Do You Need Employee Involvement in Your Online Community?

In my last post I discussed identifying stakeholders – internal and external – in order to attract the kind of members that will help your get the most out of your online community efforts. After analyzing all the potential member groups, you’re ready to decide whom to include in your community, whether an external member base comprised of clients or partners, an internal community that mainly supports those inside your organization, a community that combines everyone, or two or more separate communities with different goals and missions.

According to digital strategist James Davidson, internal online communities took-off during the recession when companies were forced to cut back and employees needed to work harder to keep their jobs. Employees went online in droves to solve problems, get support and stay ahead of challenges in the workplace, and their companies provided them with online communities as a cost-effective solution. 

While a major stakeholder group, employees can be difficult to engage, however. Unless you are running a community exclusively for them, as the economy shifts, you may have to focus on the difficult and costly task of courting your employees. It makes sense then to decide if including employee members in your community plan is a good ROI for your company.

Ask yourself the following four questions before trying to attract employee community members:

1. How mature is my online community and what is its relationship to my organization’s staff?

Whether you are new or established, take a hard look at whether employees are on board with the community. How much do they know about your online presence? How much does their work affect the goals of your online community? Are your co-workers generally supportive, indifferent or hostile to your goals? If you are just starting your community it may be more cost-effective to include them in your plan than if you need to launch a new initiative or “sell” the benefits of online participation to a reluctant audience.

2. How would employee participation enhance my community and brand?

Would you be likely to increase brand loyalty by introducing users to those intimately involved in the production of your widget? Might testimonials by employees that use your product enhance its cachet? These are just some of the ways employee participation can enhance your community.

If your community membership is mainly product fans, for example, it may make sense to spend the extra effort to attract employees. If you sell products, you might consider how employees might answer questions and help customers to trouble-shoot, or provide testimonials and insider content about how the product is made. Alternatively, your staff might even solicit ideas for design and marketing. 

3. How might the community enhance my employees’ satisfaction and productivity?

If you deal with an idea or service, getting employees to share the responsibility for generating content might foster more interesting engagement and deeper conversations about how to market, sell or improve your product. If your company is in the manufacturing sector, engaging online can encourage and inspire workers in your production line, or on your marketing team or sales force.

Small companies might find an online community to be the perfect knowledge base for employees who wear many hats or who work more independently. By utilizing different conversation threads, your online community might foster better communication and function as the virtual water cooler for employees who are geographically scattered.

Showcasing exceptionally good work within your community could encourage more pride in workmanship or increase healthy competition for productivity among your staff.

4. How might employees interact with customers and other stakeholders to serve the goals of the community and the organization?

Besides those listed above, there are countless ways that employees might interact with other stakeholders in online communities. Community participation might generate sales leads or augment live events with follow-up photos, Q&A, etc.

Teams from various company departments might find common ground online, particularly if you incentivize participation. Try running a contest or highlighting team projects on a rotating basis to rouse healthy competition.

Online communities are also a good way to share and storehouse information between disparate groups such as industry advocates and company insiders with similar needs to curate the latest trends.

Lastly, involving company executives is a good way to get everyone – employees, customers, prospects and other stakeholders – buzzing in your online community.