A terrible reality for many social media managers is that it is sometimes challenging to get other employees in the company involved on social. You can spend all day Tweeting and Instagramming, but if the rest of your coworkers aren’t pitching in you will still be missing out on major opportunities for social media success.
The more employees get involved, the easier it is to create excitement around new marketing content, get your corporate hashtag trending, or help a client with their own campaign. With more employees on social you can share expertise with your followers, build more personal connections with brand ambassadors, and tackle any customer service issues much faster.
So how can you convince employees that it’s worth connecting with corporate social media online? Start by sparking interest and making them feel comfortable online. Make social media appealing and interesting in a work context.
Is the organization up for any international award it can only win by public votes? Great! Start adding content to your social media accounts, and find interesting ways to get all employees to vote and encourage others to do the same.
This is all about getting people on board, without forcing them to get on board.
Here are some tips
Demystify Social media for business
If you want more employees to get involved in social media within your business, you first need to demystify professional social networks as a concept. You need to teach people that very simple actions can help your business and help their careers.
- Keep your company LinkedIn profile up to date
- Share your company’s blog content on Twitter. This will make the organization seem helpful to followers while boosting the reach of that piece of content.
- Remind them that following the company on Facebook will keep them more in the loop with initiatives coming out of other departments.
These are not complicated activities, but they contribute to organization’s corporate social media presence in a big way.
It will also be helpful to show employees that many of the actions they take on personal accounts can be spun to the benefit of your business. Are they sharing photos on Instagram from the last work party? Ask them to tag it with your company hashtag (within reason and good taste of course). Anyone who clicks it will see a bunch of photos of work functions and activities, which could help you with hiring. Potential employees will be delighted to see glimpses of the corporate culture online.
Corporate social media doesn’t need to be formal, dry or boring. Making that clear to your coworkers will go a long way in getting them to help out online.
Make a point of involving executives
It’s a great feeling for any social media manager to see a ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ from the company’s CEO, or President, and what a good impression it makes to other employees. It signals to them that if he/she found the time to engage in social media, maybe we should too.
Executives should be informed, engaged and aligned with the company’s social strategy. Do a proposal that would involve your boss being more involved in social media (answering questions on Periscope or Meerkat may be the way to go). Set them up for easy social media content curation. Get them on Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr. When the rest of your employees see the brass taking time to work on social media, they’ll be far more likely to follow suit.
Follow and engage your coworkers
An easy way to get teammates involved in social is to follow them.
Follow them from your personal accounts and your corporate accounts. People will appreciate their company following them on Twitter. It makes people feel valued, while also gently reminding them that their profiles are public anyways. If you found them on social, their coworkers and clients can easily do the same. This realization is often enough to drive people to be more proactive in their social activities and get more involved professionally.
Provide an Incentive
If someone is reluctant to spend time on social media, providing them with an incentive might just change their mind. It means giving people an extra push, another reason to consider contributing to your social strategy. Simply following them, as mentioned above, is one type of incentive, but there are many others you might consider:
- A contest where everyone who shares a piece of marketing content is entered to win a prize
- Sharing employee’s Instagram photos from corporate accounts, helping them grow their personal followings
- Hosting an account take-over, where an employee in a different department is given (supervised) control of a major corporate account
Make Social Media Fun
Don’t just say that social media is fun, show your staff how it can be fun. Use humour, jokes and wordplay in your social media content. These posts will show your staff that you’re open to creative ideas, and they’ll likely perform better since social media users appreciate creative and witty content. If you have a positive or creative exchange with a client or any user on Facebook or Twitter, save it and share it with your company. These interactions are a great illustration of the benefits of being real and personable on social media.
Other ideas for making social media fun include:
- Having a company-wide hashtag used to show office culture
- Creating private Facebook groups where staff can joke around, share private office photos
- Involving staff in videos and image campaigns for Instagram, YouTube
Ultimately, as a social media manager, staff will look to see how social media fits into their role within the business. The better you are at illustrating the virtues of social media, the more other employees will contribute to these efforts.