At best your people are helping your brand awareness and customer engagement, and at worst they’re hurting your brand.
These shifts mean three things:
1. Your Brand Has a Human Face
Today a brand has many faces. It’s no longer solely up to the company marketing team to promote and sell their wares. With social platforms like LinkedIn, so pervasive with its 600 million users worldwide and 10 million in Australia (that’s almost half the population), there’s a willing group of individuals who can effortlessly promote their wares for them. And while clients and community may have lost trust or grown tired of corporate speak (as evidenced by the Edelman Trust Baromenter), your people put an authentic humanity to your brand. They walk the talk of who you are, and build meaningful relationships person to person.
2. Your Message can be Amplified
Employees typically have ten times more social connections than a brand does, according to book The Social Employee by Cheryl and Mark Burgess. From their research it goes on to say an employee advocate is two times more trusted than a CEO.
Could that be true for your organisation? What is the ripple effect caused by a single employee and what they say about your brand, let alone tens, hundreds or thousands of employees? The people behind your brand have “people power” to amplify your business and its marketing message.
3. Your Leaders Need New Capabilities
What are the capabilities that leaders need in this new digital landscape? Once the professional development of choice was to do a speaking course, to gain confidence in front of clients and peers. Today, it's vitally important to empower leaders to create a sharp, consistent and compelling brand presence on digital channels, with a predominant focus on LinkedIn. As one client said to her boss when justifying this professional development, "Help me to help my clients to ultimately help my business."
Leveraging LinkedIn to Stand Out in Your Industry and Beyond
When you leverage LinkedIn you unlock the power of the people behind your brand.
Today your employee’s LinkedIn profile can be as powerful as a business card, coffee meeting and website all rolled into one. It's often the first thing that's checked when meeting a new client, seeing a speaker at an event, or meeting a new leader.
Perhaps there are several employees who still see LinkedIn as a glorified CV instead of a powerful connector to clients, peers and future talent. Imagine lifting their capability to craft a credible digital presence that puts a human face to your brand and deepens your messages to your key stakeholders.
