Utilizing employees and social media is not new. The best way for a company to build its online presence is to involve its employees on social media. Employees and Social media marketing is a better combination. That’s why social media employees are being hired every day. It is a must to implement social media best practices for employees. Businesses can boost employee engagement in social media marketing in the following ways.
How to Engage Social Media Employees in Marketing?
1. Train Employees on How to Use Social Media
Marketing managers should organize training programs on social media strategies. Employees will increase their online participation when they understand the benefits of social media to the company and their marketing efforts. The training should also cover online etiquette, especially when handling difficult clients. Training is critical because social media employees can either build or destroy the company’s reputation with their posts on social media.
2. Provide Shareable Content
The marketing team should create informative content that employees can easily share with their connections. The content should be accurate and factual. For instance, the company can create an informative blog and request its employees to share daily posts on their social media accounts.
3. Give Incentives
Rewards and recognition are proven ways of motivating employees to engage in any activity. Social media employees will share content and engage customers online if there are rewards for doing so. The incentives can be either monetary or non-monetary. For instance, getting some time off after a certain level of online participation will go a long way in improving social media engagement. The managerial team can use the number of shares, responses to customers, or comments as a way of measuring performance for the incentives program.
4. Conduct Regular Surveys
You cannot improve social media engagement if you do not measure the current level of engagement. Conducting regular surveys enables you to monitor your employees’ online activities. You can easily differentiate active and inactive employees through employee surveys. The surveys should include questions on employees’ opinions on the company’s social media strategy. The results of such a survey will reveal the reasons why some employees may be reluctant to talk about the company in their social media accounts. Marketing managers can engage companies that specialize in employee surveys to analyze their social media employees’ activities and opinions. Insightlink is one of them (click here for information about Insightlink. Tailor-made surveys help business owners gauge social media engagement and what their employees think about the company’s social media strategy.
5. Create a Social Media Policy
A written policy acts as a guide to employees on what they can and cannot share about the company online. Companies should not assume that all of their employees are willing to share positive content about the company. Disgruntled employees may share negative content that will drive away customers instead of attracting them to the company. The consequences of misusing social media should be outlined clearly in the policy. Each employee should have a copy of the policy. Besides, managers should refer to the policy when conducting social media training to ensure that employees understand the terms therein. Companies can increase their leads and sales by establishing a strong social media presence. Social media employees play a critical role in building and sustaining this presence. The five steps outlined above will help companies boost their employee engagement on social media platforms. Are you going to implement social media employee engagement in your company?