Teach staff Social Media and you’ll win!
Through the ubiquity of the internet, it is easier to see what happens in a business.
Through tweets and Facebook updates, people can say what they like or don’t like about the service, the products, the people, their policies and more.
Here’s an easy example in business:
A recruiter contacts you about a new role. Out of interest you click through to the company’s website and you find that you can click through to see what they stand for, what their staff members are doing in their roles, …and it looks interesting.
You can even see what they say about working for the company – all pretty balanced and real.
The role seems more interesting than expected and possibly more innovative than your current role.
You decide to meet with the recruiter…
A second example:
You’re looking at a great website or blog where someone is explaining an idea that fascinates you and the site notes where this person work.
You might be impressed with that company and see that there are many others who work there that have impressive websites.
You may want to work there.
You’re attracted to working somewhere that has people who impress you.
Teach Staff Social Media!
Businesses who teach employees about online sites create great ripple effects. Employees are already using smart phone and digital a lot.
Digital education has people learn sites that suit the individual, style and tone they wish to use. It has people expand their knowledge, their profile, connect with others who are relevant. Keeps your employees relevant in the now global economy.
In a company, digitally-savvy-employees help identify opportunities and risks and can be engaged to bring opportunities to life and mitigate risks.
It’s obvious that it also adds to PR efforts, Marketing and word of mouth.
Here are tips to create a digital learning environment:
1. Find out who (staff, contractors etc) in your company shares something they are interested in online and are doing it well (e.g. writes blogs, creates videos, posts photos); work out whether the topic is related directly to the company or about a hobby. Look at the sites. Find out if they would be interested in being showcased through the company’s website and social media channels*.
2. Create a wall of print outs of how your organisation and your employees look online. Do Google searches, create a LinkedIn profile wall, see the kind of tweets, Facebook updates (if they’re available), Instagram and other sites. Review profiles, update, train people, evolve how you use online.
3. Train staff in using social media how it suits them. This could be formal sessions or lunchtime. Integrate it with people’s working activities and make the learning collaborative with others in the organisation.
4. Start a pilot program with people with a natural interest in using online and/or who are influential through the company or in the public eye so that the pilot can be successful and quickly show the potential for more. (You may already be starting this by using Yammer internally – it’s a great tool to increase confidence.)
Good luck! We’re here to help if you want to partner with us to teach staff social media. We’ll help to design a fun and clever program and train and coach your people (more information here).
Contact Sam directly on Messenger or the crew viaemail for a quick reply.
We’re interested to hear from you via Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn. Here’s to your lift-off!
We want to see you and your people online comfortably, professionally and in a way that has your organisation look attractive to others.
Fly high online!
~Sam
Blogpost by Runway Digital Capt’n, Samantha Bell.
**BONUS: Teach Staff Social Media and create a program internally that goes beyond a workshop. For example, create a widget/box with their logo and words to the effect of “I work for… ” for employees to add to their websites. Offer something the employee will value (e.g. building their website or Fiverr.com credits) in return for this new kind of branding and advertising on their website.
