4 Reasons Your Employees Should Be Active on Social Media
March 13, 2013
Social media can seem a bit … exhausting. Check out that word cloud up there — there’s so much to think about, so much you can do, that I think a lot of people get overwhelmed and so they do nothing. I recently gave a presentation to my OpenView colleagues on 5 Social Media Tactics You Can Try Right Now, and in doing so I tried to isolate the main benefits of having employees active on social media. When people understand the why, hopefully the how becomes more manageable.
Here are four reasons why having socially engaged employees is important to OpenView, and in turn why every business should be encouraging their employees to explore the possibilities.
1) Thought Leadership
With OpenView Labs, OpenView brings operational expertise and insight to its portfolio of expansion-stage companies. It’s understandably crucial for organizations in the business of consulting to clearly establish their expertise, and one way they can do this is by building their professional brands using social media. Consultancies aren’t the only ones getting value from this, however. Any business can benefit from having well-established thought leaders who are active on social media. Here are a handful of examples how:
- Social media can help employees strengthen their reputation as experts in their field.
- In turn, boosting your employee’s presence will help strengthen your business’ presence.
- Being the best organization in your space means establishing that you have the best experts in the industry.
- Social media allows employees to share what they know and learn from others.
2) Content Strategy
If your company is creating content, you need a way to share that content with people and create a conversation around it. Social media is one of the most effective ways to do this. Here’s why:
- Social shares are increasingly responsible for content views.
- Social media provides opportunities to connect and engage with existing influencers and to find new ones.
- Social channels allow you to stay up-to-date on trends in the industry and create content that resonates with your audience.
- With social media, you can deliver content directly to your audience and in real time.
3) Stakeholder Benefits
OpenView’s portfolio companies are our first priority and our most important stakeholders. Having employees with robust social media presences not only benefits us, it benefits our portfolio as well. Have you asked yourself how your employee’s social media presence helps your stakeholders?
- Social channels provide another way for stakeholders to connect with team members.
- Paying attention to what stakeholders are saying provides insight into what they need.
- You can help them establish their presence by sharing and engaging with their content.
- You can easily provide them with insights and content to help with their initiatives.
4) Prospects
Social media is becoming increasingly important to prospecting. At OpenView, this applies to our investment prospecting efforts, but many companies are finding it transforming their sales strategies:
- Social media can help build strong relationships and facilitate conversations with prospects.
- Social media is an easy and effective way to do research on a prospect’s presence in the industry.
- Pointing people to a robust social media presence reinforces credibility and personalizes efforts.
- Social strategy increases brand awareness. The stronger the brand, the stronger the odds that prospects already know who they’re talking to.
So yes, having employees on social media can be beneficial to your business. It can (sometimes) be easy to get people to understand the value, but as a marketer and/or a leader, how do you get employees to actually do it? For my next few posts I’ll explore this question and also offer up some tips on giving employees guidelines and best practices to consider.