The Best LinkedIn Alternative for Powerful Networking at Your Organization

April 2022 — By T.J. Duane

What happened to that water cooler talk? Or that camaraderie while yelling across cubicles when a deal closes or a promotion is accepted?

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the work world is forever changed. According to research by FlexJobs, 65% of surveyed employees want to work remotely permanently. Another 31% of respondents want to be part of a hybrid work environment. The power has shifted from employers to employees, and companies must evolve to engage employees in innovative ways if they want to retain them.

If you’re hoping to connect your community at work in a meaningful way that spans geographic distances, LinkedIn and private community social groups are no longer sufficient.

Here’s why.

The Problem with Virtual Communities and Social Networks

At first glance, virtual communities and social networks may seem like a great way to bring geographically distant (whether remote, hybrid, or in-person) employees closer together. After all, your employees likely have social media and LinkedIn accounts already. That means virtual communities and social networks have the lowest barriers to entry for your engagement efforts, right? Well, not so fast.

While these communities may connect people, they don’t actually entice your team to build connections. Most social networks like LinkedIn are designed to encourage your employees to engage with the platform itself by liking, sharing, and commenting within a newsfeed, instead of connecting with one another. They’re built to gather data and resell it to advertisers, not provide meaningful, actionable information to the organizations that create groups on them.

LinkedIn alternatives like BrightCrowd help employees get the most out of their interactions with one another while providing organizations with valuable insights to engage and retain their most important asset – their people.

Connect Your Workplace Community in a Better Way

After being diminished to a single rectangle in a sea of tiles for the past two years, building stronger workplace connections is more critical than ever. With the right tool, you can meaningfully connect and reconnect colleagues, keep employees engaged, and retain talent. That’s where BrightCrowd comes in.

Connect and Reconnect Colleagues Anywhere

Imagine a world where virtual or hybrid meetings start with real conversations that connect your team. Instead of talking about the weather for those first awkward minutes while everyone signs on, Sharon from accounting asks Carlos from marketing how his kids are doing. He beams with pride as he brags about his daughter’s soccer team championship.

It’s an everyday reality with BrightCrowd. Our digital books allow participants to share their more personal sides, bringing real-world connections to the forefront of geographically distant colleagues. Whether you implement the service for your entire organization or a single division or team, you’ll instantly foster relationships and improve company culture in the most natural, hands-off way. With LinkedIn alternatives like BrightCrowd, you’ll watch as your employees create the kind of meaningful connections that let people bring their whole selves to work.

Enhance Employee Engagement

Even before COVID, an estimated 40 percent of workers in the United States felt isolated at work, leading to lower employee engagement and worsening overall team performance.

So how do you ensure your employees feel that they’re always in good company? Workers say that when a colleague simply asks how they’re doing, it makes them feel less alone and more engaged.

Complement your employee engagement efforts with a digital tool that naturally eliminates those feelings of isolation and turns the obstacles of geographic distance into opportunities to create profound connections. This engagement, in turn, will benefit your organization in its productivity, performance, and profit. In fact, companies with engaged employees can experience a 10%-19% increase in sales and a 14-29% increase in profits.

Improve Team Retention

In today’s job market, retaining top talent is more important than ever. When an employee leaves, you might have a position open for months – costing you money, productivity, and customers. On top of that, there’s the expense of onboarding and training a new employee (if you find one). According to the Society for Human Resource Management, replacing one employee paid $8 per hour can cost companies around $3,500!

It’s better for both revenue and company morale if you can successfully retain and engage the strong team members you have.

Companies of all sizes are trying to figure out how to keep their best employees – and it all starts with engagement. When people experience that sense of community and feel like an integral part of their team, they don’t want to leave. Those engaged employees are more likely to perform and to stay with your company for the long haul. Instead of implementing one-off experiences only some employees can attend, invest in a digital tool like BrightCrowd that everyone can participate in.

Get The Best of the LinkedIn Alternatives with BrightCrowd

Many companies are struggling to engage and retain employees in this new normal – are you one of them?

If your answer is yes, you need a solution beyond virtual communities and social networks that benefits employees and employers in a valuable and cost-effective way.

BrightCrowd is the best way to connect your community in both the workplace and beyond.

With our digital books, you’ll be able to:

  • Encourage employees to be their whole selves at work
  • Drive employee engagement, performance, and retention
  • Launch a tool that’s more cost-effective than traditional employee engagement programs and platforms
  • Foster meaningful connections that were once only built in-person
  • Implement the book almost instantly – it takes less than one day!

Are you ready to engage your employees and create that strong company culture once again? We’re ready to help. Contact BrightCrowd and request a demo today! We’ll show you how simple it is to create digital books that help engage, connect, and retain the most valuable assets of your company in a way everyone (leadership included!) will love.

T.J. Duane