The question of whether or not you have control over what your employees do with their LinkedIn profiles and other social media platforms is one the Intero Advisory team answers almost weekly. When a company is making specific investments into business outcomes stemming from LinkedIn, they want to ensure success.
The short answer— you do not have control over your employee’s profiles and LinkedIn activity. However, the long answer is that while you do not have control, you can implement strategies to ensure consistency across your employees’ LinkedIn presence.
We see common missteps regularly from business leaders who are looking to get the most out of LinkedIn from their teams.
- Insisting that employees share all of the company posts to their profile.
This is a flawed strategy because not everyone in your employee’s networks will be interested in your company’s marketing. Additionally, you are likely to drive your employees to post nothing at all.
- Adding boilerplate company language to their About sections and Experience sections.
Let personalities show on the profiles. People want to see what makes your team members unique, not the marketing department’s one-pager regurgitation.
- Not practicing or utilizing LinkedIn themselves but expecting their teams to be active.
If you are unwilling to use LinkedIn, your teams will likely be less likely to use it. Practice what you preach to show that it is an essential piece of what the company is trying to accomplish.
- Not providing any blueprint or strategy to what the company is trying to achieve through LinkedIn.
A rudderless boat is going nowhere. If your team is focused on the same direction and outcome, you will see more actionable, sustainable results.
- Being inauthentic on LinkedIn.
This can be an action that hurts the culture within your business. Don’t try to be an “influencer” because someone told you to be at a roundtable if you are not charismatic on LinkedIn.
We recommend creating an environment where your teams are clear of the purpose behind what your company is trying to achieve on LinkedIn and how that will mesh with everyone’s personal brand and individualism. This needs to be a documented strategy with guidelines for best practices and tailored expectations for the roles.
A simple example is that your Sales and HR teams should be using LinkedIn daily but in vastly different ways. Additionally, your accounting team probably doesn’t need to be using Linkedin daily, but should be sharing posts when comfortable to help with a hiring initiative or to showcase company culture.
Overall, as with anything you do in business, you want to make it authentic and easy for your teams to be comfortable executing the LinkedIn strategy for your business. Its personalization and showcasing of individuals go a long way.
This blog is not intended as legal advice and should not be used as such.