to companies with consumer services, and to companies that suit being turned into content, gardening, cooking and so on.

I believe the social media marketing market will keep growing. Companies with the financial strength should, I would strongly say, ask NowVillage for social media marketing consulting now.