MightyRecruiterEmpowering Your Employees to Advocate for Your Business
Many employees in today’s workforce have grown up with social media and use it regularly throughout the day. Although some companies might initially balk at the idea of letting them be online during work hours, that notion is losing ground. After all, you want your employees to be brand advocates, so why wouldn’t you harness that engagement and apply it to the social media world Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of allowing your staff members to use social media at work.
Obvious Benefits
Really, the only downside of allowing employees to use social media at work is the fear that they will abuse the privilege. However, that seems unlikely for busy workers, and the upsides are so much more advantageous.
First of all, most people who use social media are connected to networks of other people who may not be familiar with your brand. How can you pass up the opportunity to introduce thousands of strangers to your awesome products or services One or several of those strangers might turn out to be an elusive ïinfluencer,ï someone whose opinions are so respected, they prompt other people to take action.
Your employees are already brand advocates by the basic fact that they work for you. Let them spread the good word about your company.
Lay the Groundwork
Now, you shouldn’t just let workers loose to use social media at work without some training first. You might want to set up some training classes on how to appropriate spread the message, use company hashtags and respond to customer comments. Not only will this keep your company’s social media presence in a positive place, it also can help create a hierarchy of staff members who are in a position to interact knowledgeably with customers. You don’t want an employee from accounting trying to answer tweets from customer about warrantees. Make sure everyone understands what type of communications your company wants to be sending.
Harness the Power
If you are ready to set your staff loose into the realm of social media at work, there are few things to remember. First, you have to make sure the customer engagement is constant. Customers will be using platforms all day, so you want your staff to do so as well. Employees might start to note some trends, such as when followers are most engaged, and they can focus on those times as well.
Employees should jump on every opportunity to send social media followers back to your company website for more information or to make a purchase. If a customer is unhappy, you can empower your workers to offer some sort of recompense or free gift to help mitigate the damages and keep customers in your company’s corner. Giveaways and contests also are fun ways to keep customers coming back to your social media accounts.
You Got It Now Rock It
Once social media at work has reached a steady and positive place, your business can start to learn from the experiences. There is a great deal to be learned by having the ability to get immediate responses from consumers as a group. You can test out ideas or ask questions and possibly get a large sample of responses in a short period of time.
Use the information you get from social media for research purposes, such as a better insight into your core customer base or opportunities for product research and development. Be sure to do shout-outs to particularly helpful followers or celebrate engagement milestones with fans of your business.
The bottom line for social media at work is that if you are going to allow it, don’t be boring. Customers like active conversations, clever comments or intriguing ideas. If all you do is announce humdrum facts all the time, you might not see the return on investment you were looking for. Post funny or thought-provoking comments, and you stand a better chance of succeeding.
Many businesses have made the leap to let their employees become brand advocates using social media at work. With a little planning and structure, you can create an environment in your workplace that is focused on customer conversations. This type of daily engagement keeps your business name at the top of potential customers’ minds, and that could boost your bottom line down the road.
In addition to learning how to constructively incorporate social media at work, you can learn how to make solid hiring decisions and improve your companies using the resources at Mighty Recruiter as a guide.