January 15, 2021
As we all (should) know, social media is a valuable, even essential, tool for connecting businesses with a wider audience. At Aria Marketing, in addition to our public relations work, we lead social media programs for our healthcare clients, developing organic and paid content to boost sales and increase their digital reach. Through social media channels, our clients can share relevant news stories, promote recent coverage, and connect with other industry leaders. But, creating great social media content can only go so far; engagement from employees and a broader audience is needed to propel the content, and company, forward.
When it comes to social media, one thing to keep in mind is that most platforms rely on algorithms to deliver content to their users based on relevancy rather than merely displaying content in chronological order. While each platform’s algorithm works differently, quality engagement increases the likelihood that a post will be seen. Tagging relevant accounts and using hashtags can encourage broader industry engagement, but encouraging employee engagement is critical in order to make the algorithms highlight the content.
While engagement is a difficult thing to control, a solid social media strategy can help ensure the right content is seen by the most people. Employee engagement can help organically boost the post’s reach as the algorithm will be more likely to deem the content relevant and push it out to more followers beyond those who already follow the company.
Unfortunately, not all forms of engagement are weighted the same. A “like” or reaction, while being the easiest form of engagement, universally provides the least value as it is largely a passive action. Alternatively, commenting on or replying to a post is one of the highest forms of engagement as it forces the user to take an action and actively connect with the poster. For example, highlighting a recent hire on LinkedIn provides a great opportunity for employees to welcome them to team and encourage colleagues to do the same, therefore increasing the post’s visibility through active engagement. A team member hitting the “share” button and republishing the post on their own page is also incredibly important as it further expands the content’s reach.
When employees comment on or share a post, they can add their own perspective or context to it. This allows them to further explain the content to their followers and to use relevant hashtags, such as #healthcare or #interoperability, to engage with the community. Employees can quickly retweet a piece of coverage the employer has shared and add in something like “Great article from our CEO on the recent #interoperability rule delays!”
Oftentimes, employees have more pressing tasks on their plate, and engaging with a company’s social media channels can fall off the radar. This is a great opportunity for the marketing team to generate and share pre-drafted content that employees can quickly paste in when sharing posts. Internally developed content can also help shape the message that the post is promoting while leveraging the right hashtags and tagging the appropriate accounts.
While broader community engagement is important, encouraging employees to take part in the company’s social media efforts is a vital piece to the digital puzzle that should not be overlooked. There is a lot more to social media than meets the eye, and employee engagement is just the tip of the iceberg. With the right partner, a company can publish social media content that both employees and the broader industry will want to engage with and highlight.
If you are looking to build out your social media program, contact Aria President Scott Collins (scollins@ariamarketing.com) for details. While social is on the brain, be sure to follow Aria Marketing on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
