If you have employees, there are ways you are likely under leveraging LinkedIn and missing opportunities to grow the personal brand of each employee and the company brand. There are a lot of opportunities for companies to improve their presence online by creating a brand ambassador program. Employees are already brand ambassadors. The question is – are they good ones? For many employees being a brand ambassador can be a powerful way to enhance their personal brand while improving the company brand too. Even if your company does not officially ask employees to be brand ambassadors, it is critical to check on their LinkedIn profiles and see how they reflect your brand as a company. Here are 5 ways your employees currently under leverage LinkedIn and do a disservice to your company as well as themselves. 1. Get a Great Profile Picture, Better Yet – Get Profile Pictures as a Team In the past, one of the companies I searched for (Google) had unprofessional and inconsistent head shots. One could argue this is part of their brand, however it still does not convey a sense of team. Another regional company, called Helios HR, had consistent branded profile photos that made them look professional, consistent, and intentional. Even if you don’t want the exact same background, at least having polished, professional photos can convey professionalism and increase the likelihood of a great first impression. Especially if your company is a smaller firm, this is a great way to look bigger. Search engine optimization is influenced by LinkedIn too. Here are some insights from Susan Kim, founder of Digital Caffeine:
2. Share Relevant Content about the Company Work with your marketing team to understand what messages would be useful to share. It could be recent press releases, or even information like company events and community work. Brand messages are re-shared 24 times more frequently when posted by an employee versus the brand’s social media channels (Ryan Erskine, Brand Yourself, Entrepreneur). Think about it – people want to hear from people, not just a company logo sharing information. If an employee vouches for a company, that speaks volumes. Plan what messages and information you can provide to employees to help them develop content – make it easy. 3. When Employees Market – Better Reach, for Free Additional data shows that when employees share content, it actually reaches farther than a company’s social media could. “They get 561 percent more reach than the same messages shared by the brand’s social media channels.” (Ryan Erskine, Brand Yourself, Entrepreneur) Partly because employees tend to have more followers than the company, especially if these are smaller firms. Wouldn’t you love to reach more potential customers? As a company, be sure to reward and recognize employees for helping increase visibility. 4. Showcase Your Experts Some firms believe that if people know you have great talent, they will be poached. The reality is that if you have great talent and you help them be visible and feel valued – they will be more likely to stay. It also showcases what makes your company unique – the people and what they bring to bear. Don’t be afraid to have your key employees write blogs, speak at conferences, and represent the company at networking event. People want to feel valued, and if doing work externally is challenging, then there is likely a way you can give them visibility internally. 5. Leverage Your Company Page Be a Noisebreaker and Create Opportunities, |
