Five creative ways to launch your employee communications platform

5 min read

You did it. You launched your employee communications platform, got your team registered and sent out your welcomes and announcements. People are logging in and you’re posting more and more content. Now what?

Maybe you’re worried that after a few months it won’t be the shiny new feature and you want to plan ahead to get your team to log in and use the site on a regular basis.

Or maybe you’re already at the point where you seem to be struggling to drive people to the site – you’re not seeing the views you were expecting, and your team is missing out on valuable information.

Fear not! It’s one thing to roll out a communications platform, but it’s an entirely different task to get people to consistently go to it and consider it a regular, day-to-day resource. Here are five tips for getting people to your site:

1. Plan it out and be consistent

Help your team build a habit of reading your posts by starting your own habit on the back end for creating content.

Create a schedule for yourself – a calendar with content topics if you want – and stick to it. 

At the very least, plot out a list of authors and due dates for when they need to get you the content for blog posts or articles. This will help you create an employee communication strategy and establish a simple process that will keep the flow of content and prevent long gaps in between posts.

At Reward Gateway, we have a post about people news on Fridays. These posts are always popular – they highlight anniversaries and important milestones in teammates’ personal or professional lives, and also include a spotlight on one team member with a few fun facts (of their choosing).

This weekly post helps strengthen connections across our global company. And, even better, our team can send eCards to congratulate or recognise someone right within the post. It’s a simple, effective way to bring people to the site on a weekly basis.

These posts are shared with our team via email and through a notification in our company-wide Slack channel – serving as reminders that drive people to the site. I know I always look forward to learning a little more about my colleagues at the end of each week.

2. Check in with your people

Not sure what your team thinks about the communications platform? Well, ask them to determine how to make your employee communications stand out!

It’s simple: Conduct a poll or run a short survey. 

Find out if the content you’re posting feels relevant to them in their role or in staying informed about what’s going on in the company. Ask what they want to see more or less of. Find out their favourite article or post from the past three months. See if you can uncover the obstacles that might be getting in their way.

Not only will you gain insight on what type of content your team likes and dislikes, you’ll also show your team that their opinion matters, which helps improve engagement with your programme.

Remind your team to interact with blogs and articles through tagging, comments and reactions. (Reactions are emojis that employees can choose to mark a post with. Allowing for reactions is a simple way for people to get involved without necessarily making a comment.)

Taking the time to respond to comments will go a long way in reinforcing social activity – especially if leadership does it too.

3. Build a team of champions

Having a team of people who are strong advocates for your programme can really make a difference in getting the message out.

Champions will help to build trust and act as a pillar of support for your team. Employees are more likely to pay attention when they are hearing it from their peers and the people they work with every day.

Your group of champions can be made up of those who are more naturally inclined to be engaged and spread the word and those you recruit to the role.

Strive to have a healthy mix of individuals from all areas in your business – from leadership to the front line.

And don’t forget to set your champions up for success. Equip them with the information and resources they will need to speak intelligently and share information about your programme. Empower them to lead the way.

4. Mix it up

Variety is the spice of life. Avoid letting one person run the show. Strive for different writing styles and different tones of voice by asking for input from multiple authors. Give people a variety of perspectives that really shows off the wonderfully diverse group up individuals that make up your team.

Storytelling improves employee communications and everyone has a story to tell.

A lot of times people in one area of your company may not know what people from another are working on day to day. Input from varied sources creates a nice mix of content and it also connects departments, locations and teams.

5. Make it fun!

Get creative! Don’t be afraid to create a fun interactive event around your blog to get people engaged. 

Start a trend of posting a pet roundup once a month – Critter Corner, Pet Parade, All Paws Day – where you can show off the different animals in your teammates’ lives. Nothing gets people’s attention quite like cute dogs and cats.

Last year, we hosted our very first Woof Awards and encouraged our global employees to submit photos of their K-9 friends.

Or, you could plan an “Ugly Sweater Contest” and use the comments and social features to encourage your team to vote for their favourite.

On the more strategic side, consider a contest where you ask for the best examples of team members living your company’s values, mission or purpose. This is an easy way to quickly spread the word about all the positive activities going on across your organisation. Give out prizes at the end of the run to add some healthy and fun competition.

These are just a few quick tips to help you get people to engage with your communications platform, but there are endless possibilities. What are some tactics that have worked well with your team? Share your ideas in the comments!