According to LinkedIn, 94% of B2B Marketers use the platform as their primary content distribution channel. More than 50% of social traffic to B2B websites and blogs comes from LinkedIn. In general, most B2B marketers (79%) will agree that LinkedIn is an effective marketing channel.
Suppose your marketing and sales teams are already active on LinkedIn and are generating leads. In that case, there’s a simple and effective way to get more traffic, brand awareness, and leads from LinkedIn. It’s by leveraging your employees’ social media presence and having them share and promote your content. This strategy is called employee advocacy.
However, most Marketing teams struggle to get their employees to participate in an employee advocacy program and getting them to share content on LinkedIn.
If you’re facing the same challenges, this post will cover three common reasons why your employees aren’t sharing content on LinkedIn. We’ll also share ten useful tips to encourage more participation in your employee advocacy program to ensure sharing content on LinkedIn is frictionless for your employees.
3 Reasons Why Your Employees Aren’t Sharing Your Content
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Your employees already have a slew of daily tasks, projects, and responsibilities. Naturally, their attention and focus will be on those tasks.
As a result, it can be challenging to convince them to take time from their busy schedules and dedicate it to sharing content on LinkedIn. Many employees might view social media at work as something that distracts them from their core functions. Hence, they might ignore it altogether.
With proper training, relevant content and the right technology — you can reinforce to your employees that content sharing on LinkedIn isn’t a time-intensive task.
The most successful employees who use social media understand how important it is to build a daily routine. For example, Valeria Savani van Woerkom of Covance says she schedules her social media usage during the morning, lunchtime and then the evening. This way she can plan her day and allocate time for social media during work.
2. “I’m Uncomfortable Using Social Media”
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Most employees aren’t sure if they’re allowed to use LinkedIn at work. They’re uncomfortable sharing on LinkedIn because they aren’t sure of their company’s social media policies. Some don’t want to get in trouble with their managers or the HR team for posting the wrong thing.
The fear is even higher in regulated industries such as Healthcare and Financial Services. There could be severe financial and professional implications if employees share the wrong content or message.
Even if your company might not have any social media policies, your employees may not be sure what to share and when.
3. “I Can’t Find The Right Content”
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Your employees will not share your content if they don’t find it valuable. You might have created a comprehensive library of content, but if it’s not relevant to their roles, it’s less likely to be shared.
For example, Sales teams will not be as excited to share technical content as your Engineering team. Ideally, Sales reps will want to find and share content that their audience (clients, prospects, and decision-makers) would find valuable.
Likewise, your leadership team will be more interested in sharing thought leadership content, company news, milestones, or publication features.
We just looked at all the possible reasons why your employees are not promoting your company content on LinkedIn. Here’s how you can overcome these hurdles and get your employees enthusiastically engaged in sharing your LinkedIn content.
1. Demonstrate the Benefits to Employees and The Company
As marketers, we undoubtedly know how beneficial LinkedIn is. However, it’s unlikely that the rest of your company understands the benefits as well.
First, they have to understand how it will benefit the entire organization. By being active on LinkedIn, your company’s brand presence will be more visible, and this in turn will attract the right partners, customers, and employees. Sharing on LinkedIn will help promote the strong company culture you already have in place to the rest of the world. It will also help attract quality future employees who will fit with the existing culture.
Next, it’s essential to explain the positive impact of LinkedIn content sharing for each group or department:
- For Marketing Team: More leads, more brand awareness, more website visitors, lower customer acquisition costs.
- For Sales Team: More conversations with decision-makers, more potential opportunities, increase in their sales pipeline.
- For HR Team: Attract more employees, lower cost of hiring, faster time-to-hire.
- For Leadership Team: Increase brand awareness, boost revenues, impact on the bottom line.
Finally, explain the professional benefits for each employee when they actively share content on LinkedIn. It can help them build a strong personal brand, increase quality connections, and grow their careers.
Everyone’s favorite radio station is WIIFM (What’s In It for Me?). When you connect the dots between sharing on LinkedIn and the personalized benefits — they are more likely to participate in your program.
2. Create a Social Media Policy
Around 63% of employees state that their employers do not have a social media policy. Not having clarity on whether they can share or what to share can often discourage participation.
Companies that have had success in encouraging their employees to share content have established and clear-cut social media guidelines. It helps your employees understand how they can use LinkedIn professionally in the workplace. It also avoids any confusion about what’s allowed and what’s not.
Here are a few things to consider when creating corporate social media guidelines:
- Legal and Confidentiality: Employees should know what information should not be shared outside the company.
- Disclosures: Employees should know whether they need to share any disclosures when sharing content from your company blog.
- Hashtags: Your employees should know the recommended hashtags that they can use when sharing content on LinkedIn.
- Brand Voice and Tone: Is there a corporate tone or language that they should follow?
These are just a few of the things to consider. The goal of a social media policy is to empower them with the right knowledge. Once your employees know what and how they can share on LinkedIn, they will be ready to promote your content.
Once created, make sure to inform your employees. Make it easy for them to find and refer to the corporate social media policy. Provide training sessions on your social media policy both for new hires and existing employees.
For inspiration, here are the social media policies from some of your favorite brands such as Intel, BestBuy and Adidas. Intel keeps theirs short with 3 simple rules of engagement:
