Employee Engagement
January 17, 2024
All goal-driven, successful businesses today have this thing in common: they already know how important it is to be consistently present in the digital world. They also know the ridiculously potent power of organic traffic and what it can do for boosting revenue.
Employee engagement on social media is growing and more ambitious businesses adopt it in order to place themselves as industry leaders. Why wouldn’t they? It’s completely free and offers benefits both for the company and the employees.
Let’s chat about why employee engagement on social media is the (not so) new kid on the block and how to create a strategy for using its powers to the max.
I’ll also explain which type of content is most shareable on social media channels and some of the difficulties you can expect when implementing your employee engagement strategy.
Intrigued yet?
Let’s see what the fuss is about.
Can you name one successful business that doesn’t have a social channel? Neither can I. We live in a world of endless digital opportunities, so why not use them to our advantage? Like it or not, social media channels are where the action happens and if you want a piece of the cake, you’d better bring your fanciest plate.
Why is this important?
Because social media platforms are where your potential customers are.
And what does that have to do with your employees?
When executed properly – and strategically – those employees can be your best brand advocates. Put yourself in the customers’ position: would you rather buy from a company with marketing focused only on advertising?
Or would you rather trust your friend or a neighbor who regularly shares content on their social media accounts about how lucky they are they work at exactly that company?
Not sure about you, but we’d definitely go where social proof comes from the regular, non-corporate crowd. That said, let’s take a look at why your business needs exactly those corporate people on board with employee engagement on social media.
Statistics show that people love it when someone from the big shots regularly engages with the audience on their social media profiles - 78% claim improved brand image.
Sure, it might feel overwhelming to open a Twitter or LinkedIn account – especially if you are not savvy on social media. And honestly, why on earth should you care about social media – you’ve got numbers and results to worry about.
Ah, but that’s the thing – the more the CEO (or any leader) engages on social media, the better the feedback from the audience. This way you directly influence the increase of brand awareness.
But let’s leave the numbers to speak for themselves: an engaged workforce can improve retention by up to an astounding 54%. How do you like them apples now?
We’re not saying that corporate and leadership teams should start spending time creating witty videos on TikTok or facetiming with their network, but we are saying that people love seeing your human side. They have more trust in someone who shares interests with them and knows their pain points.
Think of it this way: when you show up for your son’s game, you’re his hero. When you don’t show up – well, let’s just leave it there.
Let’s get one thing straight first: onboarding your employees takes continuous effort and it takes time. If you want proper employee engagement on social media, first make sure that your workforce can clearly see the benefits.
Of course, your main goal is to have the whole company benefit from employee advocacy, but if you don’t point out what’s in it for them personally, it will be difficult to get them to act as brand advocates. They need to be willing and do it on their own terms.
Never force, always encourage.
Now, here are only a few of the benefits they will get when they decide to jump on board:
Before we show you the promised strategy for employee engagement on social media, are you aware of what kind of message and corporate culture image you want to project into the online communities?
Defining your own company culture is the first step towards creating successful employee engagement - do not skip it.
Let’s demonstrate with examples:
The BOBS brand from Skechers donates a portion of their proceeds from their BOBS for Dogs shoe line to shelter animals. Outdoor adventure brand REI believes in life outdoors is a well-lived life and this message carries through their social positioning and brand strategy. Ikea is an off-beat, fun, quirky brand and its personality and brand beliefs hold true in its brand advertising and corporate culture.
All of these usually see both employees sharing content as well as influencers or their community supporting their brand.
If you want to leave an impression of a positive and trustworthy company, think about the answers to these questions:
Although these questions are better be answered in-house, sharing related content, more often than not, can be a game-changer for your image.
On the flip side, as much as we think of our company’s social media as the laid-back cousin of our professional website, there are a few dos and don’ts you need to pay attention to. That’s where a social media policy comes into place – a few rules here and there to let your employees know what’s ok to post on social media and what’s not.
Having a social media policy for your company is the perfect balance between “sharing TMI” and a “why-would-I-care” attitude. These policies vary from company to company, but as a general rule, they should allow your employees to be themselves while posting about your brand and your industry.
By the way, if you’re unsure how to create your own social media policy, you can always use a ready-made template.
Creating it is easier than it sounds. Just follow these steps:
No doubt about it – the most shareable content is the one that’s highly engaging.
It’s ok for employees to share special offers and product-oriented posts once in a while, but if you want to benefit from their network and credibility, focus on content (posts, engagements, and comments) that provides value for the specific network.
For example, product/service offers and descriptions are best suited for LinkedIn, while having a funny picture contest is better for Instagram or Facebook.
Take a look at these highly engaging types of posts your employees will love:
The truth is, excitement is very much like a candle, or fireworks if you will – it burns great for a short while, and then ‘poof’ - it’s gone The same goes for employees’ enthusiasm. If you’re not careful and don’t refill it regularly, they’ll lose interest and disengage.
To make sure that doesn’t happen, always be proactive and keep your employees up-to-date on the policies and the social media content. You can do that through 1-on-1 meetings, questionnaires on employee feedback on how to improve the strategy, or through brainstorming at team meetings.
Sometimes, the problem can arise from remote work. Employees don’t feel like they’re well connected with their colleagues and feel like missing out on important issues. In this case, it’s best to invest in team-building activities and video conferencing.
Pizzatime.xyz helps remote teams organize pizza parties.
And if the problem happens to be employees leaving your organization, conduct exit interviews to identify the causes. Very often the reason happens to be poor work-life balance or insufficient personal growth. Make sure to give your employees a sense of purpose and well-being, and especially a sense of belonging within the company.
At this point, you might be wondering what a platform has to do with employee engagement — they either engage or they don’t, right? Right. The concept of employees engaging on social media can be amplified through employee advocacy platforms. These platforms allow for one or a few point people to curate and generate content for employees to share on their social networks, helping both the savviest of social media mavens and those that are not very social at all, to have a strong presence on social media.
If you want to make the most of employee advocacy and make sure you never drop an opportunity for engagement, consider investing in an all-in-one powerful platform to support your employees' sharing on social media.
With a focus on social media and employee engagement, an employee advocacy platform is a great way to increase your organic reach via your employees and other partners and stakeholders. The software makes it super easy for you to create content that promotes your company, and even easier for your employees to share it on their social media accounts.
Not only that, when you use software for social media employee engagement, you can kiss the lack of solid internal communication, the low number of new prospects, and the weak business relationships goodbye.
Some other awesome benefits you can get with an employee advocacy platform include:
And the best part is that you can do all of this from any desktop or mobile device.
Eager to learn more about how a single platform can soar your social media employee engagement? Check out our own GaggleAMP software and see for yourself - we don’t push, we only encourage.
The whole point of getting your fellow employees on board with your marketing strategy isn’t direct sales - don’t expect them to transform into your Triple S (Special Sales Squad). Yes, the ultimate goal is making money, but your social media strategy should be about building relationships through organic reach.
By engaging everyone in the company, you pave the way for a guaranteed return of investment in the long run. And the best way to secure their engagement is to provide a positive company culture, good internal communication, and an engaging social media engagement strategy.
Employees who are uninterested or demotivated add little value to the company. Moreover, they can do more harm than good — meaning you end up losing money. If you want to have a positive impact both within and out of your company, take care of your employees so they can take care of your business.
You don’t have to move mountains to do so. Simple implementations like having a crystal clear marketing strategy and the right attitude will do.
And with a little help from your friend in the form of certain software assistance, rest assured you’ll reap the benefits of employee engagement on social media before you can say “employee engagement on social media” five times fast.
Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement
