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Internal LinkedIn campaign:

how to activate your employees

Social media is the favourite channel of many marketeers and employer branding specialists. There is barely any other channel where the impact can be measured so well, and the results can be easily processed in a digital form. The prerequisite is that the company’s own employees are active on social media. But how do you motivate them to like, share and comment on company posts? Eight tips from the perspective of internal communications:

1. Take stock

At the beginning it is worth analysing the situation – otherwise you will not be able to notice improvements. How many of your colleagues are already active on LinkedIn & Co.? Are there social media champions among them, who are well connected and post regularly? How is the top management doing? And what about sales? Make sure you check whether the company has a social media policy or other regulations. Maybe the use of LinkedIn & Co. is even prohibited during working hours and the page is blocked?

2. Develop goals and a strategy and gather them in a presentation

Now you know where you stand. What do you want to achieve? Why is social media important for your company? And how does it fit into your communication strategy? Summarise the answers to these questions in a short presentation.

3. Build an ambassador network

Have a plan before you start talking to people. How do you organise your network of social media ambassadors? What should your colleagues do to make your social media strategy a success? What is the best way to reach them – via a dedicated Microsoft Teams channel, a collaboration page on the intranet or via your newsletter tool? How could you reward them for their engagement? This could be a professional photo shoot, for example, or some other kind of recognition. This info also belongs in your presentation.

4. Meet the top management personally

Next, you need to win your internal target groups for the topic. Start with the top management. After you have explained your social media strategy, you need to get more personal. Clarify in an open conversation which social media activities your boss is willing to engage in. Expect some scepticism and the concern that it will take a lot of time. Maybe the assistant could maintain the profile in cooperation with the marketing department? Maybe the management would like to have hints and keywords to post and comment themselves? Find a practicable way together.

5. Convince managers

Your next stop are the executives. Use existing meetings and formats to present your social media strategy. Offer short trainings especially for executives to make them fit for dealing with LinkedIn & Co.

6. Organise further training

Before you start the big roll-out, discuss the topic of further training with your HR department. Are there already trainings for the professional use of social media in the training catalogue? If not, it is about time!

7. Launch internal campaign

Now you can promote more social media activity in internal channels – for example with an intranet series, in the employee magazine, with flyers or at events. In doing so, explain not only the “how?” but also the “why?”. Provide attractive background pictures, organise photo shoots or working groups that support each other in optimising their profiles. Your goal: win over as many ambassadors as possible – and sensitise everyone else to the topic.

8. Integrate social media into internal communication

Once you have started, you can integrate social media activities into your regular communication. For example, point out particularly important posts, summarise the most successful posts of a month or honour the social media champions. Make sure social media stays on the agenda. Moreover, you now have a network that you can use (but should not overuse!). And you can probably already show what successes your company has been able to celebrate through higher social media activity. If that is not a reason to keep it up!

Is your internal communication falling behind because all your energy is going into your social media campaigns? Just give us a call – we’ll take care of it.