In a previous blog post, Leverage Every Person in Your Organization with Social Media, our VP Partner Channel, Todd Burgess, argued that every person in your organization is a valuable player to your company’s social marketing program. But the question is, how do you get your employees on board with you in your commitment to leverage their relationships to help you drive more business? And considering the fact that most people respond to incentives, how do you create ones that would encourage your employees to utilize their own relationships in the marketplace and to generate more revenue for your company?
In most cases, employees are already at least partially invested in the success of your company. After all, it is their place of employment, from which they reap that benefit at the very minimum. However, the key to motivating your employees to up level their commitment by actually offering up their own relationships in the social space and to generate more revenue for your company is making them feel more valued than an average employee. You need to make them feel like stakeholders – individuals who are so invested in your company’s success that they need your company to succeed almost as much as they need to succeed themselves.
Begin this process by figuring out what they would greatly value incentive wise. Perhaps that would be a day off if they grow their LinkedIn account to more than 300 connections. Perhaps that day off would convince them to allow you to use SocialToaster to broadcast news about your company to their connections. Perhaps you could offer dinner and a movie to the employee who has amassed the most connections on Facebook, or who has promoted the most links about your company via SocialToaster. Perhaps you may even want to survey your employees ahead of time to find out what kinds of incentives they would respond to, so that they feel particularly valued as you establish your process.
No matter which incentive you choose, you want to solicit sincere feedback for how your social program is going, and its value to its participants. And you want to measure your success. How many business contacts are really being reached through your employees? Is there a reporting system of some sort that you can use to figure this out? And how accurate is your process for determining which employees are performing best in terms of getting you the business connections you seek.
Our software solution for social marketing, SocialToaster, can help you spread the word about your company to your employees’ business connections. And our social strategy team can help you come up with incentives your employees would respond to. As you continue to encourage your employees to participate in your program, and track your results, you will see your revenue soar.
Click here to be in touch with our sales team so we can help you create similar strategy for your organization.
