Jobhop Jobhop's blog : How Social Are Your Employees?

It’s a great advantage for any business to have employees who are social, employees who have social skills can bring customers in through the front door and help propel the company brand.

If some of your employees aren’t social, don’t worry, it’s a skill that can be learned.

When you watch someone who is naturally social at a business network, they will mix with the guests, spending the right amount of time with each one before moving onto the next. You’ll notice that they make good eye contact, they laugh at the right times, they remember peoples names and make gentle contact touches which connect them to who they’re chatting with. Some people are skilled enough to replicate that in a way which translates well to online networking.

Having someone who is social offline as well as online is a valuable asset, a lot of the time it’s one or the other.

It’s usually easier training the naturally offline social butterfly to be social on-line, than the other way round, so we’’ll start with them first:

Social offline

Our mission is to get theses offline social butterflies to be just as social on-line.

They are the ones who love to go to all the great work events, the latest business awards, charity nights, fun days; you name it they’re there. They know they’re there as ambassadors for the company, doing business is their priority, but they also really enjoy it, and it shows.

Pictures

Encourage them to take plenty of pictures. The pictures could be of the venues, the awards, the amazing decor, the scrumptious food and of course the people. If they’re mingling with customers, then selfies are in order, and the same goes for potential customers. Pictures are then shared on social media, every picture tells a story, pictures give the on-line audience an insight of what goes on behind the scenes.

Tweet

You’ll find that most events have a hashtag to follow, don’t let the social butterfly ignore it! Get them to jump onto the hashtag and start networking online as well as at the event itself. There’s nothing better than chatting on a hashtag with someone at an event and then saying “hey where are you?” and then meeting up with them and starting a great new friendship.

Live stream

Live streaming is a great way of involving customers, other employees, suppliers and fans who couldn’t make it to the event. Your company ambassador can live-stream the event, get them to show the on-line world where they are and what is going on, anyone joining in on the live stream can then ask questions via text chat. Live streaming really involves the on-line world in off-line events.

Snapchat

If you’ve got a younger target audience and your social butterfly employee “gets” Snapchat, then they can create a Snapchat story. If your social butterfly is 50years plus and the target audience is of similar age, then Snapchat probably won't be the first choice, they probably won't “get” it.

The story could consist of a mixture of video and pictures, some on the way to the event, then at the event and all being good, after the event.

How do we get the on-line social butterflies to be more social offline?

Some of these on-line social butterflies are very happy to stay just online, never venturing into the off-line world. Usually, these people are quite shy but feel secure in the on-line environment and can take on a braver persona.

Social online

Skype

Ok, this is a bit of a cheat because it’s staying online, but it is one step in the right direction. One of the easiest things to do for the online social butterfly is to move a Twitter chat to a Skype chat. Taking that big step really helps to bond a relationship. If the online social butterfly regularly chats in a group, perhaps on Linkedin or Facebook then moving the discussion to a Google+ hangout or a Blab will also be a good step to take.

Google+ Hangout is a place on Google+ where many can jump on a chat together.

Blab is a place where four people can chat together; these people can swap seats with others viewing, Blabs are public.

Coffee

It’s great to be super social online but if people are local the social butterfly employee could then move it offline with an offer of coffee. A meeting like this always makes a great story “We’ve been tweeting for 12 months, and we finally get to meet!”, selfie duo and post it back online!

Tweet Up

These are going on all over the UK and are usually organised within regular Twitter chats. Your online social butterfly will know of all the good Twitter chats, and all they have to do then is show up at on of the organised Tweet-ups. Regulars who have been chatting in the chats every week turn out for Tweet-ups, it’s one of the easiest ways to cross over from online to offline networking.

MeetUp

Another great way to take social online into the offline world is encouraging your employee to hop onto meetup.com, then join some relevant groups and eventually go along to one of the meet-ups.

Let’s say your business is a language school; your employee could pop along to a coffee meet-up where the rule of the day is to try and speak Spanish, or perhaps your business sells the latest baby holdalls, then the meet-up for your employee would be relevant mums groups. There’s a meetup group for literally everything in all parts of the U.K.

Flash mob

For the very brave! Perhaps they should try a tweet-up or a meetup before embarking on a flash mob. Encouraging your employee to join in with flashmobs probably won't get the cash register ringing instantly, however, flash mob groups are very united, they quickly bond with one another, and you never know who knows who, so always think long term. Lots of secretive planning is usually done via Facebook groups, FB messenger and Whatsapp, which means they quickly build up a lot of trust with one another.

If employee happiness is a priority of your company then being part of a flash mob is pure happiness. Your employee will learn confidence, time keeping, collaboration, as well as networking skills. Joining a flashmob isn’t too difficult, once you know where to look.

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