Catrin Lewis
4 min read
Last month, we had 100% of our employees engage with our internal communications platform.
You read that right. Every single one of our employees logged into our platform to check our multiple blogs and campaigns. I was thrilled. Last year I took on the task of aligning our internal communications at Reward Gateway. We’d never had a communications team before so it was all completely new ground for us. Exciting and challenging, with 320 employees in nine offices all around the globe my mission is to ensure our employees are engaged and well informed on all aspects of our business.
Whether your business is big or small, mastering your internal communications is paramount to keeping employees engaged.
Now, I’m writing this today because I want to let you in on a secret. I’m sure you’ll agree that 100% of your employees logging in each month to check out your content and stay up to date with all the latest business news is the dream! You might expect that I have an army of Internal communications bodies spreading my content far and wide or some magic wand that has made all of this possible.
The truth is, there is just me. Me and zero budget. (That's me, in the middle, below.)
But, I do have a magic wand of sorts, and some tools that make the comms magic happen. Today I want to tell you about one of them which makes my life so much easier, it’s a free online tool called HootSuite and you can try it out too.
There’s no ignoring the fact that Social Media is a big, dare I say biggest, player in the world of communications. It’s everywhere you look. If you take public transportation to work you’ll no doubt find yourself surrounded by people all face down, eyes on the phones. It’s become the norm and there’s lots of reasons for that. It’s really easy to use, it’s free and, with over 1 billion users active on Facebook each month and over 100 million users on instagram, it’s very likely most of your workforce are included in its user base.
Now, I know what you are thinking. How on earth are you meant to manage multiple vibrant, engaging HR social media channels and still get everything else on your task list done for the day? With that, I just wave my magic wand. Er, log into Hootsuite …
Why Hootsuite will Become Your Best Friend:
It's a one-stop shop. Here at Reward Gateway we use only Instagram and Facebook as our means of social media output for our internal communications. Before I began I had naively thought that I would have to manage both accounts directly and spend my time flipping between screens to keep track and on top of everything happening. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Hootsuite allows me to monitor and engage in every conversation right from its dashboard. It’s so simple to use, allowing you to add as many social streams as you like so you can monitor and listen to your workforce all in one easy-to-follow space. The program supports Twitter as well.
It’s effortless. From this same dashboard I can also save myself time and effort by using it to post content to all my networks at the same time. You can schedule messages with beautiful images and choose the time and date you wish to schedule it. Even better, for global businesses you can tailor it to suit the timezone if you want, so your audience will receive the post at 9 a.m. wherever in the world they are. (Very helpful when I’m scheduling U.S. posts from across the pond.)
Reporting is simple. Lastly, and I think you are going to love this. You can measure your growth in audience and engagement right from this dashboard, too. You’ll be able to see which content resonates well with your audience and begin to understand your workforce and the way they best receive content so much better. It’ll give you the statistics you need to back up how well your messaging is impacting your company goals, and arm yourself for your next meeting with your boss to show that your message is out there, and being heard loud and clear.
And would you believe it, all of this is free!
So that’s my big secret, you don’t need a big team, you don’t need a big budget (or any!). You just need a buddy like Hootsuite and great schedule of rich content to keep your audience informed and engaged in your company story.
How are you engaging your employees in your internal communications strategy? I’m always looking to share strategy at Catrin.Lewis@RewardGateway.com. Or, give us some tips in the comment section!