In our digital world, we are all in a position to be considered opinion leaders. That is why it is so important that we all become aware and share the responsibility to use our social voices in the most professional and respectful way possible.
This is particularly important when it comes to LinkedIn, the leading social network for professional matters. LinkedIn is where we post or look for work, as well as connecting, sharing content, and following content shared by a variety of people and other companies, including current and potential clients, past and present co-workers and contacts, business partners, industry bodies, prospective employees, professional groups, and past and future employers.
By connecting our current employer to our individual LinkedIn accounts, we essentially take responsibility for representing the company we work for. This means that our actions on LinkedIn must be in line with the values of the company. That’s why many companies share LinkedIn’s guidelines for employees or best practices for employee advocacy.
Keeping these values, guidelines, and best practices in mind when interacting on LinkedIn will mean that you are engaging with the platform in a way that has a positive impact on both your individual networks and professional development, as well as your company’s social profile. .
The benefits for the employer
It is well known that flying below the social radar is not part of good business strategy. A strong presence on LinkedIn is vitally important, and the well-proven key benefits are:
Commercial development – Drive Direct Leads, Drive More Voice Engagement
Customer relations / customer service: share engaging content that resonates with customers, increase customer referrals, provide another communication channel for customers
Human Resources: establish company as employer of choice, attract new employees
Public relations and problem management: establish meaningful relationships with opinion formers and influencers, manage problems and crises.
But companies should be aware that they cannot go it alone to achieve these benefits solely through their corporate LinkedIn account. In fact, they’ll see more benefits sooner if they recognize and act on the fact that using their employees on LinkedIn is critical to their success.
The Power of the Individual on LinkedIn
In today’s highly dispersed and competitive business environment, advocating for employees on LinkedIn is important to all businesses. This is because LinkedIn has found that content shared by employees has a 2X greater impact than when shared by a company. It also found that marketers who share content regularly are 45% more likely to exceed their goals, and companies that are social are 58% more likely to attract top talent and 20% more likely to retain them.
Whether your organization employs 10 people or a team of thousands, it’s important to understand the collective value these people bring to your brand identity, reach, and success.
Strategies to turn employees into the best social defender of a company
While many employers are aware of the power of their employees’ voices on LinkedIn, it can often be a challenge for companies to figure out how to get employees regularly engaged on LinkedIn. Some examples are:
- Recruit some LinkedIn champions to encourage and support other employees to become active on LinkedIn and allow them to schedule 30-45 minutes a week to stay active on LinkedIn as part of their role.
- Share some suggested LinkedIn copies and images with employees via email or other internal communication platform on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, so they can simply copy and paste to their own LinkedIn.
- Have an internal or external marketing team take over the LinkedIn accounts of company executives to ensure that these often well-connected but busy employees stay active and engaged on LinkedIn.
- Consider a gamification platform that encourages employees to compete with each other on LinkedIn. Incentivize employees to be as active as possible on LinkedIn through company recognition or awards for employees who shared the most or received the most responses to their posts.
- Invest in a platform like Hootsuite Amplify to make it easier than ever for your employees to access and share approved posts with their LinkedIn networks.
LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful tool for your business if you know how to take advantage of it. For more information on turning your employees into motivated LinkedIn advocates, contact us.
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