Our last article covered ways to engage with your consumers who might already be posting about your brand and products online. In this article we will highlight ways to engage your employees.
We’ve talked before about how harnessing what your employees are saying and posting can benefit you as a company. You can leverage this content for recruiting, team building, and showcasing the best work being done in all different departments.
How to engage your employees
Especially during the holidays, it can be nice to bring some levity into the office when everyone is often stressed out.
Most offices have screens all over; from lobby displays, to lunch room TVs, or in meeting rooms. Utilize those spaces to excite your staff. Display vacation pictures of someone who recently got back from an exotic location. Create a leaderboard graphic to ignite some healthy competition amongst the team for a #GivingTuesday charity drive. As much as your employees might love coming to work, they also love their families. Give them a countdown timer to the next long weekend or holiday break.
Team building events are always fun, so what if you had one going all the time. Make a holiday scavenger hunt for employees to participate in. They have to take photos and share them so that they can be featured on the office screens. This gets you more content to choose from, as well as gets employees interacting with one another.
Did someone pull off a particularly difficult client activation that went over really well? Let everyone know by sharing social media message of appreciation from the clients for the team. The same display your customers want to see real people using your products, your staff also want to know that people appreciate what they do. Tis the season for being thankful, so share that love around.
You can also use screen displays, website embeds, and more as a way to share vital information within the company. Holiday party details, changes in schedules, fire alarm testing, or events going on in the industry around town. Take the opportunity to get everyone excited about the industry, the company and more.
Increasing engagement through charity
The holidays are a common time for charitable giving. Give employees a chance to donate to causes that are important to them, showcase your company values to your customers, and, last but not least, it aid charities doing good work around the globe. All the ways we have mentioned above to increase involvement and engagement can be used again to advance donations. Hold office competitions and create a leaderboard, ask for ideas of charities to donate too, or host events where proceeds go to a charity of your choice.
Because #GivingTuesday is a growing national trend, this also sets up your brand to partake in a large scale conversation. Highlight customers who are volunteering with your charities. Show them in your store, to display your core company values. Hold an old school style telethon that you live stream on your web properties. Showcase posts from around social of customers donating, volunteering, and doing good. You could even turn a telethon into an event to spotlight top performing employees. Interview them, have talent show, or host webinars to share their knowledge and talents. All while raising money for causes they support.
Why it matters that your employees are engaged
We hope so far you’ve gotten some ideas to help engage your customers and employees. But why is it so important that your employees are engaged? The same way you want your most active customers advocating for your brands; happy employees are 186% more likely to recommend your company to either prospective customers or other businesses.
This isn’t a specific to the holidays problem. These are ideas that can be used year round to keep your employees advocating for your brand. But especially with extra stress at the holidays, lightening the mood just a little can go far. In the final article of the series, we explore how live streaming around the holidays can be done quickly and easily.
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