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Whether your social media pages are fun and flashy or more subdued, your content is a tremendous opportunity to spread your company’s message and brand values.
But if you can’t get your own employees excited about sharing your content and messaging on social media, chances are you’ll fall flat with your customers too. (This lack of enthusiasm can be a major issue for any brand, but particularly those without a firm industry foothold or overwhelming market share.)
By getting your employees excited about social media, you’ll start to see better outcomes across the board. Not only will you foster better relationships with your workforce, you can inspire social media users to sit up and take notice about your latest news or initiatives.
Here, we’ll look at how to get your employees genuinely excited about your company’s digital presence, and become more than willing to pitch in.
Set Some Ground Rules
Most employees use social media at work to either take a mental break or connect with family and friends.
With that in mind, it’s important to set some clear expectations about how employees should use social media either while at work or to share work-related events. While corporate guidelines may not be anyone’s definition of exciting, ground rules create boundaries that eliminate second-guessing.
In theory, ground rules prevent people from posting inappropriate content, but that might be more of a fringe benefit. Because most employees may prefer to do nothing than risk a reprimand, ground rules can encourage people to post.
Keep in mind that you don’t want to impose too many regulations on your employees. If they feel hemmed in, they’re just as likely to avoid posting as they are if they’re confused over what to post. Give them a little more freedom, and they’re likely to repay the favor ten-fold.
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1. Start with Better Content
It takes some effort to create a social media post, especially if you want your content to outshine your competition, but it takes almost no effort for an employee to share one. In fact, with a company-wide link, it takes just one click to make it happen!
If you want your employees to share with their followers, though, the content has to be interesting enough to cross the divide. This doesn’t necessarily mean coming out with viral memes or videos, it just means spicing up your approach in a way that aligns with your brand.
Keep in mind that no one wants their personal social media feeds to turn into corporate social pages. So, even on your best content days, you can’t expect every employee to reshare every post — especially if you’re in a niche field. The best thing that you can do is focus on bringing value to each post, whether that’s beefing up your tips or putting your best creative minds to work.
2. Welcome Posts for New Employees
Taking on a new hire is a huge step for a company, but it’s often an even bigger one for the employee. They’re dealing with an onslaught of new information, and they’re likely as concerned with getting people’s names right as they are proving they have the professional skills to make their mark.
Welcoming your employees on social media doesn’t just acknowledge the employee’s value and all the hard work it took them to land the job, it gives the employee a reason to reshare the post with everyone they know. Ideally, your posts will tap into what attracted the employee to the brand in the first place. For example, you might highlight your brand’s sustainability initiatives if your newest marketing manager also volunteers for a conservancy group.
Additionally, celebrating your employees’ milestones is equally effective. By sharing work anniversaries, internal promotions, or team achievements, your employees will feel valued and will be encouraged to be more involved with your company.
3. Gamify Your System
Leaderboards, contests, and challenges tap into people’s competitive spirit, and they can be a great way to improve your social media brand mentions.
Whether it’s a monetary gift card or an extra day of PTO, boosting participation and encouraging additional participation starts with creating the right system. At Clearview Social, we make it easy to set up giveaways with clear terms and unambiguous results.
From social ranks to rewards, you can give your employee more motivation to check on their standing. As they see who’s posting and what they’re posting about, games also give employees more ideas about how to share content over a long-term advocacy program. With Clearview Social’s platform, they even get constructive feedback about how to improve their scores!
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4. Tag Employees
Even the most hands-off social media user can appreciate a well-timed tag from a co-worker. Company events and special projects are usually the best places to start because you call attention to people’s dedication or even their outside talents away from work.
So, if you’d like to show off a behind-the-scenes moment of your team participating in a charity event or working hard at a tradeshow, feel free to create a dedicated post and tagging them! If you have a few employees who can really tear up the dance floor at your Christmas party, don’t be afraid to snap some shots that show off their moves. If you have a team member who likes staying in the shadows, you might simply tag their name after they took on some extra responsibility.
Most people don’t necessarily want to brag about all their professional accomplishments, but sprinkling in a few feel-good moments at work can not only encourage employees to share on social media — it can make them more excited about their everyday to-do lists.
5. Ask Employees to Add Their Voice
Everyone has their own ideas about what they’re doing at work. Some are called to the organizational aspect: they’re proud of taming chaos in a chaotic environment. Others are motivated by their professional training: they love to use the skills they spent years honing over the years.
If you want employees to share social media content, they should be able to talk about why they show up to work every day. The more authentic your employees are, the more authentic your brand will be.
Let’s say that you have a project manager who carefully scoped out a new marketing campaign about your company’s newest beverage flavor. If they want to focus more on how they came in on-time and under-budget, rather than how great the beverage tastes, you shouldn’t necessarily squash those instincts. Keep in mind that you can (and should) respond to their post — and maybe include a link to the product page.
How Employee Advocacy Software Makes Sharing Easy
Employee advocacy software can do far more than just provide one-click sharing. From strategic posting to automatic shares to dashboard analytics, you can start to breakdown what types of content are driving interest and whether that's helping or hurting your brand perception.
Social media has long been a fast-changing medium, one that most companies can be forgiven for falling a step or two behind. At Clearview Social, it's our job to keep up with the cutting-edge trends, including the rise of AI and cultural shifts. When you use our employee advocacy software, it's simple to adapt technology to fit both your corporate goals and your employees' needs. Plus, it can spark ideas and programs that make your workforce genuinely excited to hype your brand.
Want to learn more about Clearview Social? Schedule a software demo today!
Every Share Counts
Content that reaches the right people generates more leads. Discover how employee advocacy turns organic engagement into measurable sales.