How John Deere's Communication Team Operates in Over 54 Countries
Photo Credit: John Deere
It's March 29th, 2020. The news hits the wire. Joe Diffie, the famous country singer, has died. Joe Diffie is a legend in the country music world. He has charted 35 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Five of those singles hit the #1 spot. His hit songs like "Home" and the "Pick Up Man" built up a loyal following of millions of fans.
But if you ask anyone working at John Deere what their favorite Joe Diffie song is, there is only one answer: "John Deere Green".
The John Deere Green Tweet
The song focuses on a young male named Billy Bob who uses the famous John Deere Green paint to paint the words "Billy Bob loves Charlene". A classic love story using an iconic American brand.
John Deere in response to his death tweeted, "Forever John Deere Green". The tweet had over 1 million impressions, 42,000 RTs, and 9,000 likes. The tweet might have been spontaneous, but its success was no accident.
John Deere had spent years aligning its PR and social strategy to fit its audience. This tweet was years of hard work and planning in the making.
When John Deere began building a social strategy more than 10 years ago, much of the focus was on the process before tactics. The team spent time formalizing governance, structure, and collaboration processes. The focus would be on amplifying the brand, customers, and their work.
John Deere has millions of customers in hundreds of countries. Each customer has a unique story that John Deere can tell through PR or social.
John Deere, the Innovator
John Deere started in 1837 in Grand Detour, Illinois. It began manufacturing basic tools such as pitchforks and shovels. Today, the company employs over 67,000 employees in over 30 countries with a social media presence in 54 countries. John Deere has designed over 690 different tractor models since inception. It's no longer a company that JUST makes agriculture tools. It's a company that lists innovation as one of its core values. John Deere's website says:
"Innovation means inventing, designing, and developing breakthrough products and services that have high appeal in the marketplace and strengthen customer preference for the John Deere brand. Innovation extends to using the latest technology to establish world-class manufacturing processes and applying the most advanced information technology tools and practices throughout the company."
John Deere's challenge isn't just to tell people they are innovative, but to show it. It's a challenge that the communication team tries to solve every day. Not only do its customers want to use the next generation of agricultural tools, the next-generation of employees also want to work for a forward-thinking organization. John Deere is competing with Facebook, Google and Apple for the best software engineers. Social and PR can help differentiate them from the competition.
Listening Before Creating
Communication starts with listening. John Deere makes sure the team isn't only creating content and pitching stories, but protecting the brand. They focus on listening and staying tuned to the audience.
On social, this means following communities such as Ag Twitter and Ag Instagram. These communities are places for farmers and ranchers to come together to share best practices, share insights on their equipment, seek counsel and advice from one another.
These communities don't only serve a business purpose, but a personal purpose. During March 2019, flooding hit the Midwest. John Deere learned first-hand from the communities the issues they faced and adjusted it's messaging to reflect that.
It's not just social where the listening occurs, but also in the physical world. Trade shows and industry magazines are critical parts of the communication process. John Deere uses trade shows to launch a new product and start a dialogue with the customer. They can see first-hand what a customer thinks of a product. Ask why they like or dislike the product.
Once they understand, they can begin creating.
Creating the Process
Jen Hartmann, Director of PR at John Deere, uses the daily huddle to align the communications team. The goal of every huddle is to align messaging: what are people hearing and saying? What is the narrative we are trying to tell at John Deere?
At every meeting, employees will share media coverage and what competitors are sharing. These conversations help generate ideas and create cross-collaboration with teams that might not speak together.
These conversations also help educate and empower stakeholders who might not understand social. Many brands make the mistake of not educating internal stakeholders. This leads to problems in the long-run because narratives aren't aligned.
John Deere makes it a point to educate everyone on the importance of narrative — even Jerry from marketing.
Every team has a Jerry. They are the person from marketing who asks the social team to post a .pdf on Twitter or a .ppt on Facebook. The daily huddles are an opportunity to educate Jerry; to ask him, "What his goals are?"
By educating the Jerry's of the world, we don't only create a happier team, but reduce the risk of a communication leak.
Jerry will now know what to look for. What was before a missed opportunity, could be a new PR or social opportunity for the communication team.
PR and Social Team
The PR and social is one combined team that reports directly to Jen Hartmann. The social team acts as the first line of defense. They are monitoring what's happening online, paying attention to any mentions of John Deere. From a PR standpoint, they are alerting employees if any issues arise. The social team plays a risk mitigation and a listening role.
Risk mitigation is such a key part of the PR and social teams’ role. Many companies celebrate the "sexy" achievements like a viral tweet. John Deere also celebrates the "ugly" wins like another week of no controversy. Many companies aren't prepared for a crisis, but John Deere has the governance in place to respond to a crisis.
When you look back at John Deere's tweet from March of this year. You now realize it wasn't a random tweet that someone from the social team wrote. It was part of a process. Part of years of hard work. Years of listening, planning and executing that led up to that success. There's not always a road-map for everything, but if you create the right processes, your communication team is destined for success.
Thanks to Michael Bean for reading drafts of this.
This post was inspired by my conversation with Jen Hartmann. Watch our conversation on YouTube. Listen to our conversation on iTunes.