Last weekend as I was browsing through my Facebook homepage checking what everyone was up to, my eyes got caught up in this post which had a huge spelling mistake. Let’s just say out of all the spelling mistakes you could make, this was the worst one. It was a hysterical error, so after laughing for quite some time about it and after taking a few screenshots of it and sharing among friends I went ahead and read that post. It turns out my Facebook friend had shared it from her company blog and I bet she meant well. However, even though that post got a lot of attention, it had a horrible impact on the company’s branding. This made me think, there is no doubt that employees are a great way to promote your brand, but is all publicity good publicity? Is there a way to control what your employees share online?
Many companies are mainly focusing on getting the customers to carry the word out about their products and services. While customers are an important part of the company’s social selling strategy, most companies are forgetting that their most valuable brand advocates have been there the whole time. Social Employee Advocacy is a key to increasing a brand’s success. Many companies are quite nervous of letting their employees talk about the company on social networks- mainly due to fear of negative information that they might carry to the world. Conversely, Social Employee Advocacy when it’s done right could help your brand reach millions of potential targets.
The important question is how you can control what your employees share online.
Awareness is the Key to Everything– The first thing towards change is awareness; so go ahead and educate your employees about their role as brand ambassadors. Make them understand the impact of their online posts and conversations towards a brand. Don’t forget to make sure your social media guidelines are simple and direct or else you will find your employees tweeting about how boring this awareness meeting is.
Give Them the TOOLS – Now that you have educated your staff about the importance of responsible social sharing, make sure you hand them information and the much needed support. Find ways to encourage your staff to share useful content with their colleagues/ friends etc.
Use a platform – Find a suitable platform where you can motivate employees to share company / professional content to their external social media networks. Haven reviewed a number of software platform available for Social Employee Advocacy, we at solomoIT personally prefer Smarpshare to do this, with Smarpshare employees get to share the posts that they find interesting and add their own comments and send it to the management to approve. It’s always better to have what they post double checked before it goes to the public. Since you don’t want any embarrassing spelling/grammar mistakes to happen that would affect your brand reputation. Once approved, employees can responsibly share away the content into their personal social media profiles.
Implement a Reward System – Now that you are getting free marketing by your staff, it’s time to give them a pat on the back. Find a way to reward your staff for helping you to increase your company reputation. For instance, Smarpshare offers a reward system where employees get points based on what they share, post etc. When an employee reaches a certain number of points, they get to claim a reward. In my company’s case we all love pizza, so we can redeem our points for pizza vouchers. Let me rephrase the quote “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” to “The way to an employee’s loyalty is through their stomach”.
What do you do to make sure your employees aren’t bad mouthing you online?
So do you have a Social Employee Advocacy program at work?
If not, why not start your trial using Smarpshare today?
Alternatively contact us and we will be happy to discuss the pros and cons for your company and get you started on a free trial if appropriate.
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