Oh, I have a ball using social media for H&S engagement! We use FB over the other platforms as it’s what most people use anyway, and the only extra step they have to do is join the group. We have not found it to be difficult to manage, our GM is in the group so I think that stops anything super crazy from being posted and on the other side of that anything that, anything we have to moderate we do so without making a big fuss about it. So far no problem. This group is also used for multiple streams of content, both H&S, operational, cultural building activities, employee catch ups etc so this keeps it fresh and varied. The building blocks are:

• It’s a private group on FB. So it can be found by users but only content seen by members.
• There’s an approval process to join, including group rules.
• We have moderators and admins as per normal.
• We usually have this free for all members to post content and view automatically, but currently under COVID we have placed moderator approval on posts prior to viewing and some extra rules so this has meant that content creation is down.

I tend to run campaigns rather than regular content. I also have two HSR’s that are social media savy and help out a lot. I’ve found success is all about keeping it punchy, entertaining, and relevant to your audience (my audience are millennials and Gen Z). Some of the H&S content has included:
• Intsagram style short videos. Think Tasty style cooking video changed to how to put on a respirator. Our engagement was up 33% on this campaign compared to regular posts. Had a hashtag, #safetyatfirstsight gave out some prizes for content creation which included a mystery box prize. Went down really well.
• Boomerang posts are always well received.
• We did santas H&S elf posted to our FB group.
• We had another great campaign lined up this year using the title #safetysnaps - a mix of social media and polaroid photo board but have had to postpone.
• Going live hasn’t really taken off, staff are a little nervous something will happen in the background.
• We have tried the story function but it doesn’t work for a group which is a bit disappointing as it had a lot of promise.
• Next up I want to incorporate tiktok and want to make some H&S themed GIFs. Stay tuned!

I look towards our marketing team for ideas in this space, these are the people who are experts in engagement and building brands. I’m just taking those concepts and making them fit my agenda. It was satisfying and amusing when one manager said to me, ‘Health and safety at work, and in your Facebook feed!' :)

It might be a good idea to survey potential users - my partner has joined the many people fed up with Facebook's political dealings and some of the very polarised and nasty interactions that seem to be escalating. I know of a number of people who have already deleted their Facebook accounts and I am very close to doing the same myself.....

I am just about to launch into this space also. My thoughts are to use multiple media types to maximise audience access, and have the media types back each other up.
It all sounds a bit round-a-bout but so is the makeup/demographics of my audience.
It also involves more people than the ones inside my head, and seeks to maximise the tools at our disposal since I am seeking out our tools and communications experts (my role is to supervise the material going out and not be the expert on all of the tools).
I find that this approach brings people onto the team that otherwise might not have joined, and it opens my mind up to things that I hadn't thought of.

Amy's approach is extremely similar and it sounds like her team have fun with it also.

Fun is important.

WooHoo, that's exactly the usage we want and awesome that it's working for you guys. At this point it's probably a little too relaxed security and time intensive administratively for our crew and company but as we mature with this having individual department groups could be an idea - thanks :)

Yes on fun and multi-platforms!

Just for anyone who's interested;
We looked at WhatsApp as it's a more secure platform but the apps constant need for data and storage made it impractical for 99% of our users.

We're currently trialling the Microsoft Teams function. Several of the departments started using these over lockdown so it's a logical next step plus it works well on desktops and mobiles without too much data-drag.

I suspect it may be an additional 'information dissemination' tool rather than the interactive discussion, but then it might be the digital-baby-steps we need before we go full fb.

Will let you know how we get on.

:)

:smile:

We used Teams during lockdown which was a good way to keep in touch but I would call it scrubby. Either that or the way that we used it was scrubby. Which possibly points to the issue being the time involved to set it up nicely.

My main user problem was lack of organisation to the posts so the responses to posts can end up all over the place which made it very difficult to track conversations. So there were no involved conversations held on Teams.

It was cheerful though!

I wouldn't use it as a primary tool without a good effort to set it up effectively.

If the Safeguard Forum had a private channel for an external organisation to use for H&S chat, how would that work for you?

That sounds like a great idea however the login issue is a bit of a drag. Any perceived obstacle will hinder participation.

For example if I open up all the interesting looking chats from the Safeguard Forum update email that comes out, I have to log into every page to make a comment on the chat - therefore I read but tend not to comment.

Interesting - I didn't know you have to re-log in for every chat! Probably because as Forum administrator I log in every morning and stay logged in all day, so I just read contributions as they come in.

The alternative would be that if the weekly email contains at least one thread you want to comment on, then log in at the overall Forum page (which you can keep on your Favourites) and then you can comment on anything you like, with only the one log-in.