5 Steps to build an employee branding strategy

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Build an Employee Branding Strategy in 5 Steps

 Today, most companies understand the importance of employee branding. However, just a few of these companies have a well-designed strategy. 

If you want to build a remarkable employee branding strategy but don’t know where to start, here is a short guide for you. Follow these five simple steps, and you will avoid mistakes that other companies tend to make.

What exactly is an employee branding strategy? 

Before we start, let’s clarify what an employee branding strategy is all about. By definition, it’s a way to promote a company brand online by using the personal brands of its employees.

Let’s imagine that your company is a local theater. The employees of your theater are actresses, producers, choreographs, and singers. Every employee has a few social media accounts, and actresses have their personal websites.

What will happen if you ask all of your employees to promote the theater’s brand on social media? If your employees agree to help you and do everything right, it will significantly boost your marketing efforts. It will help your theater grow its online presence and attract plenty of new visitors.

Step #1 – Motivate your employees

First of all, you should think about how you will motivate your employees to promote your brand. What can you offer to your team members? Employees should clearly understand what benefits they will get if they agree to help you with brand promotion.

If employee engagement is high, then it will be easy for you to motivate your team. Once you announce that the implementation of a new branding strategy will positively influence business growth, most team members will be ready to contribute.

But if employee engagement is low, this approach will not work. If your employees care about money, you should offer them a small monetary reward. If they are more interested in professional growth, you can help them with the development of their personal websites and establishing their personal brands.

Step #2 – Choose the right platform

Now it’s time to choose an online platform to implement your employee branding strategy. Please, don’t rush to pick social media networks such as Facebook and Instagram. At first, you should check whether your target audience is present on these platforms.

Well, if your company is a local theater, then Instagram is a great place for brand promotion. But if your company produces heat resistant concrete, then this social network is not an option. Even if your purchasing manager has more than 50.000 followers on Instagram, it will not help your company with lead generation.

If you don’t want to make the wrong choice, you should analyze the situation in detail and pick the channel that suits your company the most. Keep in mind that employees’ websites and blogs are great options to consider.

Step #3 – Help to create personal websites

In 2019, every true professional should have a personal website. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to build a website. Your employee just needs to register a domain name and then choose a suitable WordPress theme.

You can hire a freelance web designer who will help your employees to make their sites look attractive. With a little investment in web design, you will significantly boost your marketing efforts. 

What about content? Every employee should create a detailed bio page by himself. Employees should provide personal information and write about the following: 

• Their educational background
• Previous working experience
• Current role within your company
• Professional achievements, awards, etc.
• Scientific works, if any

In 2019, search engines still pay attention to the content, so a website has no use if it’s not updated at least once in a while. If your employees are not keen on blogging, consider hiring professional writers to supervise the websites for your company.

Step #4 – Explain how to optimize social media accounts

Now you should check whether your employees have profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Do some of your team members still not have accounts? Assist them with account creation and explain what information to include in bio.

Also, make sure that the profiles of all your employees look professional. If your lawyer Jennifer post pictures of her drinking whiskey and dancing half-naked, that’s a problem. These photos might make a terrible impression on your customers, so you should find a solution to fix the situation.

To make a branding strategy work for you, ensure that the social accounts of your employees include the following information:

• Full name of the employee
• Short bio
• Professional photo
• Links to the website and related social media accounts.

Step #5 – Start with the right people

Well, if your company has more than 100 employees, that’s great. But if you try to create 100 personal websites and optimize more than 100 social media accounts, your strategy will fail. 

Instead, it would be wise to choose from five to ten employees who are searched most often. As a rule, clients look for information about the top management team and people who are well-known as experts in their fields. 

Let’s say your company sells natural cosmetics. You can create a personal website for a chief financial officer and help your leading cosmetic scientist to start his own scientific blog. If you do everything right, these sites will help you to make a good impression on your prospective clients.

In Summary

If you want to build a successful employee branding strategy, do not repeat the mistakes made by other companies. Follow the recommendations given, and you will achieve great results.

Remember that by collaborating with your employees you can take your brand to the next level. You can be sure that all the efforts you put into the implementation of your branding strategy are worth it.

You might be interested: Brand Strategist Vicky Ayala uses storytelling to build clients’ personal brands

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