For brands, giving employees the green light to engage on social media is a good start, but it’s only half of the solution. Often, employees are confused about how to use a social network and many are nervous to talk publicly about their employer, products or work life for fear of some swift slap to the wrist for saying something they shouldn’t.
However, people expect companies to interact with their customers. So who should be doing the engaging?
The 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer found that day-to-day employees are generally more trusted than their CEOs. Not only are day-to-day employees perceived as equally if not more trustworthy that CEOs, but the social reach of employees’ networks can trump that of the owned brand channels. For example, on LinkedIn alone, the combined connections of Adobe employees are seven-times greater than the number of followers our brand pages, and 91% of the engagements our employees have about Adobe on LinkedIn are with individuals who aren’t engaging with our brand pages.
Here are five do’s and don’ts for brands looking to reap the benefits of a workforce properly engaged on social media.
1. Don’t Teach Usage of Social Networks: Focus your training less on how to use social networks themselves and more on how to use social media overall to build a personal brand and create value for the corporate brand. Teach employees how to be effective brand ambassadors by creating posts that are engaging, relevant and useful. There are thousands of trainings available online that teach individuals how to use Facebook, Twitter, etc. But remember, the goal of this training isn’t to help them know how to post more cat videos, it’s how to be effect brand ambassadors.
2. Do Teach Judgment: From my experiences, I’ve learned that simply teaching the principles and policies doesn’t always cut it. The key social principles espoused by your company need to be augmented by situational exercises in your training that force employees to put their newfound wisdom to the test. Throughout our trainings, we ask employees to assess scenarios that we put in front of them and challenge them to use sound judgment in explaining how a particular situation should be handled. Our employees report that these exercises in judgment are among the most beneficial parts of the trainings.
3. Do Introduce a Disclaimer: Give your employees the tools to feel confident and secure in using social media by introducing a disclaimer that gives them the freedom to express opinion. However, be very clear that having a disclaimer does not absolve them from personal responsibility, and let them know they still need to exercise discretion when crafting posts and tweets.
4. Don’t Threaten or Restrict Creativity: The goal with social media training is to empower, not threaten. Done right, it creates a team of advocates with the skills and know-how to represent your brand online. Training builds confidence and effectiveness at sharing value-added information and ideas to benefit both the company and personal brands. Trying to tightly control the message will quickly have you chasing your tail or worse, create a culture of suspicion. To this end, adjust your policy or guidelines to be more enabling, and less of a legal doc with thou-shalt-nots.
5. Do Start Early: As part of recruitment, new hires should be made aware of social media training on day one. Spend a few minutes in new hire orientation explaining the basic processes, policies and procedures and help them understand what to expect going forward. Include a call to action to sign up for full social media training. Starting early demonstrates your brand commitment and your vision of enabling the business through your people.
Recognizing the value of connecting with customers and empowering employees to harness the power of social media is less about creating the right policies and guidelines, and more about building a team of brand advocates who feel empowered and confident enough to shift corporate culture, and that’s never a bad thing.
Cory Edwards is head of Adobe’s Social Business Center of Excellence.
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