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In 2018, having an impressionable company culture isn’t optional, it’s imperative, and 82% respondents of a survey conducted by Deloitte share this view. In 2018, it’s also critically important to have a social media presence for that company culture. Why?

  • Social media gives you global reach to talent, investment and business. And company culture is an important determinant in acquiring each of the three.
  • A strong social media presence for your company culture and brand can make everything from recruitment to sales more efficient and less costly.

Plus, the “brand” has long lost relevance and credibility to the “individual” on social media, and in the general market.

Image credits: Edelman Trust Barometer 2017

If your brand hasn’t made the shift from the “brand voice” to the “individual voice” yet, it’s high time to make the switch, because 2018 will demand it.

If you’re not sure how to incorporate your company culture into your social media marketing, here are five ways to make it happen.

1. Get employees to participate. Adopt an in-house employee advocacy program.

While you don’t have to make employee advocacy mandatory to get your staff to participate, you can always encourage them in a light-hearted and fun manner using an employee advocacy program.

Here’s how an employee advocacy program typically works, in most offices.

  • The company subscribes to an employee advocacy platform (like DrumUp’s), so that technology can simplify internal and external content sharing and track the program.
  • An appropriate Admin is appointed to manage the program. The Admin’s responsibilities may include finalizing content, communicating between management and employees, and keeping enthusiasm levels high.
  • The Admin sends out invites to employees, after introducing them to the rules and advantages of the program.
    Top employee advocates are recognized and rewarded regularly.

DrumUp’s employee advocacy platform gamifies the program by awarding points to each share and keeping participants excited and involved with a leaderboard.

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2. Be human. Document not only your onsite activities but also your offsite activities.

The perception you project is the only basis for your fans have to assess your brand. If you only post work-related content, your fans will only see the professional side of your brand. The absence of a human side could prevent fans from emotionally connecting with you.


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Here’s how you can humanize your social media content and connect with your fans.

Document all of your offsite activities, even the simple ones like office dinners or luncheons. Create social media posts out of them and add them to your employee stream.

*Employee stream: An employee stream is where you add posts to be shared with all your employees, via your employee advocacy platform.

2. Humanize the social media posts you want to you share about your onsite activities, by including faces on your posts. Feature executives, employees, clients and partners/influencers in your content.

3. Add positive emotions to your posts – humor, intrigue, pride, warmth, hope and curiosity. Such posts are more likely to get shared more on social media. Ensure that all of your posts have emotional elements to them.

4. Create a personality for your brand on social media. Imagine a fictional character with human characteristics and let those quirks shine through your content.

3. Celebrate employees. Give them the limelight.

Social media platforms run like they do because people want to follow their friends and family, and stay in touch with their activities. By giving your brand a personality and including individuals in your social media marketing, you turn your brand into one such “person” or entity that your fans are invested in following.

A large part of making that happen includes putting employees in the limelight.

Here’s how you can feature employees in your social media content.

  • Follow your employees on social media and add their stories to your employee advocacy program from time to time. It’s important to choose stories that are on-brand and on-message, so they fit into your social media presence.
  • Celebrate employees’ work and achievements by featuring them on your social media page. You could also include this content in your employee advocacy stream for other employees to share, which could be great as encouragement for employees to perform and get featured themselves.

If you have performance incentives for employees, you can turn the awarding session into a ceremony and capture it on film for social media. Several companies feature their “employee of the month” on social media.

4. Tell stories of work and victories. Share behind-the-scenes perspectives.

How your organization works is an important part of earning new business. The culture and values that go into client interactions, and how employees interact with clients affect how your business is perceived online.

To control the perception potential clients and partners have of your brand, you have to project your work culture and values.

Here’s how you can project a favorable view of your work culture


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  • Talk about your company’s victories, but without appearing to toot your own horn. You could do this by making your clients and employees the focus of your victory stories, instead of centering it around your brand.

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  • Potential clients and employees can both see your company as an excellent place with which to associate, if you convey your work culture the right way.

Create social media posts (images, videos and text) that convey your work culture, and what clients can experience by choosing to work with your brand. Again, the focus of these posts should ideally not be your brand, but be your target audience – potential and current clients.

Ensure that your stories are entertaining, and easy to consume. Social media users these days have attention spans of seconds, which is all the time you have to make an impression on them.

5. Try “Staff picks”. Let employees control content.

Sharing what your employees like, whether it’s a movie, book or meme, can make your social media content more humane and less promotional. This can be very effective for talking about your products and services as well as for getting employees invested and interested in sharing.

Here’s how you can include “Staff picks” in your employee advocacy to get employees engaged.

  • Use an employee advocacy platform that allows employees to contribute content to the employee advocacy program. DrumUp, for instance, has a “Suggest post” button that allows employees to suggest their content to the program’s admin.
  • Follow your employees on social media platforms. On Twitter, for instance, employees can be added to special “Twitter lists” through which you can curate their content. This content can then be added to your employee advocacy program.
  • Finally, you can also include employees in the decision-making process in deciding content for your employee advocacy program. Doing so will make them feel more included in the process.

Conclusion

In 2018, the way your company is depicted on social media will affect every aspect of your business, from recruitment to sales. And employees have an important role to play in the process. By adding employee advocacy to your social media marketing process, you can make your company’s social media presence wider and more accepted, among fans.