Are your staff supporting your social media strategy?
Whilst companies are beginning to get to grips with their social media presences, staff members are still scarcely encouraged to support these strategies themselves.
But why not? Studies have shown that employees are able to post, tweet and pin yet still perform at optimum levels; there is even evidence to suggest that social-media savvy staff are actually more productive than the alternative.
With this in mind, we’ve prepared a handy Q&A for you to find out more!
What are the business benefits?
When three-quarters of consumers have reported that social media directly influences their buying behaviour, businesses need to master the world of online media – and fast! A great way to reach a larger audience is therefore by encouraging staff members to promote the company via their own accounts. These posts will be shared predominantly with friends and colleagues and will consequently be seen as more trustworthy than those from corporate accounts. Did you know that one study found that content shared by employees gets up to eight times more engagement than content shared by brands?
What are the best ways to get staff involved?
The most important point here is that your employees have to want to share news. If there is too much pressure to publicise the company on personal accounts, posts will seem forced and unnatural. On the other hand, if your staff are keen to post then be sure to encourage this behaviour!
Here at Neo PR, every employee has their own professional Twitter and LinkedIn account. Using these platforms, we eagerly share all of the company’s posts and retweet tweets to widen Neo PR’s reach. This approach works well for us, but employees operating from a personal account should alternate these types of posts with their usual material to avoid sounding overly corporate.
When it comes to the content that employees should be posting, it is a good idea to establish guidelines rather than enforce rigid rules. You don’t want fear of what-not-to-post shading their personalities from shining through! At the same time, your company still has a reputation to maintain, so any online material should be positive, truthful and in keeping with your brand’s tone of voice.
When you have created a social media army of staff, it is not enough to stop there. Activity requires praise and reinforcement, and a great way to do that is by sharing social media stats with the team members so that they can see their impact. At Neo PR, we keep track of our page views and Twitter analytics and make sure to inform staff members when we’re doing well!
What’s next?
Have we managed to change your mind about the benefits of your staff supporting your social media strategy yet? Or do you have any other tips for us? Tweet us at @NeoPRLtd.
Alternatively, if you need help with your own social media strategy, drop us an email at prworks@neopr.co.uk or give us a call on +44 (0) 1296 733867.
