How Much Control Do You Have Over Employees’ LinkedIn Profiles?

Have you noticed what your employees’ LinkedIn profiles look like lately? If you have a LinkedIn Company Page it’s easy to see them all. I often go here and see what various people in the organization have chosen to do to represent themselves and the company on LinkedIn. It’s a quick way to understand the vibe of the organization and see how socially adept your people are.

Remember, LinkedIn is based on the individual. And, today it’s about building out each person’s professional brand regardless of their role. Each personal brand (individual) then represents their organization. It’s a win-win if done properly.

Who’s important? Everyone but let’s start with the most critical people in the organization:

• Executives—they are the face and vision of the organization
• Business development, Sales, Customer Service (client-facing)— they represent you to the world
• Human Resources and Marketing—they share your culture, looking for new talent

Get these groups off to the right start and it will be easier to onboard others. Does everyone need to be on LinkedIn? No, but you can’t control that. You also can’t say they aren’t allowed to be on LinkedIn or social media at all, for that matter. But you can share suggestions for a good profile if they choose to set one up, and make sure that it represents you company in the way you’d prefer.

• Know that LinkedIn is here to stay—embrace it.
• Craft a straight-forward social media guidelines and best practices (Eliot Wagonheim and I are currently working on an social media policy guideline ebook, more to follow).
• Let them know that while LinkedIn participation isn’t mandatory, but if they have a profile, it’s highly suggested they follow best practices. Best practices result in better opportunities.
• Make sure employees know that you realize the importance of social and how each of their networks is critical to the organization’s ongoing success.
• Share how the organization is leveraging LinkedIn for marketing, sales and employment opportunities.
• Provide ongoing training and resources to minimize how much they have to figure out on their own.
• Share an example of good profile(s) and what makes them good (they are complete, key-worded, friendly).
• Suggest consistency in language and formatting for certain sections (ie. everyone puts their certifications in the certification section, not experience section, the same with volunteer experience).
• Include a one- or two-line description of  your value statement, “about us” statement, USP, mission statement, etc. This insures that if people look at an assortment of profiles within an organization they all say the same thing. This looks good from a marketing perspective.
• Ask your employees to follow your LinkedIn Company Page and share the content (blogs, videos, press releases, job openings etc.) with their networks.
• Share success stories with employees on wins, whether new business or retention, and new hires from LinkedIn.
• Weave a LinkedIn tip or two into your newsletter, intranet, or meeting to keep employees updated and interested.
• Remind them if they are new or change positions within the organization to update their profile with their new  information (I see lots of profiles that have job descriptions for every position except for their current one.)

How are you managing your organization’s LinkedIn profiles? We’d love to hear your successes. Leave us a comment.

Have a question or need some help? It’s even easier to reach us now. We’re using Clarity, an on-demand expertise platform to answer your questions or have a quick LinkedIn learning session.