One of the big worries companies have regarding social media is who should be the face of the company. Should it be the CEO? Should the marketing department run it? Or the PR department?
GM's Fastlane blog decided to use the managers of different
departments in the company. Not just from marketing or pr, but also from the
production team, the design team, all of the departments. A company is
always the sum of its employees so a company does have many faces, even though
they try to maintain a single, wrinkle free, cut-out-in-ivory face.
You should look at the face of the company as a mosaic. A face of many faces. Don't try to shut up your employees online. They're all on Facebook, Twitter and thousands of other communities and whether you like it or not, they're all spokespeople for your company.
So this is your job:
1. Make sure ALL your employees know what the face of the company should be. If you can't convince your own employees of what you want the company to represent in the minds of the public, how are you supposed to be able to convince your customers? Or let's rephrase that, how do you expect them to convince your customers of that?
2. Evangelize. Realize that a happy employee spreads good rumors and a good image about your company. Let's say you run a company with 25 employees. Those 25 employees are all but one on Facebook and have on average 250 friends. Their direct reach is therefore over 6000 people. Maybe 3.500 if we take into consideration that many of them know the same people. If you've got 250 employees we might be talking about 35.000 people they reach directly. That's a pretty powerful tribe you've got there. Don't shut it down, evangelize it.
3. Activate your employees by allowing them to be more active in the decision making. They're the people on the ground. Listen to them and integrate them in the company's decision making. That way, they will care for the company in a whole new way, because they feel they and their opinions really matter.
Have a happy employee meeting
Hjörtur
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