As we take action during uncertain times, every individual and organization has felt the impact. And often, social media is the first place people go to find relevant information or to share their perspectives. Social networks help us connect with one another and It is an important communication channel used by companies across the globe.
For the past few weeks, COVID–19 has taken over news cycles. In the wake of uncertainty, marketers are now forced to roll up their sleeves to navigate the rapidly changing landscape. For organizations, the challenge is finding ways to inform their employees who are now remote. For marketers, the challenge is finding the right information to share with their audience while demonstrating strength and empathy.
To help you navigate your employee advocacy strategy during uncertain times, we’re sharing how different features within PostBeyond’s employee advocacy platform can help you perform critical tasks. Here’s how you can inform your employees and enable them to distribute relevant content and information to their social networks.
6 important features that are available
In this section, we will cover six features in our employee advocacy platform that will help your team stay informed while engaging your audience on social media:
- Internal Posts (Inform employees with content, company policies or internal news)
- Featured Posts (Highlight the most important content for employees)
- Content Topics (Categorize content by specific topics)
- Recommended Content (Employee suggested content for the team)
- Inbox (Curate news, updates and information from trusted sources)
- Newsletter (Distribute relevant content and information to employees)
1. Internal Posts
During uncertain times, employees may feel a lack of connection with their fellow peers. Also, now more than ever, employees are looking to stay informed with up-to-date and helpful information.
Many brands, PostBeyond included, have now explored different channels to communicate with their employees. There are limitless channels to do so such as Email, Zoom Conference and Slack. One way we’ve used PostBeyond is through Internal Posts to inform employees with helpful information during uncertain times.
If this is relevant for your company’s employee advocacy program then Internal Posts ensures that you have content and resources available for employees to view within one central library. When Internal Posts are turned on, employees can access and read content right within their platform – your single source of truth.
2. Featured Posts
As you’re receiving communications and news from different outlets, ensure that employees can access the latest and most relevant information. Featured Posts allow you to showcase the most important information by pinning posts to the top of the feed. When employees log-in, Featured Posts will be the first row of content they will see.
This will ensure only the most important content and information is readily available for employees. At PostBeyond, we’ve included news and content that would not just be helpful to our employees but also for their social connections. Featured Posts should be used to ensure every employee knows what content should be shared to their social networks.
3. Content Topics
Staying informed with the most recent and relevant information is of the utmost importance right now. The ability to categorize different pieces of content will be important – especially for specific content in regards to COVID-19. Content Topics will make it easier to segment content into relevant categories for your employees to access.
In particular, at PostBeyond, we’ve created a new topic to curate the latest COVID-19 information. There are now posts regarding World Health Organization’s recommendations for mental health, our CEO’s note to our employees, health and wellbeing tips and best practices for working remotely.
4. Recommended Content
Whether you’re the sole content creator or a team of many, it is always beneficial to have multiple eyes seeking out and sharing with each other the most helpful content. Recommended Content allows employees to suggest helpful content for the rest of their employees.
Recommended Content enables your entire workforce to be content curators which is even more useful with larger teams. Collectively, everyone can have a role in finding relevant information and sharing it with their peers. No matter what device you’re on, whether it’s desktop or mobile, you want the ability to recommend updates or relevant information to your team at all times.
5. Inbox
Social media has been a driving force for conversations in regards to our current global state. At times, it can feel like the ground is constantly moving under us, so how can a social media marketer stay afloat? Continue to stay on top of the latest information and monitor what expert sources are saying. The hashtag #coronavirus has taken over Twitter in 2020 and while not every Tweet will be informative, there are definitely a few sources to keep your pulse on.
Inbox helps you keep an eye on deployments especially if you’ve decided to curate content from select news sources such as the World Health Organization, CDC or specific Twitter handles. Curating content from sources such as The New York Times or The Washington Post can be beneficial as well.
Keep your finger on the pulse of the latest developments and share the information with your team in real-time. You can become a valued contributor to your team’s wellbeing.
6. Newsletter
Last and definitely not least, Newsletters allow you to distribute content directly to their email inbox. You can keep your employees informed and engaged while adding helpful resources to your Newsletter. Additionally, employees can also share relevant content that’s in Newsletter to their social networks to keep their social connections informed.
We’re in this together
There isn’t a roadmap to figure things out during this period of uncertainty. For most of us, this is a new situation that we haven’t faced before and there are no written rules or marketing playbook to follow.
The best thing companies can do is to ensure employees are safe, healthy and informed. While we’re practicing social distancing, we can still get social, not for promoting, instead, it’s for informing. At PostBeyond, we have our customers at the forefront of everything we do and we want to ensure everyone utilizes the tools available during difficult times.
In times like this, showing empathy and strength will give your employees reassurance. Let’s weather this together and come out better than before.
