“Social media is not just a spoke on the wheel of marketing, it is becoming the way entire bicycles are being built.”
– Ryan Lilly, Manager of Global Ventures Research Park at Florida Atlantic University
Let’s break this down a bit more.
Social media is still frequently overlooked as a less serious marketing strategy than traditional forms of marketing, but that sentiment is changing. Social media is often the consumer’s very first touchpoint with a brand, and sets an immediate impression of a brand. So not having a social media strategy is like driving to a new destination without your GPS. You’re throwing caution to the wind. Social media has become a vital part of branding and marketing. And, just as a good app will get you to your vacation spot quickly and efficiently, a good social media strategy will bolster your brand — getting you the engagement with the people who are living the brand every day. Let’s start with your employees (AKA your best brand ambassadors!).
People make purchasing decisions based on their level of trust with a brand. And emotion. And when employees are engaging with their brand online, it gives the trust level a shot of adrenaline and makes the consumer feel seen. Employee engagement can be your social media secret sauce. It not only facilitates trust, it can also increase overall engagement. Plus, engaged employees are happy employees, and happy employees stick around.
So, why do we measure engagement? If you are familiar with the nuances of social media algorithms, feel free to skip ahead. But if you are wondering what-in-the-Zuckerberg I’m talking about, read on!
High engagement metrics (i.e., the rate at which people are interacting with your post or profile) catch attention of the platform’s algorithm. What is this mysterious algorithm you keep hearing about? I’m glad you asked. What do you see when you pop onto your social media? Is it cats pushing things off desks? Your niece doing the latest TickTock dance? Or a post from a toothpaste company showing pearly whites? Social media algorithms are what determine what you see, and that specific piece of content was served to you for a reason. Basically, “Al” (i.e., the algorithm) is constantly guessing to see what you might like, using AI (i.e. artificial intelligence). It guesses what you might like based on your history on the app as well as several other spidery ways the internet is able to monitor us – which we will not get into right now but stay tuned for another blog down the road. The algorithm also makes guesses based on what your friends and neighbors are engaging with. Let’s use a universal example to demonstrate this: food.
Let’s say you are meeting up with a friend to grab a bite. You show up to the restaurant first, your friend is running late and tells you to go ahead and order them something. How do you approach this process? It probably looks a lot like this:
- What is on the menu? What options do we really have to work with?
- What sort of contextual clues can inform you? Is it breakfast or dinner? Is it cold or hot outside?
- What do I remember about the last time I was at a restaurant with them?
- Can I pull clues of what they might like based on things I know about? They are from California, are they obsessed with avocados? Their dad is super into hunting, does this mean they are most likely not a vegetarian? They listen to a lot of nutritional podcasts, maybe we should assume that they would want something on the healthier side?
- Make a decision based on all of these factors. In this case you have decided to order them the grilled chicken salad – with an extra side of avocado.
- When they finally arrive at the restaurant, you’ll look for signs that your friend is enjoying their meal, eyeing their every bite and reaction.
So now that we understand the algorithm a bit better, let’s look at how employee engagement can make a difference.
First let’s start with sheer numbers – the more people who are engaging with a post or profile, the more the algorithm will push it in front of other people. Let’s say your typical post gets about 3 likes – your mom, your Aunt Jan, and the account your old roommate made for their dog Butch. Now, let’s say that one day you ask your 13 coworkers to like your next post. You wake up the next day expecting to see that your post got 16 likes – 13 coworkers, plus mom, Jan and Butch. But lo and behold you are delighted to see that your post actually got 25 likes! That’s because overnight the algorithm was like “wow, this guy’s just got a whole lot more popular, let’s send it out to a few other people and see what happens.” And so on, and so on.
So, we understand how the numbers are working. But why is it more effective to have a brand’s employees engaging with the content than random paid bots? Let’s talk about the human connection. We already mentioned that trust plays a huge role in purchasing decisions. Real people having authentic discussions will tip the scale. Let’s say that you are in the market for a new pair of kicks. You have finally narrowed it down to two different brands and you take a shopping break to check in on social media. Interesting how there is now one of those shoe brands right in your feed, with perfectly curated imagery of that exact pair you’d looked at. If the comments on their posts are generic and give you no real context clues about the quality of the products, that may not sway you much. But then you run across the other brand and immediately notice a community of people posting their own content about the products in action, and their comments are filled with employees answering questions and relating to customers on a personal level. Which of these two brands are you going to trust more?
So, clearly, employee engagement can really make or break a brand (just imagine if the employees’ comments were negative. As much good positive comments can do, negative ones are exponential). Raise engagement so your content is seen by larger groups of people, and build trust with those interacting with your brand on social media.
So let’s talk more about what ’employee engagement’ means. Here is a list of ways that employees can use their own social platforms to engage with their company’s profiles:
- Follow all their organization’s profiles
- Like the organization’s content
- Comment on the organization’s content. Is there an opportunity for them to respond and engage with customer comments? Can they facilitate conversations happening in the comments section?
- Share the organization’s content to their own profiles
- Create their own content and tag the organization. This is one of the most effective engagement strategies for both facilitating trust and getting noticed by the algorithm.
By now you can see that upping employee engagement is definitely the right move for your social media strategy, but you may be wondering how to begin? We got you. Here are a few recommendations:
Send out an employee and open the conversation
Employees appreciate being involved in planning processes at their job. If you would like them to begin engaging on social media, survey them on how they see the program running and what systems would work best for them.
Provide them with content to post
Provide them with an array of content that they can choose from that they would feel proud to post on their own profiles. Or better yet, see if they themselves want to be involved in the content making process.
Run a contest
Prizes can be a great motivator! This could be a one-time giveaway or a regular monthly competition.
Get the team involved in product launches
Odds are that your employees are proud to show off the projects they are working hard on. Get them involved in spreading the word by creating shareable content for each campaign.
Share company swag
Who doesn’t like high-quality, free items? Provide your employees with branded shirts, jackets, hats, etc. and encourage them to tag the company whenever they are wearing them.
Above all, make it fun!
Increase your social media results and employee satisfaction! What’s not to love?
Subscribe to the Verdin Headlines e-newsletter, and follow us on social media! To learn more about social media engagement and make the algorithm work for you, email Mary at [email protected].