Social Media

Love it or hate it, it’s hard to avoid when it comes to marketing your business. With more social media profiles out there than fish in the sea, it can be hard to make a splash. But the ocean is big, and it’s one you’ll want to swim in. Why? Because that’s where your buyers are taking a dip.

Publish awesome content on your website and blog, then share it out on social. Thing is, if you have no followers you may as well do a Brando and talk to yourself in a dark cave. Building a relevant tribe of followers is how you get more eyes on your content. It’s how you amplify your message. Raise the flag of awareness. And get people talking about you.

When it comes to building a social media following for your business page, an oft-overlooked deep well of potential resides within your own business. So roll down the bucket and get your staff involved. They work for your business. Hopefully they are proud of their brand. You have a social media army, with their own contacts, waiting in the ranks. So call on them – mobilise your team. Get social with your staff.

Staff participation shouldn’t be forced. It’s something you’ll need to plan for before rolling out. Editorial control is also key to protecting your brand. We’ve put together this guide to:

1. Outline the value of getting your staff involved in social media marketing
2. Outline practical steps you can take to encourage staff involvement

You, yourself and your team

Data suggests that when employees share social media messages from your business page to their own, companies not only expand their social media reach, they also get measurably better results.

Start small. Encouraging employees to share their company’s social media updates can:

• Dramatically expand the organic reach (the number of people who see your post through unpaid distribution)
• Increase followership meaning you’ll organically have more eyes on future social media content your publish

Giving the rallying orders to your staff does not require any special investment of time or money. The resources required are already on your payroll.

The mathematical argument

A little math alludes to the potential:

• For demonstrative purposes, let’s take a mid-sized company with a total of 5,000 followers altogether on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
• Now, let’s say they have 100 employees, each with 250 followers of their own, for a total of 25,000 unique followers.
• By stimulating employees to share messages, you can therefore hike your audience (on paper, that is) from 5,000 to 30,000.

More than a numbers game

It isn’t just a numbers game:

• Word-of-mouth messages from friends and colleagues are widely seen as more relevant and trustworthy than social media blasts from corporate accounts.
• Stats suggest that content shared by employees can generate eight times more engagement than content released by brand channels. Reshare rates can also rocket 25 times more frequently.
• Leads developed through employee social marketing – again, according to stats – can convert seven times more frequently than other leads.

Make it fun: getting employees socially engaged

Employees have to want to share updates. Forcing this upon them is counterproductive. They need to feel engaged. Part of the team. Proud of the brand. This mindset elicits the desire to “want to share” company news.

Employees who are engaged are more enthused by the prospect of helping get the company get the word out.

How to encourage via low-economy methods:

• A one-off internal mailer setting the scene
• From here – a get social reminder/banner added to the regular internal mailers you send out
• You could start circulating more social infused internal emails – i.e. Derek’s 50th … blah blah …
• Monthly random giveaway – a bottle of …. we randomly pick the social employee of the month

What an employee gets:

By sharing relevant messages, employees can also build their own professional social followings, establishing themselves as experts in their professional sphere.

To cultivate such a milieu, you need to:

• Communicate with staff
• Outline your goals
• Make it optional
• Make it fun
• Reward involvement

Staff social media engagement devices

You’re already sharing content on a regular basis on your business social media channels. Now you need to encourage staff – through aforementioned methods – to like, share and, should they feel inspired, comment.
Create content – social messages – which are specific to the ongoings in the business. Maybe a charity event/pizza day/lunchtime/a campaign, for instance. Things that staff deal with direct.
Department/job specific posts. Self-deprecating content – a day in the life of a sales person at your business – that taps into the daily norms experienced by such people and subtly poke fun.

Assign one dedicated socialite

One staff member is tasked with taking a weekly photo of something of interest happening inside the business/office.
Get them to email it to you with a caption/description, then share on your business social media feeds – that way, fellow colleagues can see and engage with the content.
Likewise, this type of business insight content is perfect for LinkedIn.

And video …

You could step this up with videos. Keep the production low-fi and via mobile phone. Behind the scenes/real/pulling back the curtain/tongue in cheek, about working for your business. Perhaps investment in a reusable opening and end card to professionally frame all video output.

Business just like yours enjoy huge success doing this – people peek behind the curtain and see ‘what’s really going on’ in a business.

You could do interviews with certain staff members about how they:

• Got into their profession
• What they like the most about the job
• Any tips they have for people working or are looking to work in the same industry
• Daily challenges

In addition to encouraging staff towards social media, this content is perfect for encouraging wider engagement on business-oriented platforms such as LinkedIn.

Editorial controls

To stimulate true inclusion and make staff feel part of the whole, we recommend not overly editorialising. Be seen to value their opinions, likes and shares – this is important to inclusion.

• Set up a social media policy that lays out guidelines for what you do and don’t want your employees to do – keep this friendly, basic and list like
• Avoid overly draconian control measures on staff
• Monitor your social media platforms for any erroneous/questionable comments

Feeling social? So are we!

Got a question about social media marketing, staff involvement or tips of your own, then hit us up in the comments below or over on our social channels.