Standing out on social media with your brand today is difficult. That’s true regardless if you’ve had an ongoing social media presence for years or if you’ve just created your brand’s first Twitter profile. Established brands on social media struggle to stay relevant and newcomers to social media have to cut through a huge amount of noise to get noticed.
It goes without saying that every brand should have a primary company presence on social media. But what about personal profiles for employees? Personal employee profiles on social media dramatically increase your brand’s reach and reinforces its overall online presence. Personal profiles will also give dimension to your brand and cut through the social media noise. I’m going to give you 4 good reasons why your brand should be using personal profiles on social media today.
When I see a brand on social media just blasting out content, it reminds me of a lone believer preaching on a soapbox to a small crowd. Everyone is listening to what’s being said but they’ll probably forget about it once they leave to go about their day. It’s relatively ineffective and your message only sticks to the people in the crowd that sought out the speaker.
Things are a little different when a brand and its employees are delivering a thoughtful, well-delivered message. That sort of social media activity reminds me of a juicy rumor circulating around town. Everyone is buzzing about it and it’s hard not to know what’s going on. You might even care a little bit more than usual since everyone you know is talking about it.
It’s so much easier to get noticed when you have multiple people posting content and discussing topics relevant to your brand. Social media monitoring tools such as HootSuite have become very popular and look at keywords to pull posts. The more profiles you have posting relevant keyword-rich content, the more likely you are to get noticed.
Leveraging personal employee profiles on social media creates a much more, well, personal experience. Prospects will be able to connect a name and face to your brand, not just a logo and corporate message. Some people also don’t trust brands as much as individuals on social media; this is especially true among millenials, some of the most active users of social media. Millenials may not be the major decision makers today, but they may be the ones making suggestions to the higher-ups in an organization.
A combination of personal profiles with your brand’s presence gives your prospects a choice on how to engage with your brand. Some prospects may not want to engage with a brand’s page because they feel like the exchange will be impersonal. Personal profiles, on the other hand, give your prospects another more “real” outlet to connect with. This article on Forbes quantifies the returns a brand can see when consumers are engaged, if you’re skeptical.
Everything starts to look like an interconnected web once you have multiple personal profiles active on social media in addition to your brand’s. Your brand will be at the center of the web and each personal profile will be connected as they mention your brand and drive prospects towards your website. Make sure that there’s a common strategy and everyone can see what each other is doing – you don’t want any lone wolves out there doing their own thing. Sharing posts from fellow employees is a great way to start strengthening your web so you can catch that succulent moth, I mean prospect, and keep them within your brand’s social media web.
Multiple profiles on social media also give your brand an opportunity to send targeted messages to specific audiences. It makes sense for the head of your R&D team to be posting content about new R&D techniques and developments to an audience that’s interested. LinkedIn Groups are a great way for your employees to reach prospects since each group has a targeted user base. Groups are also voluntary,so members are usually interested in what that group has to say.
Think of this as a giant tradeshow. If you’re on the show floor and a prospect has a very specific question about the operation of one of your products, you’d direct her to someone who’s specialized in that area. Heck, you might even direct her to the employee who designed that specific piece of equipment. Why not have that sort of direct connection all the time? Social media gives you just that.
It’s hard not to see the benefits of using multiple personal profiles on social media to support your brand’s presence. You’ll see increased engagement, reach, and more ways to deliver your brand’s message to prospects. Initially, employees may be resistant; they might not think they have anything to say. It’s kind of like blogging: employees should talk about what they know and what they do every day. Take baby steps if you want, try adding one employee every 2-3 weeks until you’re satisfied with your online presence. Once everyone gets the hang of it you’ll become a visible industry expert for your prospects.
