Social media networks like Facebook and Twitter gives individuals, companies and their employees many opportunities,however, it may come with a price. To mitigate the dangers associated with using social media, it is important that employers and companies walk their employees through the rudiments of effective and professional social media management.
Apart from giving your employees a step by step guide on how to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms professionally, it is very important to help them distinguish between professional and private use of social networks. Businesses should make it clear to your employees how much they can use social media for private purposes during their working hours.
Here are some habits that your employees can use to come off as professional on the social media:
1. Be Articulate and Understanding
This is one of the habits that your employees will have to adopt as a social media user, since they will be interacting with people from all walks of life. (Also, many of your employees will just be starting off and won’t know too much about social media. Be sympathetic and don’t patronize them.)
Being articulate and understanding will make your staff come across professionally on social media. By making this a habit, your employees will earn followers’ trust. Do not forget that trust is not something that is achievable in one day; you have to do be consistent over a long period of time. If you manage to help your employees abide by this habit in all their actions on social media, you will more likely see a boost in followers and possibly revenue.
2. Dedicate Time
If you want your employees to succeed and come off professionally on social networks you have to spend dedicated time. My usual advice is to organize your tasks well and employ the use of some support tools that can facilitate certain actions.
3. Follow Follow Follow
Although there are many ways to increase your social media base, one of the actions that may differentiate normal users from professionals on social media is to acknowledge and return the requests of followers. A common mistake amongst many social networking users is that they do not follow that many people much less share other users’ content. They may have many followers but if you look at their timeline they usually ignore the presence of their fans. This is unprofessional, as increasing your fan base by following others could make you come off as a professional with interest in other people. Teach your employees to do this.
4. Be Civil, Follow Standard Regulation
Employees should fully be informed and advised to separate private opinions when using the company’s social networks. Whenever an employee speaks on behalf of the company on social networks, he or she must do so transparently. That is, he/she must present himself/herself as an employee of the company. For example, take a personal Twitter account, your biography should indicate that the use of the account is private.
Also, companies must inform their staff that in the social media there are legal limits that must be respected. In particular, the worker should be careful about violating data protection, copyright and other laws, rules and regulations.
5. Appreciate and Be Thankful
This is one of the most important actions that will make your employees stand out among others as not everyone is thankful at all times. In addition, people who perceive that you are always willing to thank and show appreciation will greatly value that action and possibly recommend other users to your social networks.
Thanking others for their time during an interaction in social media is a strength that may be alien to some. But, if your goal is to succeed at training your employees to come off professionally on social media, you should adopt this.
6. Be Controlled and Regulate
When an employee goes on social networks and says critical comments about the company for which he or she works at, it is advisable to let the company’s PR department know and assess the appropriate collateral damage measures that need be taken.
Though employees are free to critique, that should be done outside working hours, not using the company’s social profile. Expressing yourself in critical terms towards the company itself in social networks is tolerable within limits. What should not be entertained is to use the company’s social profile to do this.
Being professional on the social media can serve as an opportunity to rebrand your business on social media. It is essential that care should be taken when employees engage clients on social media, as squabble can literary damage the hard-earned profile of your growing company.
Featured photo credit: Pixabay via pixabay.com
