What do a strong personal brand and organizational performance have in common?

Today, we usually think of personal branding as a tool to shape our image and achieve professional goals. But personal branding itself – as well as courses on it –?is becoming more and more interesting for organizations, too. How so?

?Employees are the best company advocates

?The basis for employee advocacy theory is simple: it’s the employees who can tell the most about the organization’s – or the employer’s –?values and the value of its products and services. And social media creates plenty of opportunities for it. For example, research by “Nielsen”, performed in the last decade, showed that people tend to trust messages broadcasted by people three times as much as those delivered by companies. People deliver the same information in a more authentic and honest way, while posts from company pages are often immediately perceived as advertising.

?By involving your employees in your company’s social media strategy, the organic reach grows, too. Imagine this: you have a new product, and 50 employees with 500 followers each share a message about it on LinkedIn. It is likely that such a message, thanks to your employees’ communication through personal accounts, would reach 25,000 people. Enabling employees to communicate can also lead to a smaller budget required for paid advertising.

?The personal brand of an employee

?Although employees can represent their companies well, there can be some challenges. If the person is not naturally drawn to speaking about their employer, the request to do so can seem like extra trouble or at least a non-priority task. Here is where personal branding comes in. Organizations who wish to have their employees speak about them voluntarily must first understand that employees should be aware of the main personal brand development principles. This makes the employees more motivated as they understand that they are not only asked to represent their organization online but thus can also increase their personal image, which later opens more doors to new opportunities within or outside of the company.

?The effect of personal branding on organizational performance

?Lots of research shows that developing personal brand results in many opportunities for individuals in their professional field –?it helps to get a dream job, be acknowledged as an expert in a certain field, or attract new clients. But what’s in it for the organization, aside from the increased reach and trust?

?There aren’t many peer-reviewed scientific articles in this field yet, but recent research shows that proactive development of personal brand and advocacy of the company online positively affects:

• Organization’s visibility. Engaging more employees to communicate from their personal accounts results in a bigger reach.
• Sales. By educating and informing the audience and, perhaps not always directly, by speaking about the services and products developed within the organization, the employees, especially team leaders, manage to engage the audience and attract potential clients. This is especially true in the B2B sector.
• Talent attraction. By sharing the impressions of their organization, activities related to it, or projects they get to work on, employees often attract potential candidates. This is especially relevant for tech companies that face big competition for talents.

Even though we still lack data to base the effect of personal brands further, most employees and managers who actively communicate on social media will ensure that it is beneficial in personal and organizational contexts.

?How to encourage your employees to develop their personal brands?

?Some organizations are afraid to lose their employees once they start communicating on social media, as supposedly the competitors will notice and headhunt them. Surely, this risk exists, but it is also here without social media if the employee is not satisfied with their job or company. Sometimes, companies who wish to ensure that employees will use their knowledge from personal brand development and employee advocacy course for the benefit of the organization (as opposed to using it solely for personal goals) require the employees to undertake to post a certain number of messages during a set period with regards to the company. This makes sure only the most motivated employees attend the courses and helps discover the main company ambassadors.

?Below –?some more tips on encouraging employees to develop their personal brand and advocate for their organization:

• A common goal and leading by example. An employee will be more willing to advocate for the organization if they know that their communication will contribute to a common goal and mission of the organization. This is especially true if they see a good example from their managers or colleagues.
• Education. Knowing where to start leads people to experiment more. It is worth investing in internal training and communicating the main principles.
• External motivational measures. Even though internal motivation is more important, sometimes encouraging employees with external measures helps, too. This could be rewarding the activity with cinema tickets, dinner in a chosen restaurant, or other similar gifts.

Employees’ personal communication will not be valuable if they don’t believe in the organization’s mission and thus cannot become true ambassadors. So, first, you need to determine how satisfied the employees are with the organization’s microclimate and whether they are ready to represent it.

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You may find this article in the Lithuanian language here .

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