Crystal Clear Communications Blog

Feel like you’ve done all the right things, but your company isn’t getting much out of its social media campaigns? I hear this from many marketers.

They have a content marketing mission and strategy. They faithfully execute the social media portion of that plan. Yet they’re not getting the engagement they feel they should, especially in the B2B space. Sure, they have lots of followers, and even likes, but they seek stronger engagement metrics, such as comments and shares.

One reason for this? Because people interact with posts from people they know and trust. Every time we interview end-users for our clients, that’s what they tell us: “I only pay attention to posts that come from people I know. I don’t really look at posts from companies.”

In fact, research from the Marketing Profs B2B Forum shows that employees have up to 20 times more connections than their employer has followers:

So how do you get more from your social media? Involve your employees. Here’s how:

Find out which employees are already active on social media

Start by creating a list of employees who have a lot of connections and are active on the social media that matters most to you. Why? Because it’s much easier to get people who are already active on social media to share your updates than to get employees who are not very active to become more active.

Another reason to focus on active social media users? Because you want to avoid updates about your organization being the only kind of content that your employees post. It won’t look authentic, and it won’t get much engagement.

Once you’ve made your list, pick the 10-15 most connected and active employees for a pilot program. Invite these insiders to an exclusive meeting to explain the social media sharing program.

The most important thing to do in this meeting is to convey the benefit to your employees for sharing your brand’s posts: for a small amount of their time each week, they can help improve brand awareness and preference, which can eventually translate to revenue and success for everyone.

Make it easy for your employees to share your posts on social media

Next, every time you create a new post, send an email encouraging the pilot employees to share your updates. Include a few choices of suggested text for them to include, so it’s as easy for them as possible for social media posting.

To get things going, some of our clients run a contest to get employees excited about winning a prize.

Once you have your pilot group engaged, it’s time to extend the program. Invite the rest of your employees who are active on social media to a session to explain the program. If possible, have an employee from the pilot program speak, so they hear from a peer who can tell them how easy it is and how little time it takes to create and share.

Don’t ask your employees to share too often

Finally, don’t ever pressure your employees to share too often—or even to share at all. It’s okay if not every employee participates. You don’t want their social media to look forced to viewers.

The employees who do take part are your engaged employees and more likely to stick with it and help make a difference over the long term.

Avoid burnout by asking your employees to share your posts only once a week. If you share company posts more often than that, split your engaged posters into two or three groups, so people share different posts on different days and times.

When there’s so much noise on social media, it’s hard to get your brand’s story heard. Taking just a little time to encourage your employees to share your brand’s s posts can improve brand awareness and reach.

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