Social Media and Employee Volunteering
Today’s post comes from Shari Ilsen, Online Communications Manager at VolunteerMatch. It originally appeared on Volunteering is CSR on June 15th, and is an introduction to an eight-part series on social media and employee volunteering programs. You can follow the series here.
Do you use social media to engage employees in your corporate volunteer program?
At this year’s Client Summit in Chicago, we wanted to hear your answers. We had three packed Best Practice Café sessions about social media and employee volunteer programs.
When our robust conversations created more questions and sparked more discussion, we realized this is an area that’s relevant for anyone coordinating employee volunteers, and that the conversation is only just beginning.
Below is a short description of the topics we covered during the sessions. Over the next couple weeks we’ll be diving more deeply into each of these topics in a special blog series entitled “Social Media and Employee Volunteering.” Think of this as a jumping-off point to explore how social media could impact your employee volunteer program.
Studies show that the demographics using social media the most are Millennials, minorities and city-dwellers. Chances are these make up a pretty big chunk of your employee population. Which means chances are your employees already use social media, even if it’s not with official company sanction or on company time. Why should you embrace it as a tool to help your employee volunteer program? It’s all about storytelling and the power of authentic relationships to help your EVP thrive.
The biggest obstacle faced by volunteer programs is getting executives and other decision-makers to agree to open social media up to employees in the first place. Many companies block social media sites on work computers for confidentiality and/or productivity reasons. Address the concerns of your CEO and others by tailoring your proposal to allay their concerns and show them how the use of social media will help you reach your goals for your employee volunteer program.
A social media policy is the answer to a very important question: How do you ‘guide’ your employees to say the things you want them to say on social media (and not say the things you don’t), while still allowing them their personal voices? In addition to crafting a policy for social media use by your employees, it’s important to provide them with the training necessary to follow and make the most of this policy. There are some great examples of social media policies used by other companies in the full article.
The most important thing to remember when it comes to integrating social media into the workflow of whatever else you have to do in your job role is one simple phrase: social media is just a tool. Coupled with excellent internal communications among departments, social media will quickly feel like just another (small) part of your routine.
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Getting Followers and Participation in Social Media for Your Employee Volunteer Program
There are two golden rules for building a following and getting participation in your social media channels, which will work especially well with a cohesive target audience like your employees: Integrate and Incentivize.
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Great Examples of Social Media and Employee Volunteering
It’s unfortunately fairly difficult to find examples of companies using social media as part of their employee volunteer programs, and even harder to find any that empower their employees to do so. We’ve found a few for you that provide a look at how you can take advantage of this powerful tool and the difference it could make for your employee volunteer program.
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General Social Media Tips for Your Employee Volunteer Program
General best practices shared at the Summit by our client community for setting up and using social media tools for your employee volunteer programs
Don’t forget – this is an ongoing series! The remaining posts will be on VolunteerMatch’s Volunteering is CSR blog soon! You can .
