Friending. Tweeting. Now, Pinning? It is hard to ignore Pinterest, growing at a record-setting pace to become the third most visited social site in the world this year and valued at over $7 billion. Individuals can share recipes and marketers can promote products on Pinterest, but can businesses use the social site to engage employees? Absolutely! Here are basic trends companies can adopt to their advantage!
Breaking Down Barriers
Pinterest makes it possible for different levels of employees to interact, from the mailroom to corporate offices. Colleagues can view each others’ pins, comment on those pins, and re-pin content. B2ecomm suggests that executive leadership easily pin articles, infographics, or videos for employees to see or read, encouraging a constant flow of communication and more accessibility to upper level management. Pinterest creates a new way to connect across huge enterprises and combat disengagement in the process.
Collecting Ideas
By encouraging employees to pin on company boards featuring questions or topics, businesses can gather visual perspectives to solve problems or even make decisions. Pinning offers employees a unique way to participate in conversations that shape when, how, and where they work. Mashable discovered several excellent examples of how different companies are using Pinterest to create discussions. (Of course, all boards on Pinterest are public, so be careful not to reveal sensitive company information.)
Promoting Company Culture
Many companies, including Constant Contact and Hubspot, have boards that feature behind-the-scenes pictures or videos of day-to-day operations. By showcasing office environments and visuals from retreats, conferences, and parties, businesses display employee engagement in action and offer an inside look at company perks or benefits. This is also an excellent opportunity to attract potential employees by showing company culture, and could also be used to express business standards, ethics, and points of difference in a new way.
Building Employee Interaction
Some businesses pin pictures and information introducing employees–a resource not only for clients, but ideal for fostering relationships among fellow colleagues too. This type of social media introduction could be a great tool to network internally within businesses, as well as build teams for projects in different office locations. Pinterest also has the potential to recognize and reward great work by employees through pins, re-pins, or even custom boards.
Having Fun!
The whole idea behind Pinterest is to share beautiful things and, in the process, build community. In terms of employee engagement, any social media platform that can make working and socializing with other employees enjoyable, attractive, and fun is worth consideration. Not all boards or pins have to be about employee information, posing questions, or reading infographics. They can just be for fun–when employees take breaks from work to rest and re-energize.
With every new individual and corporate member, the uses of Pinterest in social business are changing. Companies who embrace the possibilities for employee engagement on Pinterest will definitely experience benefits–not to mention lots of re-pins.
