How Social Media Can Be a Team Building Tool Too

Social media has the mystifying reputation of making people more social and less social. It’s a fair dichotomy. Yet, at the end of the day, it all comes down to how social media is used.

When used correctly, it will enhance social skills. When used incorrectly, it will hinder social skills. Social media can be a team building tool too, but only when used properly.

Here are some ways to use social media as a team building tool.

Use Social Media to Promote Team Building Events

A picture is worth a thousand words. That’s why social media pages, complete with enticing photos, will boost team building events. Millenials, who love social media, are passionate about team building event.

For example, you can make a Facebook page full of pictures of last year’s charity event in Thailand. That’s a better bet to make a splash than a mere email.

Morepover, people can make comments on event pages, a practice which encourages discussion.

Team building is all about bridge building and comments are a great way to do that.

Use Social Media to Publicly Recognize Employees

Recognizing employees is a process enhanced via social media. Some companies use bulletin boards to recognize employees, but social media allows you to recognize more people, and keep those acknowledgements up longer.

Yet, a key question remains. Does recognizing employees count as team building? In a way it seems like a competitive, perhaps even divisive, activity.

Well, it all depends how it’s done. You don’t only have to recognize the monthly sales leaders. You can acknowledge new employees, workers who engaged or excelled in team-building activities, or employees who won the office lottery.

You can make custom graphics using Canva to make the award feel more special. One advantage of social media is that you can have a lot of awards, and you don’t have to worry about clutter around the office, as you may with a physical bulletin board.

Use Social Media to Acknowledge Workers Who Are Out of the Office

There are many occasions when a worker must leave the office for an extended amount of time. For instance, sometimes people go on vacation, take time off for maternity leave, or are forced to undergo surgery.

You can use social media to acknowledge or celebrate these events. Every situation requires a different frequency, however.

If someone is on vacation, they may only require well-wishes in the beginning of the trip, and perhaps a welcome back at the end.

If someone is faced with a melancholy event, such as a surgery or illness, then more correspondence may be appropriate, depending on the person of course.

Use Social Media to Have Teams Learn Something New

Learning something fun can bring people together. For example, you can enhance team building via food and recipes.

To continue the example, a Facebook page can be made for team members who want to learn how to make easy dishes that take less than 15 minutes to create.

Then everybody can post their own pictures too. If the team has more time, then something in the nature of a book club can be created. Whatever it is, people have more fun when learning together.

Use Social Media to Hold a Friday Drinks Session

One social media platform that is often overlooked is Google Plus. More specifically, the Google Hangouts tool is a neat one for businesses.

You can have workers knock back a cold one (or soft drink/water/juice if they so prefer), and just talk. Many times in a company, people are working from all over the country, or perhaps all over the world.

Yet, the power of technology makes it easy for relationships to be maintained.

Use Social Media to Hold a Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are all about speed. So is social media. Pictures can be uploaded in the blink of an eye (or at least very close to the blink of an eye). You can use an Instagram page to facilitate a scavenger hunt.

All someone has to do is find the item, and take a selfie with it to win. This has one key advantage over a traditional scavenger hunt- people can see progress on their phones.

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, a picture is worth a thousand words. This is a great way to increase engagement.

Use Social Media to Promote Company Sports

A classic office sport is foosball. Unlike sports like basketball or football, strength or height don’t factor in too much.

Also, it’s a beginner-friendly pastime that everybody can jump into. It largely ignores the lines of gender, culture, and physical ability.

One advantage of social media is that you can film central matches (such as the championship match), and you can upload those matches to social media. For instance – you can put it on your company Twitter feed, blasting it out to your followers.

Make sure your employees are comfortable with being filmed for the public. Additionally, this is one way to be more human, more organic with your customers, and it’s a good way to upgrade your likeability factor.

Use Social Media to Hold Online Trivia Competitions

How many windows does the office have?

What’s the most common birthday month in the office?

How many HP computers does the company have?

Social media is great for quizzes, and niche office quizzes are rather fun for employees. It shows them how observant they are of the world around them, and it’s no lock the person with the highest IQ will win.

You can also make online badges for people who are successful, and they can upload those to various platforms.

Do You Use Social Media as a Team Building Tool?

Do you use social media as a team building tool? If so, how do you use it? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Author: