Social Media – time to engage your employees
While one of the main uses of social media is to keep in touch with friends and relatives around the world, it’s also a platform for customers, investors and employees to communicate with each other. In previous blogs, we introduced you to social media for both businesses and for candidate engagement.
This week we continue to analyse social media for businesses and specifically how it may be used as a powerful method for employee engagement.
You may be thinking that with a business to run you don’t have the time to tweet, like and share. Is social media that important anyway? Well, according to Wired PR Networks (2016), around 65% of adult Internet users today use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Further, Social Media News (2016) depicts that in Australia alone there are 15 million Facebook users. This, in comparison to our current population level, suggests 62.5% of Australians are Facebook users and by extension that the majority of users are of working age. Consequently, it’s no wonder that social media platforms are one of the newest (and best) ways to aid with employee engagement.
INFORM AND ENGAGE
Through the utilisation of social media businesses may not only source great employees, but also keep them informed through business pages and private groups. You can post regular and timely information that is easy to share internally between employees.
MAKE IT AN EVENT
As a part of information dissemination, employees can be made aware of upcoming events, speakers, trainings, staff retreats, and similar opportunities. These events spread on social media encourage and excite employees. A further benefit lies in their ease of creation, enabling almost effortless provision of arrangement details.
MAKE WAY FOR IMPROVEMENT
Adding to the above, employees can also contribute further to the business by submitting their ideas and comments for improvement via social media. This may not only impact company policies, processes, and the like, but also presents to employees that they are part of an inclusive work environment.
EMPLOYEE ADVOCATES
By connecting to employees by way of social media companies have access to an army of in-house advocates - a ready and willing audience that can help boost the exposure of your posts.
USER-GENERATED CONTENT
An internal written blog is fantastic for both presenting information and becoming more approachable. When you have access to organic content (e.g. employees’ positive posts about the business) all the better. User-generated content fashions positive influence on what others think of your brand. Something to consider is why not have an employee post on your business’ social media platforms. They can even supplement this through scheduling weekend posts. In the context of employee engagement, this encourages other employees to interact and feel recognised within a community.
Are there other ways you use social media to engage your employees? Please share your experiences below.
