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Social Media Technology

Internal Social Media: the rise of ESNs, social advocacy and social recruitment

By Lucy McKerron, account director

November 1, 2016 | 4 min read

Social media is a well-established tactic in every external marketing strategy, but the power of internal social media is rarely realised.

The launch – and subsequent press coverage – of Facebook’s ‘Workplace’ platform in October is changing this. Facebook has made its Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) more accessible and intuitive than ever before.

From organisational collaboration, knowledge sharing, and efficiency there are myriad reasons why businesses should be adding an ESN to their internal comms toolbox. Here are three things for organisations to consider:

Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) need buy-in

Facebook’s Workplace is just one option, which we’re monitoring with interest. Yammer is a popular choice, as is Chatter due to its integration with Salesforce. There are also custom-built platforms and apps to consider.

But, the technology choice is redundant if buy-in across all levels of the business is absent. Strategy and planning also needs to be front and centre, because without it a new ESN is likely to fall flat.

Why? Because some employees may be reluctant to make the change in how they communicate, or be put off by having yet another work channel to keep on top of.

These issues can be countered by being clear with the benefits, promoting it well (online and off), having a clear plan for embedding and ensuring that there is a real, tangible reason for people to visit your ESN regularly.

This is still new ground for many, and it’s important that businesses launch and use ESNs with the same care, planning and focus that they would their external social media platforms.

Social advocacy delivers results

Only 33% of people trust a recommendation from a brand, yet 90% trust a personal recommendation. Top that off with the fact that on average, employees have 10x more followers than a brand and you can see why social advocacy is the buzz word of the moment.

In a nutshell, social advocacy is making the most of the exposure that your employees can generate using their own online assets. Not only will this help to promote your brand and products/service in general, but it can have a huge impact on recruitment.

Set up your own hashtag to showcase your company culture, have trust in your employees, set goals for success and reward your advocates with fun prizes and recognition.

Zappos and Starbucks are excellent examples of companies empowering employees to share their employee experiences online. But they’re also excellent examples because they have already perfected their company culture and employer brand. For social advocacy to work, people have to be genuinely excited and engaged with their work and company.

Social recruitment is now a must-have

As the war for talent rages on, companies need to get savvy about the way that they recruit. 79 per cent of people use social media in their job hunt, so including dedicated social recruitment channels in your talent strategy is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have.

Dedicated channels allow you to keep your recruitment and external marketing messages separate, showcase your company culture and gives you the perfect platform for making use of all those social advocates!

Keep your channels active by following a detailed content plan which mixes vacancies with company news, culture, videos and third party content.

Lucy McKerron is an account director and social media lead at Synergy Creative

Synergy Creative will be delivering at two sessions at the inaugural Social Media Week Bristol, ‘Social Media on the inside: the role of Enterprise Social Networks in the workplace’ and ‘How to use social advocacy to build your employer brand’.

Social Media Technology

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Synergy Creative

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