How your business interacts with audiences online can build or break trust and credibility in your target market. Additionally, the way your employees engage and support your online activity speaks volumes about your company.
As an employer, you have the power to promote your company’s brand, mission and values by sharing positive stories of thought leadership, achievements, events, testimonials, and, best of all — the people that make up your company.
Making sure your company has a strong and positive social media presence is something you can control. Even if some negative customer feedback pops up out of nowhere on your social media feed, it is in your hands to respond quickly and thoughtfully to ease any risk to your company’s online reputation.
However, your employee social media engagement can be a bit of a wild card. Some employees might do a great job supporting your company on social media, while others simply neglect social media engagement altogether. Worst of all is when you have employees engaging in such a way that they are a liability to your company and your online reputation!
In this article, we will discuss exactly why employee engagement is so crucial and how to give your employees the motivation they need to level up their engagement. Whether your employee social media engagement sucks or you have never introduced the concept to your business, we’re here to cover all the bases.
Why Every Company Should Have a Social Media Engagement Strategy
Social media marketing has become an essential part of your business’s marketing strategy, which is precisely why employee social media engagement is an absolute must! Social media engagement not only helps your audiences grow across your social channels but also helps your company evolve and expand. What better way to give your social media engagement a boost than with your very own team of in-house supporters? Your employees should already be some of your #1 fans, right?
Here are some additional reasons why you should spend time developing your social media engagement strategy:
- Links shared on social media add up and can influence SEO and organic traffic to your site.
- Social media profiles or posts with branded search terms can sometimes show up in search results pages!
Whether your company hires a marketing agency or has an in-house social media manager/ team, a social media engagement strategy is a key component of the company’s overall communications plan.
Tips to Help You Improve Employee Social Media Engagement
So, you get it. Employee social media engagement is important. But, how do you actually get employees to engage in a way that is truly beneficial to your business? It all starts with a social media engagement strategy. The following tips will help you ensure that your plan is effective so your company can start reaping the benefits of better engagement in no time.
- Hire a Professional
If your company doesn’t already have a dedicated team to carry out your social media strategy, hire a professional to assist you. Some companies don’t have the in-house resources required to maintain your social media strategy. In that case, hire a digital agency (like Konstruct Digital, wink wink) to do it for you!
- Develop a Comprehensive Communications Plan
Creating a communications plan will benefit your company in many ways. To create an effective plan, make sure that it is easy to comprehend. It should highlight the tools and guidelines for communicating to the external public and internal audiences, like employees. Creating this plan will ensure that your employees play a part in implementing these standards and maintain a consistent brand voice.
- Establish an Employee Protocol For Your Online Brand
Create a plan that will empower all employees to make good decisions online. Developing a social media strategy and policy for your employees to follow is fundamental to enhance and promote your brand. The overarching corporate culture should be to represent the company professionally and consistently.
- Keep Employees Up-to-Date
Create a method for employees to keep up to date on company social media posts. Include how employees can support these activities by engaging online through their personal social media accounts.
Internal Newsletters
Keep employees regularly informed by letting them know when the company posts on social channels like: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. This way, the employee knows when and where to visit and engage with your company news online.
Messaging Platforms
Use communication platforms to help inform employees about your social media activity (e.g. Slack). Internal communication will further promote shared responsibility in promoting and enhancing the company’s online reputation. Messaging platforms can ignite a feeling of importance within your employees, resulting in more employee engagement.
- Hold Social Media Training Sessions
Ensure your employees are equipped and comfortable with your social media sites. That way, they will understand how to actively promote the company through their personal social media channels consistently and professionally.
Hold mini employee training sessions or focus groups over lunch hours or breaks. Demonstrate the ways your employees can help support your social plans and policies through fun and engaging discussions and get your employees excited about social media.
- Share The Value of Social Media Engagement
Your employees must understand the value of your company’s social media strategy. Interact directly with your employees and express the importance of their involvement online.
Every employee has the opportunity to deliver creative value for the company. If this philosophy isn’t ingrained into the company culture from the top-down, the marketing and brand may run flat and dry.
- Get Your Employees Motivated About Social Media
Boosting your company’s brand and audience requires some employee attention. Highlight the ways that they can support the company through social media channels. If your marketing and communications team gets excited about social media, so will everyone else.
Ideally, your engaged employees will help your overall SEO content strategy, content marketing and customer experience by sharing content, encouraging engagement and tagging or linking posts.
- Encourage Collaboration
Ask your employees to provide feedback and recommendations about your company’s page and social platforms. This will be an incentive for employees to take the time to support you and your use of social media.
- Celebrate Your Employees
Share and promote stories about your team members through social content like blog posts or social media posts. You’ve probably heard the phrase: “Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” If you value your employees, share that story on social media. Everybody wants to feel valued at their workplace.
Employees Do’s and Don’ts On Social Media
Employees represent you and your company, not only in the office but also at home. Share these social media do’s and don’ts with your employees to keep your team on the same social media page.
Employees should:
- Create social media profiles on platforms that your employer uses (LinkedIn, Instagram). If you work for a law firm, we don’t recommend sharing work stories on Snapchat or Pinterest!
- Follow your company on all social media platforms that they use.
- Share good news stories from your company or company-related events that are public-facing.
- Tag your company and use hashtags when appropriate (you may even recommend specific hashtags for employees to use).
- Like and comment on company posts where appropriate.
- Personalize your posts by expressing your connection to a project, product, or event, or share why you love working at the company.
- Write professionally (even if you are posting on a channel where your contacts tend to be your childhood besties or extended family). Use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation when sharing stories about your employer.
- Think before you post. If you have doubts about sharing something from or about your employer, not sharing is the way to go. Be sure your words are positive, fun, and uplifting to uphold a positive online reputation for your employer.
Employees should not:
- Overdo it. If you share every post that the company publishes, your activity or support may be perceived as insincere.
- Be spammy. Companies appreciate the visibility but don’t share the same story over and over again.
- Misuse hashtags. If you use hashtags when sharing news about your employer, they should be popular and have a suitable following. Don’t make up new ones or use too many either.
- Share company news on a social channel where the company is not active. We recommend sharing work-related content on platforms where you can re-share posts or tag your employer.
You Are Now Ready To Fix Your Employee Social Media Engagement
Establishing ways that your employees can be active on your social media will help build your online presence and build brand awareness. The social media world is constantly evolving and adapting. With more social media users than ever before, it is essential to prioritize your social media marketing efforts and start investing in better employee social media engagement.
Thank you for making it to the end of this article! You must be interested in improving your company’s social media strategy. Let’s talk! At Konstruct Digital, we understand that businesses don’t always have the resources to commit to adding an entire team of social media marketers, which is why we are here to help. Contact us to see how we can help you succeed in the social media marketing world.
