Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
In our first two posts on this topic, we outlined why a social strategy is important and how to get started. In this post we are going to cover ways to help drive engagement. (A social media outlet with no engagement is pretty boring. Have you checked out MySpace recently?)
By now you should have already worked with your Core Team to set up the key groups inside your business. If you haven't done that yet – go back to Part 2. :)
After you’ve set up your groups the next step is get people to start sharing into the group. Old habits die hard – so you have to really work to get people to stop emailing so much information and start posting it to Yammer.
1) Designate a ‘lead’ for each group. That lead is responsible for taking any emails that may be relevant to the group and redirecting the conversation to Yammer. For example, if John sends an email to the Marketing Team that says: “I just received the last proof from the designers (attached to this email), please respond with your thoughts.” – your lead would respond (preferably quickly) and say: “I have moved this conversation to the Marketing Yammer Group, please post your comments to that thread.”.
2) Get your leadership team on board. Studies show people have to hear something 7 times before it starts to stick. Remind your leadership team (often) that conversations should be started on Yammer, not on email.
3) One of my favorite engagement techniques is to post something to Yammer that involves a treat for those who are actually paying attention. One Thursday I posted that I would take anyone to lunch that responded that they were interested in tagging along via Yammer. We had a great (long) lunch and the folks who weren’t engaged on Yammer missed out on a great time and a good meal.
4) Use mentions to draw people into conversations. Similar to ‘tagging’ friends on Facebook – you can @mention individuals in Yammer posts. This is a great way to let people know that they are needed to engage in a conversation. In the example below, Julian has @mentioned Molly Clark to alert her to the conversation.
5) Use hashtags to make content easily searchable. In the example below, Jamie has used the open enrollment tag so that the post is easily found via searching.
