Your company’s search engine optimization depends on the number of high authority domains that reference it, the range of social media signals it generates, and brand mentions your company gets across the web. One of the simplest ways to achieve all of this is by increasing employee involvement in your social media strategy. Their mentions of the company and sharing of content increase your company’s digital footprint, while the ideal case is turning your employees into online brand advocates. Here are four ways to increase your employee’s involvement in your social media strategy.

1. Promote Your Employees So They Promote You and Your Brand

Instead of a dry press release that talks about your company’s charitable donations and volunteering, profile your employees who give time to various causes. Personal profiles of volunteers and interviews with those helping donate items from the company to different charities are much more relatable than boring blurbs, and your employees and their team members will want to share the content to give their peers recognition for the efforts.

Not only will this help to get the word out in your local area and in your industry, but it will also show others that your company is a great and positive place to work, so it’s something that is well worth the time and effort to complete.

2. Help Employees Craft Professional Profiles

Companies often run into trouble when an employee speaks out on a controversial issue and seems to be speaking about the issue on behalf of the company. In other cases, the mix of personal and professional on the employee’s social media profile hurts their image when they are applying for another job.

Help your employees craft professional social media accounts that are in alignment with the company’s values, and then encourage them to have separate personal accounts elsewhere where they can share everything from political opinions to baby photos. This prevents the company from receiving negative publicity from an individual’s actions while the professional profile with company logos and backlinks to the company improves your SEO. Let your employees know what is in it for them, from a better personal brand when they seek other employment to potential rewards if the consistently professional and polished digital presence of your employees attracts new, quality team members.

There shouldn’t be any reason for your employees to be sharing personal information on their business social media pages if you speak to them about it. In many cases, your employees likely won’t have even considered the implications.

3. Ask Them to Share the Content

You can’t order your employees to log in with their personal social media accounts to promote the company’s newest content, but you can ask them to do so. When it comes to matters where the public is curious, give them company approved content to share. For example, don’t let employees talk about company proprietary information; instead, create behind the scenes videos and interviews with key employees that your staff can then share with their friends and followers.

Don’t let a rumour mill generate stories about your next product release. Instead, create videos with key engineers or product designers about the new product and let your employees share that content. You can up the ante by rewarding those who share the content and expose the brand to more customers.

4. Use Their Content

It is likely that some of your employees are sharing content already related to your brand. Ask them to share their best content with you so that the company can then share it with the world. You could even ask your employees to create potential viral videos and blog posts.

Multi-millionaire Sam Ovens found that simply asking for high quality referrals and reviews of those he worked with was enough to cause his social media presence – and business overall – to go viral. Incentivize your employees to create content that they are eager to share with the world and you will see even greater results. It’s easy for social media users to tell when someone is passionate about what they are sharing as well, and it’s always easier for someone to be passionate about something they have created as opposed to something an employer has asked them to share.

Conclusion

Shift your company’s social media mentions away from press releases towards personalised tributes to your talented staff. It is more relatable and it will generate much more organic sharing of the content by employees. Ask your employees to share content about the company and solicit quality content from them that they’ll be much more likely to share. Aid them in crafting professional profiles with high quality backlinks to the company that are separate from personal accounts, which will help them with their careers and improve the company’s image.