Did you know that your employees can be your biggest brand asset? Happy employees talk positively about the work they are doing and about job opportunities at their place of employment. Research conducted by LinkedIn shows, on average, “your employees have a network that is 10 times larger than your company’s follower base.” As a result, jobs shared by employees yield a 30% higher rate of applications and a 37% lower rate of attrition for hires influenced by employees.
It’s likely that your employees are on social media, but they may not know what is acceptable to post. You can, and should, empower them with branded tools so they can confidently share about your company to their social networks, making them your best and most authentic brand advocates in the process.
Here are a few steps you can take to get started:
1) Create a Social Media Policy.
Make sure your employees know what is approved to post about your brand on social media. Then, make it easy for them by providing training sessions on the company’s social media policy and giving them access to reference documents. A good employee social media policy will:
• Provide guidance on legal and confidential materials so employees know what should NOT be shared outside your company.
• Clarify when employees need to include a disclaimer when sharing content from your company blog.
• Provide an approved hashtag list for your employees to select from when promoting your brand.
• Provide guidance on your brand’s voice and tone.
2) Ask employees to share content on your company social media channels.
Based on your digital marketing plan, let your employees know on which social media channels your brand is focused.
• Provide a comprehensive content library for your employees across all company positions, from the top down. If your digital marketing plan is heavily image based (Instagram or Facebook), create a repository of image files from which they can choose. If it’s information based, provide links to in-house LinkedIn articles they can share on their LinkedIn profiles. Create and share a few copy and paste tweets about timely initiatives and promos.
• Ask employees to create content for you! Examples include: creating Instagram stories while on the job, posting about company fundraisers on Facebook or penning articles about their area of expertise on LinkedIn.
3) Define the metrics you will use to measure your employees’ engagement including:
• The number of employees participating
• The reach of your messaging
• Employee satisfaction and retention
• The percentage of hires from referrals
4) Provide incentives.
Reward your employees for adding to your brand’s social media engagement.
• Based on your metrics, give your top brand ambassadors a small gift of free coffee or food, or perhaps an opportunity to take a longer lunch or sign off a little early on a Friday.
If you take the time to properly engage your employees, provide the tools they need to be confident in what they are sharing, and incentivize them to participate, you will be on your way to promoting your brand from within. Schedule a time to talk to our aJuxt Media Group Digital Marketing and Branding Experts to help formulate and execute your plan.
Written by Lynsie Slachetka || Chief Executive Juxtaposition Officer & Founder