Do you think the reason most employees don't post company messages is due to social fatigue - people don't want to be seen to drone on about their work the whole time? How do you persuade employees to allow choir to post on their behalf? Maybe I am misunderstanding, but there is no way I would give anybody else access to post through my accounts?
@robtregaskes hi Robert. I totally get where you're coming from. But today most employees aren't sharing company stuff, LinkedIn estimates as little as 2%. There are many that aren't that active on social media, because they either don't see the value, don't have the time or just don't want to. Choir is a way to open this door and show them the possibilities, while saving them the time and hassle of posting on their own.
Persuading them is about showing the time savings and the value it creates. Some of our initial users have seen initial push back, but through communication and trial runs, employees quickly see the benefits.
There are some that absolutely won't allow their company to post for them, like you. And that's fine. It's not built for those that are already great at social media, it's really about engaging the other 98%.
Thanks for your comments and questions. Any more? Please fire away.
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@chriskubbernus@robtregaskes fair enough. I'm not sure I can see where the value is for the employee though. Sure if they have an equity position then they benefit from the companies success, but in the more mainstream scenario of a straight salaried employee I really can't see it working. The scenarios where the employee is happy to post about company updates is probably the one Choir isn't needed for as they post already. Perhaps having an approval queue so the employee has the final veto might help?
@robtregaskes Hey Robert, I actually had many thoughts about an approval queue, so spot on there. In regards to salaried employees, I mean we all wanna work for successful companies right? We as employees benefit from that as well. Or at least I'd hope so, otherwise we work from some selfish employers. And social media is a tool to help bring that success. That might sound altruistic, so the straight benefit to employees is exposure - they get more exposure on social, which in turn beef's up their credibility and makes them more likely to succeed in their careers. It also saves a lot of time. Those who post already also benefit from the time saving. You could imagine if a company has 200 people, each posting once a day (3 minutes), that's 10 hours every day that could be spent on building the next great product, that's 50 hours a week!
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Hunter
@chriskubbernus at Xpand we use social media often for work and as consultants who can blend a job we are advertising, it would be nice to have others who could post direct to my account. I wouldn't have an issue, especially if it's relevant to what I'm working on.
Isn't this a bit disrespectful of employees privacy?
Would a simpler way of solving the lack of employee sharing be to email them about news and make it simpler to share it from the email? Or just talk to them and ask?
@thricha hey Tom thanks for the comment and question. The app can't see anything that's not public. For example it doesn't pull information regarding the time they spend on social or if they are connected with job recruiters, etc... And we really wanted to be mindful of employees privacy, the app simply allows for posting and pulls basic stats like how many likes and mentions.
Unfortunately, emailing and asking isn't working. People forgot or the don't prioritize it and it ends up really affecting the potential reach and success of campaigns/messages. Plus employees start feeling guilty and avoiding the social media manager because they don't want to be asked again. It can be really ugly and not fun. I've seen it first hand and this is why I've created Choir.
@chriskubbernus Thanks for the response :).
If asking isn't working its probably to do with the message being spread and the form of communication. Companies hold significant sway over employees lives and this is a fairly inconsiderate way of treating staff.
Excite your employees about your news - hell if they aren't excited by it no one else is going to be.
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Hunter
@thricha I sort of disagree with this, especially if your company culture is really good. I'm happy to help post / like / spread the word, but often it's a few steps that I would rather not deal with, I just skip it. I think choir could help make the process more efficient, especially when there is trust.
@thricha I agree fully! You're preaching to the Choir, haha, no pun intended. Sometimes it's not that black and white. I wish it was. I wish it was as simple as having great news and having a company that has a great culture that is into sharing. But the truth is that many companies are losing the 'social' battle. And we want to help in some way. Perhaps after seeing results and getting more reach with their messages, they can see the light. :)
@nzieber@thricha good points Nick. It's not always about not wanting to post or not thinking the news is exciting enough. Sometimes it just comes down to time management.
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There's a reason that only 2% of employees share company posts, i.e. no one wants to be the corporate drone plugging their company on personal accounts. If your company news was interesting, you wouldn't have to force people to share it. Doesn't seem like there's a market for this.
@bryantpeng hi Bryant, I respect your opinion but you're only partially right. People don't share for many reasons. I have personal experience with this. Some don't share because they don't feel it's interesting. But most by far don't share because they're busy doing their job, which is how it should be. Others don't share because they simply don't know how to. I don't know how many times a link or a hastag is forgotten by someone and they get frustrated and next time don't want to share because it makes them feel stupid.
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@chriskubbernus@bryantpeng Some pretty bold generalizations about employee behavior, but if they're based on user research & not anecdotal evidence then I'm sure you'll have no trouble getting sign-ups.
After reading all the comments and your responses @chriskubbernus, I think Choir would actually be ideal for certain companies and/or certain employees. Sure, there's people who can see this as an invasion of privacy, but maybe for a startup (which you know, social media is basically their way to get known) it would be perfect because sometimes employees either don't have the time or they don't know how to share the 'updates' in a certain way.
Anyway, I think Choir promises to be an excellent tool for that and I'm already signing up. There's a few people in my team so I know they will be totally up for this. Great work!
@rutgerteunissen thanks Rutger. I think you're right. It isn't for everyone. We want to focus on a particular segment and go where the market will be. As social media expands and more and more companies see the benefits, plus more and more companies/people get better at it, a solution that helps them scale it in an easy way will be important - Choir aims to be in that mix.
Why would any employee ever want to sign up for this unless you pressure them into doing it...
seriously, explain it to me. If I as an employee am excited about something that is happening at my company I will share that news. But I do not give them free reign over my social media accounts... especially not to become part of (what essentially amounts to) a social media botnet...
Also, you can be sure that if I see the EXACT same tweet from multiple twitter users over and over and over again, all praising something that their company did I will mark every single tweet of those as spam and report them for it. Because they should learn how social media works and this isn't how.
@sleinadsanoj hey Jonas. Employees sign up NOT because they are pressured to do so but because they see the value in it for themselves and their company. The other option is to email and ask them to share every time. Which might be considered even more pressure. You are not like the majority of employees - you understand social media and how it works, so props to you - but sadly many do not. You wouldn't be the target audience.
Also, employees can opt-out at anytime so free reign is a bit of an exaggeration.
I'm guessing you probably don't follow every employee of a specific company, so your feed won't be cluttered with the same messages, so you'd never see it as spam. Which brings me to an important question - what do you see as spam? People sharing the same exciting news about their company? I wouldn't and many others wouldn't see that as spam. I think it really depends on the news and which company. If I'm following employees of that company and the company itself, I would be interested in the news. I mean I followed them for a reason right.
FYI, we are also working on a throttle that would stagger the posting.
Thanks for your comments Jonas, i really appreciate it. These are critical issues, and you're bringing them into the light. So cheers.
@nzieber great question! Choir allows you to connect all your team's social profiles on a mass scale. You simply copy and paste their emails in and then a permission request email (which you can edit yourself) is sent. Team members than click a link in the mail and connect their profiles. You can send out thousands and connect thousands of accounts. In Buffer you're limited and the top tier account only allows for 150 accounts. Also the mechanism for connecting these accounts in much simpler in Choir.
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