Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Get Social To Flow In 5 Steps

First of all let me explain how important social is...

Social engages your employees
Social gets a message out to the masses
Social gives your business reach
Social is fun
Social allows your customers a real insight
Social builds loyalty

Social is an energy, it’s the blood flowing in the arteries, it’s freedom, it’s warm, it’s serious, it’s also fun and it feels natural.

Can you say your place of work feels like that? You can’t force anyone to be social but you can encourage it and show your employees the way to be social.

Ideas Wall

The point of this is to get everyone to open up, not just think it, but to own their thought, be brave and put it out there.

All you need is one designated wall and lots of different colour post it notes. When anyone has an idea they take a post it note, write that idea on there and then stick it on the ideas wall. Ideas can range from more toilet rolls in the loos, a place to park bikes, comfy chairs, healthy snacks, remove clocks, create wall art, to more elaborate ideas like a cyber warrior day to test site security or a new app which will double turnover.

What’s nice about the ideas wall is that it generates buzz, they’ll be some amazing ideas, wacky ones, silly ones, it will bring people together, you’ll see employees get excited, especially when ideas start to materialise. There will be plenty to share, pictures of the wall growing, ideas that make it, prototypes that didn’t quite make it, customers voting on ideas, happy employees... all of which is social.

Celebrate everything

Most people love a celebration, it’s a great way of really being social.

If you’re stuck for ideas of what to celebrate, you should read 6 workplace celebrations that should be celebrated

Once employees are in the habit of celebrating everything it then becomes a massive workplace social event. There’s the organising, the “keeping it secret” bit, food, cards, decorations, all which contributes to a social work environment. The type of content generated from celebrations tends to attract talent, who wouldn’t want to work for you when it looks so social!

Create a video

Videos are so much fun! Of course you’ll always have someone who will say “arghhhh”, that’s ok, they can stand at the back.

The video can be about a regular day at the company, a social event or even a video to attract more talent. Whatever type of video you choose to do just make sure everyone is involved, everyone has ownership of it, that means organising it, costumes, scripts etc...

Creating a company video will bring everyone together, it’s fun, it’s social but it can also be serious and can have a massive impact. You’d be surprised at how many views a video can get! Watch this simple zappos employee sing along video ...The Zappos Family A video like this can be recreated anywhere, it’s great fun, it’s what social is about!

Run a marathon

Or bake cakes. Whatever you choose to do you’re doing it for a cause or the community. There’s nothing more bonding or more social than everyone working together to do something for others. It’s good for the soul, heart and head and achieving something which is more than work related is greatly satisfying. Internal social now becomes external social, not only will your employees be sharing pictures or videos but other participants and onlookers will do as well. Not only will your employees bond and be social with each other, it becomes bigger than that!

Get a slide

There’s this really cool company called Liftshare who have their head office down the road from us in Norwich and guess what, they’ve got a slide! The thing is, these guys completely understand social and a slide is just the cherry on the cake. What I’m saying is don’t rely on a slide to make your company social, it’s the same with bar football, you can’t all of a sudden expect everyone to start playing if they’re not social with each other in the first place. That’s why “get a slide” ( or bar football ) is number 5 and last on the list, once you know social is flowing through the veins of the company, only then get the cherry on the cake, not before!

JOIN Jobhop and spread the word.

Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk

Pic credit World Bank