How to use social media to create happy employees
Did you know companies with happy employees outperform their competition by 20 percent? LinkedIn has carried out research to say that 58 percent of employees are proud of their company and are glad to tell others about it, especially on social media. This is great news, as happier employee’s means happier customers, because they pass on their energy & passion in everything they do, including customer support. But how can you create happy employees on social media? In this article, we will go over six ways your business can create happy employees on social media that will help to boost your productivity, customer support & employee satisfaction.
1. Embrace your company culture
The first thing your business needs to do to create happier employees on social media is to embrace its company culture. This means sharing a culture in the office that supports your company’s vision and values. Part of showcasing this culture involves spotlighting your employees. This not only helps your employees to feel valued, but also shows others outside the organisation what the company is like to work for and attracts those who share the same vision. Here are some ideas to help you out:
Share content of the office environment
Share behind the scenes access of what your employees are working on (with approval)
Share new ideas your employees have come up with for the business
Share facts about your employees
Share events & special occasions that happen within the company
Here’s how Shortstack have embraced their company culture & shared a special occasion in their office when one of their employees had just got engaged.
2. Empower Employees
A happy employee is one who feels appreciated by the company for what they do and their contributions. On social media, a great way to show your employees this appreciation is to empower them to make key decisions in the customer’s best interest. When communicating with customers on social media – especially with support – this means giving your employees the freedom to resolve the customer’s issue in their own way. Of course your employee will still be following company guidelines, but they are now able to add their own personality and flair to enhance the experience.
This helps to reduce response times and increases efficiency, as the employee is not waiting for approval. This also allows employees to then create a unique experience for the customer that they did not expect. This positive experience leads to increased word of mouth, trust, and loyalty. Here’s how the resort Gaylord Opryland created an unforgettable experience for one of their customers by empowering their employee to take action by surprising her with two spa radios while she was at a conference.
3. Spotlight Employees
Another great way to value your employees is to encourage them to share their thoughts and expertise with your social media community. After all, the company has done the hard work in training them, now it’s time to have a little faith in the job they’ve done. You can achieve this on social media by giving your employees the spotlight and allowing them to showcase their expertise and personality through content creation on your social channels. You can also give them creative job titles in line with their personality to let them really own the process (i.e., Chief of Customer Awesomeness).
However, you want to make sure before they create any content that it is in line with the company’s culture & values.
This is not only a great way to please your employees, but it also helps them to get more involved with the company and its goals. Here are some ways you can get your employees more involved on your social channels today:
Live Q & A via video or status update
Give them an opportunity to blog
Share their new ideas & thoughts with your community
Here’s how Post Planner have adopted this practice and spotlighted one of their employees, allowing them to share their expertise on their blog.
4. Establish Clear Communication
Having clear communication is key to creating happy employees on social media, as this helps to streamline their tasks & increases efficiency. Open communication means the employees should be able to communicate with all departments or individuals in the company, which helps them to escalate queries or tasks that need approval to the correct individual or team without any delay.
One way to establish this is to create an escalation policy. This is simply a document that will outline the key contacts and their job roles in each department or team. Having open communication on social media also means the company should be transparent with their employees about any developments and their vision. This means letting employees know about all changes, news, events, or even launches.
Having this transparency in the company helps to build employee trust, as they know exactly what to expect from the company, rather than hearing it elsewhere online.
5. Do Not Micromanage
Trust the employees in the organisation to carry out their roles effectively, which means not micromanaging every task they do. It’s understandable that companies want to protect their reputation on social media, and therefore want to approve all comments and content. However, adopting this practice actually uses up more resources, wastes time, and becomes counter-productive. To create employee happiness in your company, you want to give employees the freedom to carry out their role to the best of their ability. This means giving them the freedom to engage with your community on social media. This is a great way to build rapport with the company as well as humanise the brand, as it allows the social media community to get to know the employees in the process, which also helps to develop those long-term relationships.
To ensure everyone in the company is on the same page, the best way to start this process is to create a social media policy so all employees are aware of best practices on the company’s social channels. Here’s how Best Buy have adopted this approach by giving their employee the freedom to talk with fans:
6. Welcome Feedback
It’s not enough to just listen to the views of your employees to create a happier workforce. The secret truly lies in taking action on the feedback they provide about your social media community. Your employees offer the company the perfect way to get direct feedback on how well your company is performing on social media. They engage with fans and customers on a daily basis and are therefore able to gather insights and feedback on what is working and what can be improved. Taking action on this feedback is the perfect way to not only show your employees you value their contribution and opinions, but to also allow you to find new ways to innovate & engage your social media community. This method is far more effective than carrying out market research, as it allows the company to gather feedback in real time. A tip here is to collect this feedback from your employees on a regular basis to help ensure you keep up with demand & the latest changes on social media.
