Is Social Media Effective in a Professional Setting?

We are living in a digital age and social media has become a part of regular life. We wake up in the morning and check Twitter or Facebook to see what happened over night. We “check in” at various locations like Starbucks or the gym to let our friends/followers know what we’re up to. We follow our favorite celebrities, TV shows and movies, philanthropic, political or social causes, and companies to stay up to date with current news regarding our interests. We tag our friends in posts, share or repost articles and recipes to our feed and like photos, memes and other content that tickles our fancy.

It only makes sense that our use of social media would filter into the workplace. Businesses can use social media as a tool to engage and connect with their publics. 

Social media has changed the advertising game by creating a now two-way communication opportunity as opposed to the traditional one-way advertising of yesteryear.

- Social Media Communication, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz 

As consumers like, comment and share things on social media, those same actions benefit the businesses who post the content by extending the viewership of their marketing material.

Should all businesses have a social media presence? It seems like these days, if you aren’t online, you’re behind the times. However, I tend to think that social media may not make sense for every industry. Take for example, the gaming industry. Having worked for a large casino in the Chicagoland area for over a decade, I’ve become familiar with some of our social media trends, best practices and pitfalls.

We have established social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. With over 85,000 likes and nearly the same number of followers, our Facebook page sees a lot of traffic; the most out of all of our social accounts. As a casino, our content primarily consists of marketing promotions, jackpot hits and open job positions.

While the majority of content we elect to post is meant to engage our patrons in hopes that they’ll stop by our casino to game, dine or take in a show, we also share what steps we take toward corporate social responsibility. A casino is typically seen as a business that just takes and takes, so it’s important for us to show how much we give back as well. And we give back quite a bit. Our employees donated nearly $35,000 to local charities and volunteered close to 15,000 hours in 2018. Those are stats worth sharing!

Our team of dedicated employees are very active in our community and we make sure to let our guests know what our company does to make our community a better place to work and play. In addition to informing the public about our volunteerism, it’s also a shameless plug for our good-doing. 

Whether promoting social good is interpreted as acting appropriately on social responsibility, or if it appears that we’re trying to advance on our own personal agenda and improve our professional public image, is still up for debate.

- Social Media Communication, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz 

Horseshoe Casino volunteer HERO's standing near a van donated to our local Meals on Wheels by our grant program called Caesars Foundation. Our volunteers washed 16 delivery vehicles as part as a Senior Appreciation event.

Sharing our corporate responsibility efforts through social media also provides our guests the opportunity to like, share and comment on our posts. Our followers will often tag a friend in response to our volunteerism posts or share our good-doing to their personal page, further propelling our positive stories through the social media-sphere. Followers will also suggest new non-profits for us to work with which helps us expand our ever-growing network of community partners. These connections are able to form organically which typically results in long lasting relationships between our casino and our local non-profits.

For our business, social media is influential to our company. It gives us an opportunity to reach out to our guests in a non-obtrusive way, and also lets our guests reach out to us. Traditional media doesn’t offer that level of connectivity that we’ve grown so accustomed to. Social media definitely has a place in the professional world and I think most business have either found or are working to find their footing in creating a successful online presence.