Do you think people update their LinkedIn profile only because they are actively searching for jobs?

There is always this misperception and people often fear to update their LinkedIn profile in the assumption that their employers will think that they are looking for another job! Actually this was his first response when I told my husband and his friends to update their LinkedIn profile! They felt they don’t need to since they are not searching for jobs!

You might also have heard this misperception from somebody, haven’t you?

First of all it should be this way – I feel employers should encourage or even compel their employees to have their social media profiles fully updated professionally.

Social media is a perfect place to increase the visibility of your Brand and your company’s culture and so it makes sense to have your employees as your Social Brand Ambassadors. Using social media in such ways can be critical to the success of your organization in many ways.

Let me tell you, when a job applicant wants to join your organization he would highly be interested in connecting with your employees and knowing how it feels like to be working there. Or a vendor/business partner who sees your employees strength in LinkedIn can be convinced to do business with you. And mostly employees will feel valued that they are representing a big brand.

How to make employees your Social Brand Ambassadors!

Provide Social Media Advice

Now, you might be having a mix of employees, a few that are highly active in social media and others that are totally new to the social media etiquette. So help them align with your company’s brand by having your marketing or communication team provide social media advice. Have them trained on what can and cannot be shared through social media.

Have professionally updated Social Media profiles

Make it more compelling for every employee to have their social media profile professionally updated, at least LinkedIn. Let us be more transparent by having the reporting managers profile on the job description so that the job candidates can connect with them and get to know more details from them. Now, is this going to increase competition by making your employees profiles and contact info. obvious to your competitors? Yes, it is, but as long as you treat your employees well you can assure their longevity.

Encourage use

You can find some employees who are active on LinkedIn, others are on Facebook and then some others are on Twitter. If an employee moderates or is a member of a  LinkedIn group or Facebook group, he can become a valuable resource to bring in recruitment prospects by posing your job openings.  Encouraging a sales employee who is also an active twitter user with large number of followers to tweet about your products can bring you more leads. Employees with a social media presence can come with their own network of influence.

Share photos & Videos

Companies now a days engage their customers, employees and potential employees through their Facebook page by sharing photos and videos that tell us how it feels like to be working in their organization. This helps provide transparency. For example check out PepsiCo’s Career page about their Global possibilities and Geico’s Career page about how it is like to work with Geico.

Write on company blogs

If you still don’t have a company blog, have one. Know if you have bloggers among your employees, good writers and story tellers in your organization. Encourage them to share their stories of working with your organization through your company blog. Check out LinkedIn’s blog where employees share their life at LinkedIn.

Photocredit: NetMinder IG