4 Tips to Ensure Your Employees Share Your LinkedIn Content

We all know about LinkedIn and how it differs from other social media channels. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn is a platform that’s strictly meant for professional use, career development and networking. Although people are aware of this social network, not many really grasp the reality of how beneficial it can be.

The world we live in is one that is constantly undergoing rapid change. Would you imagine that keypad phones now feel like they’re a century old, even though there are still people who use them? That’s how much the world has changed in the last few decades, it’s almost unfathomable. For businesses, it is increasingly important to stay with the times if they want to succeed and grow.

Unfortunately, building a following on LinkedIn can be difficult and it therefore makes it harder to promote your company, brand etc. One way to do wonders in expanding your reach is having your employees promote your brand on their own profiles. We’ve got four tips for you to help you get the reach you’re looking for, but first, the important question is, “why should employees promote your content?”

Why Should Employees Promote the Company's Content?

Is it really worth it to have your employees promote your brand? Is it something that’s worth focusing on? The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is a big fat yes. We’ve already mentioned how revolutionary social media has been, its aspects that can help promotion and marketing should not be taken lightly. After all, social media gives you the option to network. How you use that network is up to you. Employees sharing company content can go a long way in helping out your firm.

Firstly, if the business or company is young, the number of connections that the employees have in total would most likely outweigh the connections of the company’s profile itself. So right off the bat, you have a greater audience and more people to market to.

Then, as a corporate entity, a company can come off as capitalistic and profit maximizing to the point that people think it’s untrustworthy. For this reason, people are more likely to pay attention to content posted by the employees instead of the company itself. These people can include the employees’ friends or family, their peers etc. To ensure that you reach as many people as possible as you try to promote your brand, it is a must that your employees share company content.

That being said, why should the employees share your content? What’s in it for them? These are probably the types of questions that might pop up in their heads if you don’t follow the right way in asking them to share your content. You need to help make your employees realize that they can play a key role in the growth of the company which is ultimately going to benefit them as well.

4 Tips to Encourage Employees to Share Your Content

Now the question is: what can you do to help make your employees realize the benefits of them sharing the company profile’s content? What can you say that’ll make them really listen and understand? Well, there are different approaches that can be taken and different methods of persuasion. Here are 4 tips that you can employ to get your employees to be active with sharing company content.

What’s in it for Them?

This is probably the first question that you’re going to have to answer if you want to persuade your employees to share the company page’s content. The employees have signed up for a specific job and get paid for doing it. Not informing them of the reason they should help promote your brand gives them no incentive to do so.

Highlight the benefits that are exclusive to them. If the company grows, that makes for greater and faster revenue making. The increase in the overall revenue allows for room to be made in giving pay checks, bonuses and funding. As the customer base for a company becomes larger, the company gains credibility and popularity. This allows for more and more people to trust the company and engage in business with them.

As the prestige of the company increases, the reputation of the employees improves as well since working for said company becomes a part of their identity. This is going to allow the employees to receive greater opportunities - should they choose to change jobs, it gives them a higher chance at getting their desired job.

 The growth of the company also allows for other advancements to be made. These may include: a better building, more options for employees in choosing which shifts they want as the company is able to hire more employees and find more talent easily, better set up inside the building (like computers and furniture). It just allows for an overall better work environment. It is important that you make it clear to your employees that if they help promote the brand, it is not just a favour to the company but can really help them in the future as well.

That being said, it would be wise not to pester employees with sharing company content or make it a necessity for them. Succeed in informing them of the benefits it will offer them, and they’ll gladly do it themselves.

Be a Role Model

You’re going to have a hard time persuading your employees to share your LinkedIn content if you’re not doing it yourself. Before you tell your employees of the benefits of promoting the company and try to persuade them, you need to be actively engaged in promoting the content yourself. If you don’t do that, the first question employees will have in their minds when you tell them of the benefits is: If it’s so beneficial why isn’t he or she doing it themselves? Therefore, it is absolutely vital that you lead by example.

Another advantage of leading by example is the fact that you can set expectations. What this means is that once you ask your employees to share the LinkedIn content, they’ll probably take a look at how you share it. As such, they will take a page from your book when they are sharing it themselves.

This is the perfect opportunity to set a standard. Share your content on your own personal profile on various platforms. These can be Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, your LinkedIn profile (not the brand’s), twitter etc. Let your friends know about what you’re marketing and truly dedicate yourself to the promotion.

This will let the employees know what they should be doing as well. Even if they don’t do it to the extent you’re doing it, your dedication towards sharing content is going to be directly proportional to your employees’ dedication to do the same. You cannot cut yourself too much slack when sharing content yourself. You must set an example for your employees.

Allow Social Media at Work to an Extent

Are trying to get your employees to share your LinkedIn content on social media? Well, you’ll need to give them a little bit of leeway when it comes to using social media at the work place.

There is a very fine line, however, which should not be crossed. You shouldn’t allow your employees to use social media at work to the extent where they start to neglect work or have deteriorating quality of work. It is still important to give them freedom when they share your LinkedIn content and also, to a certain degree, when they use social media just for themselves at work. If you stress on sharing your LinkedIn content on social media but place immovable strictures on what they share and their use of social media at work, they will start to see your demands as selfish.

Whatever the benefits, if they think your reasons for asking them to share content are purely about you, they will refrain from sharing, promoting or marketing anything. Let your employees know of the benefits of sharing on social media and networking. Then let them network on their own, whether it’s promoting company content or just something for themselves. At a workplace however, work obviously comes first and things have to be professional. To ensure that there is a balance, be sure to set certain boundaries and a social media policy to keep things in check.

Use the LinkedIn Employee Notifications Feature

LinkedIn, like other websites and social media apps, continues to grow and make itself better. As of right now, the platform has very useful features. These include the experience section of a profile. Here, you can link the company that you are currently working for and customize however you want according to your needs, e.g. looking for a job. Then, there is also the LinkedIn Teammates feature. This prioritizes content from company contacts and allows for better networking between members within a team; the networking could be with each other or their supervisor.

Yet another feature that LinkedIn offers (and one that should be utilized to the fullest) is the LinkedIn Employee Notifications feature. The feature, as the name suggests, is there to notify employees when an update has been posted to their company page. Using this feature is quite simple.

Once an update has been made on the company page, simply look for the Notify Employees option that you’ll find at the top-right of the post. LinkedIn only allows employees to be notified once every day. This is a great way to ensure that your employees don’t end up feeling annoyed by constant notifications.

It is also a good idea to not notify them daily also, but that depends upon the employees and how well they fit with the company. Once employees are notified of an update made on the company page, they can react to it, like it, share it or comment on it. That eventually is going to help out your company a tonne.

Conclusion

LinkedIn and other social networks should be made use of as much as possible if you’re trying to grow your company. Nowadays, social media is how we get our news, keep up-to-date and also what we use for entertainment. This is why it is of the utmost importance to make use of it.

It is always a good idea to ask your employees to share your content because it helps the brand gain more exposure. More exposure means more people will know about the brand. In turn, this will lead to even more people knowing about the brand and that will eventually lead to a bigger company with greater revenue.

Take a balanced approach and regularly remind your employees to share the content. If you do it right, it’s more than worth it.