Corporate influencers

How to turn your employees into brand ambassadors on LinkedIn

Author

Christina Essl

Social media marketer

What are corporate influencers?

Who could present your company in a more authentic way than those who work there every day – many of whom have worked there for several years? Unlike the influencers you pay to promote your products, corporate influencers are your own employees.

They represent your company on LinkedIn and act as opinion leaders. Your team members are active on their own LinkedIn profiles, posting industry-related information, sharing interesting statements and commenting on company posts.

Corporate influencers share their expert knowledge on your company – and they are the heart and soul of your business. After all, if they are happy in their job, they will gladly share this fact with others.

How the LinkedIn algorithm works

When it comes to social selling and the lead generation, LinkedIn is a real winner. It is one of the most efficient social media platforms for business networking.

The LinkedIn algorithm aims to connect people and get them to enter into conversation. So being successful on LinkedIn as a company is all about organic reach and reactions to your content.

More precisely, the first hour after publishing a post is crucial. Within this time frame, you want lots of comments under your posts, and corporate influencers can give the algorithm a little “nudge” in the right direction.

Gaining authenticity with the help of corporate influencers

To present your company in an authentic way, the focus should be on your employees. In addition to posts, comments and blog articles, people (and potential job candidates in particular) love exclusive insights into your company.

They want to hear, read and see personal stories from others, also from their everyday lives at your company. Here are three ways to present your company via your employees:

Climbing the career ladder: From rags to riches – or something along those lines. Let your employees talk about how they advanced their career and how your company assisted them in doing so.
Work-life balance: Turn the spotlight on your team members – and how they combine work with their personal lives. Let them talk about their experiences and the role of your company. For instance, have parents describe their return to the company after having kids. Or how about featuring long-term team members who decided to tak
e up university studies again or your trainees and apprentices?
Company celebrations: Legendary team events that boost team spirit among your employees should also be part of your feed.

As long as the stories you tell are authentic and credible, there’s no limit to what you can do. The only prerequisite: Your employees have to feel comfortable in their job. After all, only satisfied team members will want to present your company in the best light possible.

People are more credible than logos

It’s not a matter of course that employees are willing to act as corporate influencers, so it should be counted as working time. Your employees, on the other hand, should be willing to respect your brand’s social media guidelines and company values to ensure a uniform corporate identity. Social media training is helpful for both parties to establish the terms of corporate influencing.

3 tips for employee posts

Now that you know about the importance of corporate influencers for organic reach, you should actively include your employees in your content planning, for instance, with these three tips:

Tip #1

Notify employees

This special LinkedIn feature allows you to notify employees of new activities on your company page and encourage them to react to your post.

Tip #2

Invite followers

Corporate influencers can invite their followers to follow your company page. This is most successful if it’s done shortly before a new post is published. This way, new followers immediately see that your page gets updated regularly.

Tip #3

Tag your company page

Encourage your employees to create their own content and tag your company. This way, about ten per cent more users can be reached than by merely sharing your company posts.