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Harness the Power of Employee Engagement on Social Media Networks

September 1, 2010

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LONDON, UK (RPRN) 09/01/10 — Happy Employees Make for Positive Engagement at Work and on Social Media Networks

A happy employee is a great online and offline brand ambassador and enthusiast. Unhappy employees are also brand ambassadors but not necessarily the kind you want representing your brand. Especially with today's wide access to twitter, facebook, blogs and other social media platforms, be it on the smartphone or other environments, you want him or her engaged positively with you.

So how does employee engagement affect your social media presence and  employee engagement?

The first part is straightforward. If your employees aren't happy at work, they are  likely to be a negative brand messenger which will reflect badly. This message doesn't have to come from official channels as anyone can use search functions to see what is being said. Another major issue is that employees who aren't engaged won't necessarily be quick to respond to issues raised by the brand's communities whether they interact with them directly or not. And their temperament might not be suited for engagement, be helpful or friendly either.

The solution?

Whilst your first instinct may be to put a restrictive social media policy in place and to sack all employees who don't conform to it, this isn't the best approach. For one thing, it'll just make things tense around the office, and really isn't enforceable. More importantly, this isn't addressing the issue at hand. Engaging your employees with your brand and communities.

As a business, you need to be able to respond quickly and effectively to feedback from your communities, be it through social media or otherwise. You also need to provide a positive brand experience for your communities.

The pressure with social media is twofold:

1) The expectation of responsiveness:

According to a recent RedWriteWeb article, 74% of social media users expect cries for help to be answered within an hour!

In order for this to happen, you need employees who care about your success to participate in effective processes, which are best designed or modified in consultation with those who are employed to run them. It's not enough to have a great communications strategy. If you cannot respond effectively on the whole, you'll end up with nothing more than a talking head doing nothing behind the scenes. Eventually, even the biggest brand enthusiast gets discouraged if they can't get anything done.

2) The word spreads quicker

Because of the social media emphasis on sharing,bad and good news travel fast. Not only that, finding it out what is being said about your brand is so easy. All you need to do is search, be it on Google, Yahoo! SocialMention or inside the individual platforms to see what people are saying about a brand. And if your employees aren't enthusiastic about your brand, why would anyone buy it?   According to to a razorfish survey in 2008, nearly half of the respondents said they made a purchase based on a recommendation through a social media site. Who better to advocate for your product than every single one of your employees?

Having good relationships with your employees and empowering them to use social media to talk about your company is only going to help you! And the prouder they are, the more engaged they'll be, and the more likely they will be to talk positively about you online AND offline.

Story edited by Anne Howard

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