On average, employees have 10 times more followers than their company's social media accounts.
We recently shared our 10 top tips for social media success. In the post we stressed that encouraging employees to post and share content about your organisation will increase your reach beyond your own channels, while simultaneously building potential leads and brand perception.
Sounds simple – but in our experience, recruiters have a habit of protesting that they’re too busy getting on with the day job to prioritise social sharing. Here’s how to make them change their minds:
CEO & Co-Founder of SEOmoz, Rand Fishkin, advises that everyone should ask, ‘Who will share this and why?’ before they even think of posting. If you cannot come up with a clear answer, then your content likely needs to be reworked.
Communicate to your team why you’re asking them to like and share content and encourage them to get involved in creation and collation. It may be worth sharing that research has found that sales reps who use social media as part of their sales techniques outsell 78 percent of their peers and leads developed through employees’ social media activities convert 7 times more frequently than average.
Don’t ask recruiters to engage on top of their job – make it clear that social engagement is part of the job – and build it into KPIs accordingly.
Whether it be a shout out for the ‘top engager’ at the end of the week, or a special prize for whoever can convert a new follower into a placement within a specified timeframe, tap into the competitive spirit of your team by rewarding those who engage regularly.
And share the results with the team. If your Google Analytics show how a particular blog post has translated into applications, spread the word. The value of PR and content for recruiters is often underestimated by recruiters on the ground, but once your employees begin to see tangible benefits for themselves, liking and sharing should become second nature.
Internal, organic social media amplification is arguably the most powerful and cost-effective marketing tool in your arsenal. And when you consider that brand messages are re-shared 24 times more frequently when posted by an employee versus the brand’s social media channels – one you cannot afford to ignore.