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While some brands are making waves with their Snapchat campaigns (some of which can cost millions of dollars), most are holding back. Some experts are discouraging its use because the company is not delivering usable analytics marketers can use to assess the results of their efforts. But a few companies have taken to Snapchat and are able to demonstrate results without spending a nickel or needing a single data point. Among them is Cisco Systems, which has multiple Snapchat accounts, including the We Are Cisco account, used exclusively for employer branding, the work a company does to establish its reputation as an employer and its value proposition to employees.

We Are Cisco is also an example of a Snapchat “takeover,” in which the keys to the account are handed over to someone for a defined period of time. In this case, a different employee each day contributes snaps that convey the company culture along with the environment in which that employee works. At other times, employees handling the account cover live events.

The account is managed by Carmen Collins, the social media lead for Cisco’s Talent Brand team, the group responsible for Cisco’s employer branding. In this FIR interview, Carmen talks with FIR host Shel Holtz about how the program came about, how it’s implemented, and the kinds of results it has achieved (and she adds some hints of what’s to come). Use the Snap Code at right to follow the account. You can also read a post Carmen wrote about We Are Cisco for the Cisco blog.

You can connect with Carmen on Twitter at @CShirkeyCollins.

About our conversation partner:

Carmen Collins is the social media lead for Cisco’s Talent Brand team. There, she uses the WeAreCisco social media channels to share and grow that Talent Brand by creating personal connections to the great employees we have and the cool projects they work on, so that prospective talent will choose Cisco as the place to bring their top-notch skills.

As a professional social media enthusiast, she thinks she “has one of the greatest jobs on the planet” – and has been doing this since before “social media” was even a term in the lexicon. Over her social media career, she has helped several Fortune 500 companies engage with their audience through great content and building relationships.

Outside of her work at Cisco, she’s a world traveler and a published author (find her on Amazon) with another book underway, and finds that kittens and bacon rule the Internet. :)

About Shel Holtz

Shel Holtz, SCMP, ABC, IABC Fellow, is senior director of Communications at Webcor, a commercial general contractor headquartered in San Francisco. Before joining Webcor, Shel spent 21 years as principal of Holtz Communication + Technology. In addition to integrating technology into communications strategies, his expertise includes strategic communications planning, change management, organizational culture, business initiatives and communications research. Full bio