Social media is an increasingly important tool for businesses around the world. It can be used to advertise new products, sell goods and services, and connect with consumers and other business partners.
Employee advocacy through social media involves encouraging employees to promote and share your brand message through their own personal profiles and unique content. However, as with any social media approach, there are a number of things to keep in mind when looking to implement an employee advocacy programme. Check out our list of dos and don’ts below.
Do Have a Social Media Policy in Place
Having a social media policy has become critical for all modern businesses. In a policy, you should clearly outline and state what is and what isn’t acceptable behaviour for your employees using social media, whether that’s using a work-related account or a personal account. Your policy should state what you expect from your staff on social media and what the repercussions will be if they do not meet this standard.
Social media can be an incredibly valuable tool, but it can go wrong if it’s not approached and handled with care. Make sure any social media advocate of your business is well versed in the social media policy and knows exactly how they should conduct themselves online.
Don’t Forget to Monitor Activity
Even if your employees are up to speed with your company’s social media policy, it’s always important to monitor their work-related activity. This should never be overbearing and don’t micromanage and take full control of what they see and do.
Instead, keep an eye on how they’re doing and offer some advice and guidance if you feel they need it. Positive reinforcement and constructive criticism is the key here. If your employees feel like you are being too critical or too invasive, they could feel demotivated and lose interest in the project.
Do Establish Goals
Don’t just send your employees out there and hope for the best. Sit down together as a team before you launch your advocacy campaign and have a discussion about what you want to achieve and the best approach for doing so.
Work together to draw up a list of clearly defined goals and objectives. This will help you clarify what it is you expect to get from your advocacy campaign, and it can give your employees a greater idea of what is expected of them and something to work towards.
Don’t Forget to Provide Content
An employee advocacy campaign involves your advocates posting unique, business-related content to their social media profiles. However, you shouldn’t expect your employees to create all of this content themselves. While it should certainly be encouraged, you should always be on hand to help and provide the content and marketing material necessary for your advocates to promote your business successfully.
Conclusion
Use this list of dos and don’ts to ensure your employee advocacy program is a success and that your business is able to benefit from all of the advantages the process can offer.