Four creative ways to launch your employee communications platform

5 min read

You did it. You launched your employee communications platform, got your team registered and sent out your welcomes and announcements. People are logging in and you’re posting more and more content. Now what?

Maybe you’re worried that after a few months it won’t be the shiny new feature and you want to plan ahead to get your team to log in and use the site on a regular basis.

Or maybe you’re already at the point where you seem to be struggling to drive people to the site – you’re not seeing the views you were expecting, and your team is missing out on valuable information.

Fear not! It’s one thing to roll out a communications platform, but it’s an entirely different task to get people to consistently go to it and consider it a regular, day-to-day resource. Here are four ideas for getting people to your site:

1. Plan it out and be consistent

Help your team build a habit of reading your posts by starting your own habit on the back end for creating content.

Create a schedule for yourself – a calendar with content topics if you want – and stick to it. 

At the very least, plot out a list of authors and due dates for when they need to get you the content for blog posts or articles. This will help you create an employee communication strategy and establish a simple process that will keep the flow of content and prevent long gaps in between posts.

Why not make Friday the "People News" day, where you update the company on new starters and employees that are leaving? You can celebrate employee anniversaries and let everyone know of people that have moved into new roles.

You can even use this opportunity to interview an employee, creating a stronger connection with employees, their colleagues and the organisation as a whole. This can then in turn encourage employees to reach out via eCards for moments of recognition and congratulations.

2. Check in with your people

Not sure what your team thinks about the communications platform? Well, ask them to determine how to make your employee communications stand out!

It’s simple: Conduct a poll or run a short survey. 

Find out if the content you’re posting feels relevant to them in their role or in staying informed about what’s going on in the company. Ask what they want to see more or less of. Find out their favourite article or post from the past three months. See if you can uncover the obstacles that might be getting in their way.

Not only will you gain insight on what type of content your team likes and dislikes, you’ll also show your team that their opinion matters, which helps improve engagement with your program.

Also, remind your team to interact with blogs and articles through tagging, comments and reactions. Taking the time to respond to comments will go a long way in reinforcing social activity – especially if leadership does it too.

3. Mix it up

Variety is the spice of life. Avoid letting one person run the show. Strive for different writing styles and different tones of voice by asking for input from multiple authors. Give people a variety of perspectives that really shows off the wonderfully diverse group up individuals that make up your team.

Storytelling improves employee communications and everyone has a story to tell.

A lot of times people in one area of your company may not know what people from another are working on day to day. Input from varied sources creates a nice mix of content and it also connects departments, locations and teams.

And if you want to ensure that your leadership team are visible and interacting with employees, a CEO or Leadership update is a great way to achieve this. Scheduling a regular update not only will ensure that you are getting the valuable buy-in from senior level management in your communication strategy, it is also a great way for them to provide crucial business information, allowing employees to feel more connected to the company’s overall mission and goals.

4. Make it fun!

Get creative! Don’t be afraid to create a fun interactive event around your blog to get people engaged. 

People love to hear stories about their colleagues’ pets and when the photos come out on the phone you have a very captive audience. Why not have a blog featuring the famous pets of the company?

Employees can provide pictures and a brief bio of their pooch or kitty or tortoise and you can even vote for the biggest, the fluffiest, the best dressed, the most energetic! Votes can be cast by comments or likes, creating a very interactive way for employees to engage with the platform or each other.

Last year, we hosted our very first Woof Awards and encouraged our global employees to submit photos of their K-9 friends.

These are just a few quick ways to help you get people to engage with your communications platform, but there are endless possibilities. What are some tactics that have worked well with your team? Share your ideas in the comments!