The Sockies 2017 takes place this week in the RDS, Dublin, celebrating the very best in social media. Not all businesses are prolific on social media, so we wanted to share some hints and tips to help you kick-start a social media profile and run a successful campaign.

Social media policy

At Springboard, we know that social media can be a team effort! Asking your team to pitch in to help you post frequent content is useful, but you must make sure that you invest in a well written social media policy which outlines the rules, best practices, and dos and don’ts of social media in the workplace.

Social media policies should include guidelines and rules on using personal social media during work hours:

• Speaking on behalf of the company
• Bullying and harassment
• Expressing personal opinions about the company
• Sharing of information such as numbers, internal communications, projects, clients, performance data

Team updates

A good way to introduce your team to the company’s social media platforms is via a weekly/monthly email, with the upcoming hashtags, competitions, events and product promotions to keep your employees engaged. Using a website such as www.clicktotweet.com to create ready-made tweets which they can post in one click to their own Twitter page is a very effective method to drive engagement.

If you want your team to engage with content on your social media platforms, it needs to be interesting and fun. Why not try videos or pictures of:

• Company/employee achievements (Check out Susie’s latest achievement here)
• Company days out
• Events (See Springboard’s recent video from the Cork Midsummer launch here)
• Behind-the-scenes pictures

LinkedIn

When considering social media, we all need to make a conscious effort not to forget about the power of LinkedIn. A strong and up-to-date LinkedIn company page can increase confidence in your staff and raise your company profile. Here are some ideas for posts on LinkedIn:

• Status updates about the staff and their certifications,
• Posts on company or staff awards and recent successes
• Guest articles from staff which have been in the media
• Pictures from CSR initiatives
• Status updates about events the team have attended

Check out the Springboard PR & Marketing LinkedIn profile HERE to see what content we post weekly.

Post by Susie Horgan

Susie founded Springboard in 2011, and has developed the business into a leading, director-led communications agency. She has worked for over 20 years in senior marketing and public relations roles.