The Benefits of Showcasing Your Company Culture on Social Media

Rare is the company today that hasn’t realized, and capitalized on, the popularity of social media to sway consumers and sell products. The trouble is, that’s a lot of noise for shoppers to sift through and a lot of brands singing the same tune everybody knows by heart by now:

“Widget A is better than Widget B because, because, because …”

There’s another kind of messaging that businesses are beginning to use in their social media branding efforts, and it’s all about company culture. Read on to find out why this presents an advantage for businesses, why consumers respond well to it, and how your own enterprise can begin showcasing company culture on social channels.

• Why Should Companies Engage in Culture-Based Marketing?

The most obvious reason why culture-focused marketing resonates so well on social is because it provides consumers with something they want: a transparent company that cares about people. This is true for shoppers and employees alike:

• Incredibly, millennials — now the dominant cohort in the U.S. workforce — would sacrifice up to $7,600 in salary per year if it meant working for a company with a more appealing culture.

• A majority of shoppers prefer to do business with socially conscious companies, meaning those that emphasize healthy workplaces as well as social and cultural engagement.

If you were a skeptic about showing off your company culture on social media, hopefully this helps persuade you. As an employer, you want to hire people who seek you out based on the likely cultural fit, and who relate in a personal way to the values you’ve chosen to present to the world. Showing off how you care for your people and the measures you take to give back to the community ensures you can hire for talent and skills. It also shows your enthusiasm for what others will bring to your stated objectives, missions and values.

Consumers will react positively to this kind of messaging as well. Workers’ rights and movements for positive cultural changes among employers are mainstream social issues right now. That means brands that speak a little softer about their products but a little more assertively about their workplace cultures will position themselves for a more positive impression in the public. These companies are the ones more likely to stay the course.

• Tips for Showing Off Your Culture on Social Media

The remaining question is how your company can begin to put your best foot forward on social media by showcasing your culture. Here are a few tips for getting started:

• When polled, as many as 90% of people under 29 say social media is their primary and preferred way to interact with potential employers. Use your channels to prove why you’re a company worth working for, and turn your social pages into a one-stop recruiting weigh station by combining your cultural messaging with calls for job applicants.

• Maybe your office or your company headquarters is a work of art in its own right. Perhaps it incorporates the latest green technologies and does a lot more with a lot less. This is an unconscious selling point for the rest of your portfolio. If you impress people with the quality of your building or manufacturing site, they’ll feel comfortable putting their faith in the rest of your products.

• No matter what else is going on with your company culture, it’s past time you had a blog. It’s a great tool for educating your customers about your products and how to use them, but it’s also a wonderful way to let your regular readers peer behind the curtain. Show customers how the company is run, how your products are made and what daily life is like at your company. This is a hugely beneficial exercise in humanizing your brand.

• While you’re at it, give your most enthusiastically evangelical employees the opportunity to sound off about why they love working for you or how their workload helps them balance their careers and personal lives. You could even make it an “open mic” situation and let them wax philosophical about their hobbies, aspirations or whatever else they think your audience might benefit from. This kind of free, enthusiastic material is worth its weight in gold.

• One of the most important company culture elements you can highlight on your social channels is recognizing and rewarding employees for going the extra mile. When asked, some 69% of employees say they’d put in more effort if their employer handed down more recognition. Assuming the product offerings are similar, it’s probably safe to assume that 100% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that brags about its employees in public than one that doesn’t.

There are lots of other ways companies can engage in culture-based marketing on social media. If your business is located in an appealing area with walkable features, restaurants, amenities or a rich history, this is another piece of culture you’ll want to highlight. Employees that have access to coffee shops or green areas they can walk to are likelier to take restorative breaks from their work and be more creative overall.

Whether you’re trying to reach future customers, employees or both, they’ll want to know the people you depend on are encouraged to do their best work each day while remaining healthy and energized.

There’s little downside here, except for the bit of effort it’ll take to start putting together content for your social channels. Whether it’s a video interview with a longtime employee, a tour of your factory or a chance for your team members to guest-blog on your website, giving your audience a more humanistic look at what you do delivers a host of benefits and, more than likely, a healthier bottom line.

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