Remote work isn’t only a 2020 trend, many companies have adopted this model ever since (and some even from way back!). Statistics show that around 16% of companies worldwide operate fully remotely. It’s not a majority, however it’s a considerable amount. And one of their biggest challenges is remote employee engagement.
Slack messages won’t be able to engage a workforce alone. That’s why a social wall might a good idea for remote teams to change the dynamic. This tool gives everyone a common space to interact asynchronously, and it’s an organic way for everyone to share what they’re up to. Here’s how it works and why it’s becoming a popular tool for remote teams.
🌼 First things first, have you got your internal communications strategy straight?
What is remote employee engagement and why is it so hard?
The term “remote employee engagement” refers to how connected remote employees feel to their work, their colleagues, and their company’s culture. This connection can be felt even when the employees are not physically at the office.
It’s hard because the informal connections that happen in the office are gone. No one sees someone celebrating a birthday. No one notices the new hire looking confused. Nobody overhears a team win. Those small moments of connection that happen naturally in a physical space have to be recreated online, and most tools aren’t designed for that.
According to the 2024 State of the Global Workplace report by Gallup, only 23% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. Remote workers often report feeling more isolated than those working in offices. The tools companies use — email, Slack, video calls — are for sending messages and doing transactions. They don’t help people connect with each other.
Boost team spirit with a social wall
👉 A culture wall might help too.
A social wall for remote teams is a live, moderated content feed that collects posts from social media and other contributions and displays them on a shared digital surface. This could be an intranet page, a Slack widget, a screen in a co-working hub, or a dedicated internal URL.
Think of it as a company notice board that’s always alive and always updating. It’s built from real content your people create.
With Walls.io, distributed teams can aggregate content from social media, or Direct Posts in the case that an employee doesn’t have or wants to use social platforms. A social wall can be paired with a number of interactivity features, such as Polls, Photo Booth, or Reactions. And the best part is your wall remains fully professional and on-brand thanks to its AI Moderation.
⭐ Learn how to use social walls to power recruitment marketing.
Why traditional remote engagement tools fall short
Most remote engagement tools send information in one direction. A newsletter is sent out. A Slack channel is added. An intranet article is published. Someone might read it (maybe). Then nothing happens.
The problem isn’t the tools; it’s the way things are done. Broadcasting makes audiences passive. Community requires contribution.
Here’s where the gap usually appears:
Recognition doesn’t travel. Someone on the Chicago team is doing something great. Their manager knows. Their direct team knows. But what about the 300 people in Berlin and Singapore? I never heard about it.
Culture is something you can’t see from far away. You can describe your culture in a values document, but you can’t show it, unless you’re collecting and displaying the actual moments where it’s happening.
Participation is unequal. Extroverts tend to dominate Zoom calls. Quieter team members, those in different time zones, and those without social media accounts disappear.
A virtual team social wall shows what’s happening and makes it visible to everyone, at the same time or not.
Here’s an example of how this works.
Sandvik Coromant, a global industrial engineering company with employees across 150 countries, used Walls.io to run global employee engagement campaigns. One of the main problems is that many employees don’t have personal social media accounts. Direct Posts solved that problem. Anyone could contribute to the company wall via QR code or link, no social account needed. The result was that more people took part, including people who had not been involved before.
⭐ Related: How Sandvik Coromant built global employee engagement with Walls.io
Another common pattern on Walls.io is that companies embed a social wall directly into their internal network or employee app. Platforms like LumApps and Staffbase work with Walls.io, so the social wall becomes a part of your daily digital environment. When remote employee engagement is a part of the tools people already use, more people participate.
➕ These employee engagement ideas might hel out.
Getting started is easier than it looks. Here’s how it works:
1. What do you want the wall to show, like important moments in your employees’ lives? Any company news? Campaign hashtags? Team wins? If you give more specific instructions, the wall will be more focused. If a wall tries to do everything, it ends up showing nothing.
2. Choose where you get your information. Connect the social media sites your team actually uses. These could be LinkedIn (content collected from pages, hashtags, and keywords), Instagram (pulled from hashtags and business profiles), or any other platform Walls.io supports. Employees who prefer not to post publicly can use Direct Posts as a source.
3. Set up moderation. Before you go live, configure AI Moderation so the feed automatically stays on-brand. For smaller teams, manual moderation works fine. You can review and approve posts before they appear.
4. Put it in the same place your team already is. You can put it on your company’s website, on your employee app, or on a special page just for employees. If you have physical office spaces or co-working hubs for employees who work from home and in the office, a screen display works well too.
5. Make it worth checking. A wall is only useful if there’s content on it. Start a campaign, add a reminder, or use an ongoing hashtag. Walls.io’s Polls are useful here. A weekly question keeps the wall active and gives people a quick way to participate without having to write a long post.
Build a social wall in less than 5 minutes.
📊 Want to convince management? Check out these employer branding statistics.
Don’t make it top-down. If the wall is just leadership announcements that are also posted as social media content, people will stop engaging with it quickly. The content that gets people involved is peer-to-peer, like employee milestones, team shoutouts, and behind-the-scenes moments.
Don’t expect people to participate organically right away. It takes a few weeks and a few intentional campaigns before a wall starts to move. Plan for a slow start with content that you can easily share before you promote it widely.
Don’t forget to set up moderation. Even in private groups, unmoderated walls can show content that’s not aligned with the brand or inappropriate. AI Moderation is quick and easy to set up. It takes less than five minutes to get it working. Once it’s set up, you don’t have to worry about manually managing the feed.
Don’t use it instead of talking to people directly. A virtual team social wall is a good addition to one-on-ones, team meetings, and manager relationships. It is not a replacement for these things. The wall creates a connection between people on a deeper level. When people talk directly to each other, they build trust.
FAQ
What is a social wall for remote teams? A social wall for remote teams is a live content feed that collects posts from social media platforms and direct contributions. It then displays these posts on a shared digital surface, such as an intranet page, employee app, or digital screen. It helps people who work in different places to connect with each other and participate in company culture, no matter where they are or what time it is.
How can a virtual team social wall help remote employees feel more engaged? It moves the way people get involved from broadcasting to contribution. Instead of constantly sending announcements to employees, a virtual team social wall gives everyone a place to participate. They can post, react, vote in polls, or simply see what colleagues are up to. Employees who work remotely feel more engaged when they feel seen and included, not just informed.
Do employees need social media accounts to use it? No. Walls.io’s Direct Posts feature lets anyone contribute to the social wall. You can do it with a QR code or link. You don’t need a social media account. This is especially important for global teams where people use social media differently, and for employees who prefer not to mix their personal and professional lives.
Can a social wall integrate with our existing intranet or employee app? Yes. Walls.io works with platforms like LumApps and Staffbase, and it can be added to any intranet through an iframe or website embed. This means the wall is part of the tools your team already uses every day.
How do you keep a remote social wall brand-safe? Walls.io’s AI Moderation automatically filters out spam and content that doesn’t match the brand before it appears on the wall. You can also set up manual pre-moderation for full control, or keyword filters to block specific terms. For walls that only go inside, the rules are usually less strict — but it’s still a good idea to set everything up before you start.
Start connecting your remote team
You don’t need a bigger budget or a new strategy for platforms to keep remote employees engaged. We need a place where real content from real people can be seen, celebrated, and responded to.
A social wall is a great way to keep remote teams connected. It’s easy to set up, simple to integrate into your team’s current workflow, and truly inclusive.