Does your company encourage employees to use LinkedIn effectively?
I've worked with several large organisations which have 1,000's of employees. If these organiations had an effective companywide plan for using Linkedin, just think how effective content sharing and promoting the organisation could be? One organisation I worked with had over 60,000 employees with Linkedin profiles, and collectively had over 3.8 million connections, wow!
Related post LinkedIn Personal URL - why you should do it!
Imagine if all employees shared content, or even if just the top level executive where sharing content, how powerful this could be and how many people would it reach? But I quite often find that this doesn't happen, and you know what, that's ok, Linkedin is a personal social media platform and you can't force your employees to share content or even have a profile. Some employees might not want to share your company content, but if they do, there are a few things you can do to help and make the process easy when it comes to updating their profile and sharing content, here's what I recommend:
Linkedin Training
Offer all employees Linkedin Training, from the CEO, Directors, the Sales Team, Service Desk Teams, Receptionist and PA's. Empower your team with knowledge and how to use social media tools effectively. By giving your employees a deeper understanding of Linkedin they will be able to enhance their profile and increase engagement and activity. But most importantly of all, make sure they understand the benefit is not just for the company but for the individual as well.
Provide Social Media Guidelines
Make it clear to all employees what your organisation's social media guidelines are. And if you don't have any, you better create guidelines pretty quick! I've often written about the importance of having social media guidelines, here are a couple of tips:
Publish your Social Media and PR guidelines, this should outline what is acceptable to share, such as "Don't disclose nonpublic material", "Don't compare your products" and "Identify yourself if you are speaking on behalf of the company". These are just a snap shot of guidelines to include.
No Social Media Guidelines could potentially cause a PR nightmare, check out Controversial Posts on Linkedin - Would you do it just for the engagement? and "3 examples of why your company needs social media security".
Photographer
Arrange for a photographer to take professional photographs of each employee, now I know this sounds like a really long process, but the end results will be fantastic, check out "Nailing your Linkedin Profile photo" for more examples.
Provide Content for employees to Share
It's easy to tell your employees they need to share more content, but if you don't provide a central location or offer guidance on what should be shared, you may find nothing will happen. Some people will want the content handed to them on a plate and others will be more proactive and go and find it for themselves. Here are a couple of tips on how to manage these issues:
If you have an internal company newsletter, provide regular links for social media sharing
Have a prominent page on your company intranet available - keep this regularly updated with content and provide social media buttons which are easy to click and share.
Lead by example, if management aren't effectively using Linkedin, why should the rest of the team bother?
Keep your Linkedin Company page updated regularly with content, employees will be able to share directly from here
Add Social Media share buttons to all of your webpages and blog pages, this also makes it easy for employees (and customers) to share directly onto social media.
