Social media is so key to companies’ success today that many of them include it as part of their onboarding process.
And it’s not just about educating people on how to appropriately use social media in the workplace. It’s also about building camaraderie among teammates, helping employees establish personal brands, and providing formal training in employee advocacy.
In fact, one FAANG company educates all its employees in social media best practices and worked with us to create a course to teach new hires how to succeed on the EveryoneSocial platform.
The results? In just one quarter, the company grew employee social reach to nearly 11 million and drove more than 83,000 clicks and 51,000 engagements.
Clearly, when you train your people and get them excited about being employee influencers, it pays off.
Benefits of Including Social Media in Onboarding
Modern companies not only understand the pros of social media in the workplace, but they also encourage employees to create, post, and engage with social content.
After all, when it comes to employee advocacy, there’s no shortage of benefits for both the companies and their people. Just take a look.
With that in mind, here are just some of the upsides to including social media in onboarding.
It familiarizes new hires with the company’s culture, mission, and values.
If your organization has a strong employer brand, it’s likely that its culture, mission, and values were a big part of what attracted that new hire to begin with.
Getting further acquainted with how the company puts its values into practice and engages with its audience on social media will only help employees develop a better understanding of the company.
And if your employer brand is still a work in progress, it’s even more important that new employees familiarize themselves with these things.
Taking a close look at how the company conducts itself online and the content it shares is key to this. Plus, we can’t underestimate the message it sends to new hires when their employer not only trusts them to post about the organization online, but also encourages it.
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It encourages people to form relationships with co-workers.
Eighty-five percent of new employees decide to leave a company within the first six months. 😮
One reason for that? They don’t feel connected to their co-workers.
People want more friends at work, according to a BetterUp study, and 53% of workers would even trade some compensation for more meaningful work relationships.
Forty-three percent of employees say their company should do more to promote such connections, so do this from day one by encouraging new hires to follow their co-workers on LinkedIn and EveryoneSocial.
And, when announcing a new hire to the company, suggest that employees follow the new hire as well.
Not only will including social media into your onboarding process help people integrate into the company, but it can also help improve retention rates.
It motivates people to create and share content about the company.
Encouraging employees to use social media at work from the very first day, makes it a part of company culture and sets your advocacy program up for success.
When social media is part of the onboarding process, employees are more likely to share their work, post company content, and talk about the company online.
This, of course, benefits the organization, but it’s good for employees as well since it helps them build their personal brands, expand their networks, and contribute to their learning and growth.
How to Incorporate Social Media Into Onboarding
Now that you understand the importance of including social media in the onboarding process, let’s take a look at the various ways you can integrate it into your existing operations.
Ask new hires to follow the company’s social handles.
Suggest — but don’t mandate, of course — that new hires follow the company on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or on any other social channels you use.
Explain that this is a great way to get to know company values and culture, meet co-workers, and stay up to date with the organization’s happenings.
Create images for new employees to share.
You can get employees involved with social media — and posting about the company — even before they officially start by sharing custom images or GIFs for them to share on social networks to announce their hiring.
Here at EveryoneSocial, we send each new hire a selection of GIFs they can choose from to post on social media. If they want to.
It’s important that employees’ social participation is always voluntary. That’s how you get authentic content that helps the company and its brand.
Provide branded social media banners.
In addition to imagery to announce their new job, you can also give employees branded social headers for LinkedIn, Twitter, or any other social network they use professionally.
Again, it’s a great idea to provide various banner options so your people can choose the one that best reflects them.
Provide social media training.
Seventy-five percent of people say they don’t receive social media training from their companies, but research shows that they do want to learn.
What topics do they wish their employers would cover? Take a look at this slide from our 2022 Employee Influencer Impact Report.
So teach new hires how to engage professionally online, optimize their LinkedIn profiles, and more.
This won’t only help your people, but also the company.
In fact, research shows that high-growth companies have a higher ratio of employees trained in social media.
Need a little putting together an effective social media training plan for your people? We’ve got you covered with this guide.
Give them a tour of your advocacy solution.
Remember that FAANG company I mentioned that educates all its new hires in employee advocacy?
A key part of its new hires’ training is learning how to use EveryoneSocial’s various features, as well as how and why the platform can help them achieve their personal goals.
This approach has been essential to the corporation’s success, so take a page from their book and set your people up for success by taking them step by step through your advocacy solution.
Let EveryoneSocial Transform Your Employees Into Influencers
Including social media in your new-hire onboarding process is just the beginning.
To really get the most out of your employees’ networks — and to help them reap the benefits of employee advocacy as well — you need a platform designed to make it easy and fun to create, share, and engage with company content.
Enter EveryoneSocial, the pure play advocacy solution you need.
