When you think of social media, your mind likely turns to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The problem is that you are probably only looking at social media as means of networking with other users on a personal level. As blog owners, entrepreneurs, and brand promoters, we need to be looking at social media as a way to expand our reach, bolster our brand equity, and grow our business – and nothing else.
With this direct approach in mind, we can start spending less time on social media as just a regular user and more as a customer acquisition professional who makes the most of what social media has to offer holistically.
Today, we are going to look at some of the best ways to accomplish this through Smarp, an online platform and social media tool designed to empower employees with pertinent content and encourages them to communicate and share their knowledge both within and beyond their own networks. It’s about sharing knowledge and attaining measurable results.
What does social media mean to you?
Social media has completely changed the way people use the internet and connect with others around the world. The same is true with online businesses and brands, but the temptation for procrastination on social media is significant. It’s very easy to get distracted, so it is of utmost importance that workers focus only on the work that actually moves the needle. They need to cut through the clutter.
This is where a solution like Smarp comes into play. It serves as “an internal content hub for employee engagement and advocacy.” What this means is that it offers the same kind of connectedness that its users get on a social network, but it can limit these updates and conversations to those within a private community or organization.
Team members share company and industry news, discuss ways to move forward, and act as brand ambassadors. By sharing out content about their employer, its products and industry trends, employees can build their own personal brands in a manner that helps build company awareness, brand equity and even drive relevant traffic.
Brands like MuleSoft, BNI, Senergy and thousands of others are already implementing this type of technology into their own organizations to increase employee advocacy, while also creating a better and more engaging online work environment in the process.
Source: https://blog.smarp.com/need-a-super-power-get-an-internal-content-hub-infographic
Just like regular social media platforms have active news feeds that are always updating, Smarp supports a custom built community for organizations of all sizes. News feeds can be custom tailored with company news, industry news, working tips, corporate blog posts and more. Users can also submit provide updates, and content of their own too.
Why is online engagement important, and how can social media help?
It has been well documented that when workers feel they have a vested interest in a company and its success, they work harder toward achieving their goals. It’s more than just a job when they feel like they belong to a community, and that community’s success is their success.
This kind of mindset greatly encourages higher levels of employee engagement and information sharing among team members, because it’s about achieving objectives together rather than competing with one another.
This makes for a happier and more engaged workplace. And that’s something worth the fight to maintain.
Here are some sobering statistics about the damage associated with disengaged teams, as compiled in a recent Smarp blog post:
- Disengaged employees cost companies $450-500 billion each year.
- 85% of employees are not engaged in the workplace.
- 81% of employees could leave their job today.
- 1 in 3 professionals cite boredom as their main reason to leave their jobs.
- 37% of employees consider recognition as the most important.
- Only 29% of employees are happy with career advancement opportunities.
In effect, it is much more costly to deal with employee churn – seeking, hiring, and training new workers to replace those leaving the company – than it is to try and improve current conditions and company culture. With an engaged culture, employees are much more inclined to stay. And this creates a more stable work environment too, unlike the revolving door of high turnover.
As we can see from the Gallup poll below, employee engagement greatly affects key business outcomes. The less a team or group of employees cares about a project or task, the less likely that brand is to find success. Conversely, the more they care, and the more they feel personally invested, the more likely the collective effort will succeed in kind.
Dysfunctional companies with highly regimented information flows are organizations with compromised collective purpose. In situations like these, using a tool like Smarp isn’t unto itself going to conjure a sense of belonging.
But if your company has a cohesive culture that unites people around shared projects, objectives and values, a platform for internal communication and brand advocacy can go a long way. It helps to foster this sense of ownership and togetherness, because it encourages higher levels of engagement and interaction among employees.
Workers are more focused and connected with one another, which in turn helps to reduce turnover rates and boost overall productivity. An informed and connected workforce is a happy workforce.
How can social media help inform your staff?
The concept of social media is nothing new, but the ways in which it can be implemented within an organization are changing all the time. Fostering that deeply felt sense of community through active engagement is important. Keeping those users well informed, educated and trained is another goal that Smarp can help your organization achieve.
Just as wading through the overwhelming noise of mass market social media platforms can be overwhelming, and trying to dig through the mountains of information available online can be equally frustrating. To overcome this, Smarp offers a resource library feature.
It serves as an online directory for learning, training and resource materials for workers and collaborators. Your brand likely already has a lot of premium content in place, but how easy are they to locate? And how often are they actually being read?
Throw a social networking platform into the mix, and not only can all of this content be easily discovered and accessed, it can become a side conversation on its own. It encourages even more discussion and engagement among users as they ask new questions, respond with new comments, and look into how the information can be best implemented in the work that they do.
Is your company ready to go social with advanced and customized software solutions?
Unlike mass-market social networks that lack any sort of real focus and are rife with time-wasting distractions, Smarp has created a platform where team members can share and engage with one another in a supportive environment. The content, both external and internal, is specifically relevant to the organization or community’s goals and vision.
Social media has become an integral part of everyday life for a lot of people and the professional context within an organization should be no different. Brands and management can benefit greatly from a more engaged workforce that feels personally invested in the success of the company. The online social space and business environment powered by the solutions mentioned in this article provide that much needed community and sense of belonging.
