As a skeptical public relies less on corporate
messaging and more on peer reviews, the more we
help existing staff "sell" on the company's behalf,
the better we fare. Many things need to align for
this approach to achieve all it can, including cultural
challenges and adequate training, but technology
again has a key role to play.
For time-stretched employees, advocacy of this
nature can become just one more item on an
ever-lengthening to-do list. Employers need to make
it easy. Technology such as Smarp, PostBeyond or
Elevate from LinkedIn curate content together in
one place and enable sharing of that content in just
one or two steps. Features include prewritten status
updates, a choice of social media channels and
availability on desktop and mobile. These platforms
are built to remove every practical obstacle that
might stand between your brand stories and the
networks of your people.
Beyond support for talent attraction, there are
associated benefits that even the most time-pressed
executive will find difficult to ignore. Cultivating your
personal brand continues to grow more important
and is achieved using the visibility of social media and
the simplicity of self-publication to build your online
reputation. Such tools are designed to help make
the latest thinking and content available quickly on
a topic-by-topic basis. They can play a huge part in
raising individual visibility and credibility. The dotted
line is that it can also have the same impact on the
reputation of the business.
Like it or not, the collective social footprint (both in
scale and messaging) is an increasingly critical factor
in how an organization is perceived as a place to work.
Starting — and often ending — with employer review
sites, such as Glassdoor and kununu, businesses are
facing a new challenge. They must accept that while
they may own the brand, ownership of how that brand's
reputation is constructed and maintained is an entirely
collective effort.
Cultivating your personal brand
continues to grow more important
and is achieved using the visibility
of social media and the simplicity
of self-publication to build your
online reputation.
4
encouraging
employees.
