Your Employees Could Make Great Social Media Marketers

Many employees are interested in promoting their company on social media but are scared to do so. Fear of violating company policies or doing anything inappropriate keeps many employees firmly outside of any Facebook marketing or Google marketing activities. Outside of work, it is easy to post something online. When you read an article, you promote it. When you see a post, you comment on it. These activities have become natural responses in everyday life, except for at work. You can change that and use your employees to market your company on social media.

Before inviting your employees to participate, create a social media policy that they can read. This will clear up any confusion and tell employees the type of activities or text that is appropriate and fits within the company image. The key is to make it informative but not so restrictive that it discourages participation.

When writing your social media policy consider the following:

• Do you have compliance concerns? Several industries are highly regulated and require that everything is run through compliance. Additionally, there are laws that must be followed. Have your legal team weigh in on both. For example, if you own an investment firm; you may need to hire someone internally to review social media activity before it is published. If, however, you only have a few set of compliance guidelines it will be easier to write them down and share those basic requirements with employees.

• How do you use social media? When engaging your employees in Facebook marketing and Google marketing, ask your marketing lead to write out their strategy for how they are using social media currently. Once your employees understand the what, and the why, it will be much easier for them to engage.

• Company culture. Anything that is done online should reflect the company culture and image. Your employees should already be familiar with this, but it is a good idea to provide them with tips for how that can be incorporated into their social media activity. For example, if you want to come across as helpful, ask employees to share tips or suggestions that pertain to your products or industry.

• Everyone needs to agree. Prior to releasing your social media manual, run it by HR, legal, sales, etc. to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to comment and that they all buy-in to the strategy.

• Usage. Clarify the difference between professional and personal use and how much time an employee is allowed to spend on social media sites during the day. You may only want to have most employees spend twenty minutes every morning while specific employees may be tasked with spending several hours online. Make sure that your employees understand the expectation and restrictions prior to launching an employee driven Facebook marketing or Google marketing campaign.

• Train employees. Once the manual is written and approved by the necessary departments, hold training sessions to educate employees on how to use the various social media platforms along with what is appropriate and what is not. Use examples and be specific to ensure that everyone understands your expectations.

Have fun with your social media campaigns and your employees will too. Facebook marketing and Google marketing should be lighthearted. Otherwise you will have difficulty engaging your employees and your customers. Know your audience both internally and externally in order to create a successful campaign.