Every year, I share the personal branding trends that will impact your success and happiness at work. In case you missed them, here are parts 1 ("The Death Of Text") and 2 ("The Proliferation Of The Free Agent") of the series. In this final post, I share with you the importance of the being a social savvy employee.
There was a time when social media was blocked at many corporations. Employers believed their employees would waste company time and were concerned about employees speaking publicly about the company. After all, that’s PR’s job, right?
According to Gartner, 50% of companies blocked access to social media in 2010, but the number of companies blocking access for employees is dropping at almost 10% per year. Fear of social media is clearly waning. The most progressive organizations are not only allowing their employees to use social media at work, they are encouraging it.
Watch on Forbes:
According to Dave Kerpin, CEO of Likeable “Increasingly, 2017 will see the rise of the "social company" - whether it was teams or employees using Slack or Workplace to communicate with one another, or using LinkedIn to share out company news with the world, or an increasing number of CEO's using Twitter as chief evangelists. Even small businesses are using social media to build a presence and manage their business.”
I reached out to Cheryl Burgess and Mark Burgess, authors of The Social Employee, for the current stats. They share these important findings:
• An employee advocate is two times more trusted than a CEO.
• Employees have on average 10 times more social connections than a brand does.
• Only 33% of buyers trust the brand while 90% of customers trust product or service recommendations from people they know.
• Brand messages reached 561% further when shared by employees vs. the same messages shared via official brand social channels.
• Brand messages are re-shared 24 times more frequently when distributed by employees vs. the brand.
• 98% of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50% are already posting about their company.
Lead By Example
If you are a senior leader in an organization, be a leader in using social media too. According to MSLGroup, 77% of buyers are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media.
And according to Weber Shandwick, social CEOs are much more likely to be seen as good communicators, compared to unsocial CEOs (55% vs. 38%, respectively). If you’re a leader and you really want to make your mark on your organization, embracing a social culture and taking the lead at your organization will help you stand out while giving your company a leg up on the competition.
And if you are an HR leader, the benefits are just too big to ignore. According to Altimeter & LinkedIn Relationship Economics 2014, employees of socially engaged companies are:
• 57% more likely to align social media engagement to more sales leads
• 20% more likely to stay at their company
• 27% more likely to feel optimistic about their company's future
• 40% more likely to believe their company is more competitive
Become A Grassroots Leader
Even if you’re not in the C suite, you can use your social savvy to grow your company’s brand and raise your personal profile. You don’t have to comment on every opinion and every event (overexposure is bad!) but you should share or post valuable, relevant corporate content on a consistent basis. Being part of the conversation means spending a little time discussing that content, too. Add your point of view, explaining why the content is valuable to your audience and why your perspective matters. If most of your followers are junior-level employees, that’s a good thing: you’re building each other’s fan base while you rise through the ranks together.
William Arruda is the cofounder of CareerBlast and creator of the LinkedIn quiz that helps you evaluate your profile and networking strategy.
