Involving your employees in your social media marketing strategies will significantly improve your company’s brand. Encourage your employees to post good reviews about your company’s products or services, and brainstorm new ideas for your social media plan!
The Importance of Employee Involvement in Social Media Marketing
Social media has revolutionized the way we live. We use it to shop, communicate and learn. Using it to promote your company is nothing new, but getting your employees involved in your social media plan is and it’s a marketing method that is underused. Social media has come a long way in the past seven years. In the beginning, employers blocked employee access to social media sites. Now, CEO and senior managers are encouraging their employees to not only visit them, but to make social media updates.
Employee Influence on Your Brand
The first line of defense for your company is your employees. What would they say about it if asked? When employees take part in a social media marketing plan, their posts will improve the company’s brand. The more people know about your company, the more comfortable they will be in buying your products or using your services. Let’s be honest; most employees don’t want to talk about their job. That can change by motivating them to use social media! The key is to make it fun – and rewarding. When I say rewarding, I don’t mean as in feeling good about posting something nice about your company. You could turn it into a contest, where the employee who gets the most likes, shares and/or re-tweets gets a prize (e.g, movie tickets). Also, your employees will be able to show off their social media skills, which can also help with marketing projects.
Employees & Social Media Updates
Before you turn your employees loose, you will need to create a social media policy. This policy states what your employees can and cannot post. If some of your employees don’t use social media that much, you should offer social media training. There are many ways your employees can boost your company’s digital footprint:
- Post their social shares on the company blog page.
- Take pictures of the office, events and employees to post.
- Tweet about upcoming events, company milestones and employee awards.
- Upload videos on something interesting about the products or services. You can even encourage employees with specific skills to create short “how-to” videos.
When you applaud an employee on social media, the other employees will like, comment and share the posting. This will generate promotion for your company – and it’s authentic. It’s important that your employees use the social networks that align with your marketing strategy. They should utilize both personal and professional social media sites.
You can track your employees’ use of social media through keywords and hashtags. You can also measure the success of the social media updates by checking online reviews, sales results, key metrics search engine ranking and web traffic. You can also analyze the leads that turned into new clients.
A Social Media Law Firm
You can turn your law firm into a social media law firm. Who better to post updates about your company than those who know it best – your employees. Other benefits of utilizing social media are:
- Engagement – Employees will become more involved with the company. They will take an active role in helping to increase the success of your company.
- Voice – Employees will now have a voice. Instead of just a photo, they will also have a voice to represent the company. They will be able to craft interesting and enthusiastic posts that follow the social media policy guidelines. They can also create their “story” via text or video. People love to read about real-life stories that produce positive outcomes.
- Collaboration – Internal social media platforms are on the rise. They promote collaboration between departments. Employees will be able to learn what other employees do and showcase their corporate culture.
Submitting Content
It’s important that you make submitting content easy for your employees. There are several tools you can use such as Dropbox, Google Docs, and PostBeyond. This will also give employees training in these tools if they aren’t familiar with them.
A Win-Win Situation
By encouraging your employees to use social media to promote the company, it creates a win-win situation. The employees win by being able to post during work hours and to create unique content. You, the boss, will also win because you provided social media training (and other skills) as well as an authentic promotion of the company without spending a fortune on an outside marketing or PR firm. By letting employees take to social media, you are establishing a new level of trust in them and vice-versa.
Take Social Media to the Next Level
At ACE, we can take your legal marketing plan to the next level by incorporating social media practices. We specialize in legal marketing strategies and research. We can also help you generate revenue from medical record requests. Contact us today at 215-510-2167 to schedule a free consultation.
