3 easy ways to get employees using your social media templates
Take these simple steps to boost your social proof and unleash your internal influencers.
Your employees can be powerful brand advocates.
Their presence on social media can help or hurt your brand and, in particular, your recruiting efforts. Make it easy for them to be effective brand ambassadors by providing branded templates and other tools for social media.
As an example, take LinkedIn. The rectangular cover photo behind the headshot is a great branding opportunity. Many LinkedIn profiles just leave the default LinkedIn-provided background graphic. Some people use a skyline shot of their city, some use an inspirational photo of a sunset or mountain range and some use photos of themselves in action, perhaps speaking at an event or in a group shot with their team.
Why not provide them with branded cover graphics, developed especially for use in their LinkedIn profiles? You can post them on the intranet or wherever you post templates for company PowerPoints or other documents. You might even include easy instructions for how to add a branded cover shot to their professional profile on LinkedIn. When your employees are brand advocates for you on social media, your organization feeds on their strong reputation.
Here are a few tips on how to provide social media templates, especially for LinkedIn, that make it easy for employees to promote your employer brand to the world:
1. Provide well-designed branded templates.
Give them a selection of great looking LinkedIn cover photos to choose from. Make sure they adhere to brand guidelines, using appropriate colors, fonts and (of course) the logo. These could also include photographs or graphics and there can be different variations for different profiles, but please avoid the stock photography.
2. Check the size and format.
The recommended cover photo size is 1,584 x 396 pixels. They can be smaller or larger, but they should keep a 129:8 width and height ratio. The file size should not exceed 4mb and you can upload photos in different formats: PNG, JPG, and GIF.
3. Keep it up to date.
When your company undergoes a brand refresh or a major brand evolution, make sure you provide employees with new templates for social media. Every single person in your company represents the brand, and with the power of social media, this brand exposure can be exponential. You don’t want your employees to promote an outdated version of your company’s design.
Giuli Hull is a writer for Tribe Inc., an Atlanta-based internal communications agency.
