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Company culture isn’t just a buzzword—it’s the foundation of your workplace. The right culture plays a huge role in not just the morale of the employees, but the company’s productivity and bottom line. Whether you're a startup laying the groundwork or an established company looking to strengthen your core, building the right culture can shape employee satisfaction, brand perception, and long-term growth. We’ll look at the intricacies of culture, how social media contributes to your employee's relationship with the company, and how employee advocacy can make a big difference.
Why Company Culture Matters
A strong company culture can be your greatest competitive advantage. It attracts top talent, reduces turnover, and fosters a sense of belonging. Culture sets expectations for how work gets done, how people are treated, and how decisions are made.
The right company culture sets the tone for people’s workdays and actively shapes the way they feel about their job. If they constantly feel at odds with the culture, you’ll eventually start to see their conflict reflected in the quality of their work. Employers who dismiss company culture as 'trivial' do so at their own peril. They can easily end up with high turnover or resentful employees. In fact, toxic company culture ranked (slightly) higher than low salaries when asked why people wanted to quit their jobs. (Of course, as we’ll see, salary and culture are very closely linked together.)
When your culture aligns with your values and mission, it:
- Boosts employee morale and engagement
- Enhances collaboration across departments
- Improves customer experiences
- Increases retention and loyalty
- Drives innovation and accountability
In contrast, a weak or misaligned culture can create confusion, burnout, and resistance to change. That’s why intentionally shaping your company culture is one of the most important strategic investments you can make.
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Company Culture Is Not One-Size
Many articles on company culture often depict it as a monolith even when every workforce is different. A group of engineers might create a positive company culture that is based on mutual, professional respect. They may not greet each other every day with bright smiles, but that doesn’t make them any less positive than a more overtly enthusiastic team.
No matter what company culture you want to establish, it has to be authentic if you want it to work. Too often, companies will shift only when they have to, which can lead to wasted efforts across departments. Company culture is a daily effort, and it's a choice that everyone has to make day after day for it to work.
Steps to Creating a Positive Company Culture
Company culture may feel ambiguous to many employers, especially if it falls lower on the priority list. Thankfully, there are a few steps that you can take to weed out negativity or indifference for a brighter future.
1. Start with Employee Needs
It’s hard to feel positive about your job if your basic needs aren’t being met. If you only care about whether your team does their jobs well, it may inspire team members to do their job well — but not to be loyal to you. From salary to time off to support, employees want to know that they’re worth more than just billable hours. Additionally, burnout kills morale and productivity. Promoting flexibility, mental health resources, and healthy boundaries creates a culture of respect and sustainability.
2. Define and Live Your Core Values
Company culture starts from the top-down. If your mission statement is vague, you’re likely to end up with a vague company culture too. Instead of using buzzwords, boil down your mission to its essence. Your values should guide how your team works, interacts, and grows. But values aren’t just wall art—they must be consistently modeled by leadership and reinforced in everyday decisions.
Coca-Cola’s mission statement is to refresh the world, Nike’s is to inspire every athlete, and Amazon's is to be the most customer-centric company. These clear-cut statements don’t mince words, and the results speak for themselves. Once employees understand the larger mission, they can all unite around common goals.
Tip: Embed core values into your onboarding, performance reviews, and recognition programs.
3. Prioritize & Encourage Open Communication
Departments often exist in silos, which stunts communication across the board. This often isn’t done intentionally, but because it’s difficult to manage multiple teams, it’s often accepted as normal. When there’s no transparency, people are caught off-guard, and it can make for a frustrating experience.
Transparency breeds trust. Create space for honest conversations, feedback loops, and cross-functional collaboration. This helps teams feel heard, valued, and aligned. From conflict resolution to feedback, innovation and inspiration rarely happen when people are left in the dark.
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4. Learn from Past Mistakes
Unhappy employees can potentially tell you a lot about your company culture. If you’re seeing the same complaints pop up again and again, especially as it pertains to management, you can reorder your priority list. Sometimes the best thing you can do is go back through your exit interviews, when employees may feel freer to discuss what caused the driving forces behind their exit.
5. Consider Your Hiring Process
The hiring process can be notoriously difficult to get right. Whether people are hiring based on gut instinct, personality tests, or technical know-how, you can end up with employees who don’t mesh well with the group. For a better culture, you may need to make tweaks to your process. For example, asking candidates direct questions about their perspectives on the industry and on working with colleagues. Just remember that culture stems from similar core values, like honesty and respect, rather than sharing the same opinions.
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How Social Media and Company Culture Align
Your company culture doesn’t just live within the walls of your organization—it extends outward, shaping how the world sees you. This includes standard practices, like team-building exercises and company events, but it can also involve more modern solutions. That’s where social media comes in.
Social media is a great way to celebrate your team's hard work, especially when they hit major milestones. Advocating for your team on social media not only shows their value, it also spices up your pages and gets your company's real values out into the real world. For example, you might create killer welcome posts with every new hire or congratulate team members on their work anniversary, which in turn will inspire them to share your company posts.
When employees authentically share company content, wins, and day-to-day experiences, they become living proof of your values in action. This type of visibility turns your workforce into brand ambassadors, showcasing your culture in real time. Prospects, job candidates, and clients alike get a front-row seat to what it’s really like to work with or for your company. Here’s how social media and company culture align:
- Authenticity at Scale: Real posts from real employees tell a more genuine story than any corporate ad ever could.
- Talent Magnet: 79% of job seekers use social media in their job search. A positive culture that’s reflected on platforms like LinkedIn can draw in top talent.
- Employee Pride: Encouraging social sharing empowers employees to celebrate their work, creating a deeper sense of ownership and pride.
- Reinforcing Values: Whether it’s spotlighting community involvement or celebrating team milestones, social content reinforces what your company stands for.
A positive culture that’s reflected on platforms like LinkedIn can draw in top talent.
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How Employee Advocacy Software Can Help
Building a strong culture doesn’t happen overnight, but with intention and consistency, you’ll create an environment where your people thrive. And when your people thrive, so does your business. Employee advocacy platforms were created to help build company culture. They can help you streamline your employees' experience, so they can share, draft, post, and promote your company with ease. Instead of making your initiatives feel like a chore, complete with endless meetings and empty pep talks, you can get your employees genuinely excited to hype up your organization.
Ready to integrate social media into your company culture? Schedule a demo with Clearview Social today!
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