In a recent blog post, showed you how employees were agents of their employers: this means employers are legally responsible for all of the employees’ actions on the job. So, if you use your employees as brand advocates, i.e. you have them use social media on your company's behalf, then you might find yourself legally responsible for some of their posts.
In a recent article, Eric Roach discussed how Duane Reade might be held liable for a $6 million lawsuit by actress Katherine Heigl – all because of a tweet sent by an employee. More often, however, having your employees use of social media may embarrass your company or undermine your brand in some other significant way. Given these drawbacks, does that mean you should never use employees as brand advocates? Quite the opposite! Using data compiled by his company EveryoneSocial.com, Mr. Road points out that:
"[A]n organization’s base of employees, provided with proper training and an automated platform for sharing, can do. A base of 1250 employees can generate the following:
- Increased brand reach of 1.1 million individuals for content shared,
- An annual increase of 25 million authentic impressions
- A savings of $515,000 in recruiting expenses
- $1.2 million in earned media advertising value, and
- A 19% increase in revenue growth."
With these numbers, you should definitely use your employees as brand advocates. But you cannot achieve success without the most important ingredients: “training, guidelines, and hands-on assistance where needed”. Having a system where the message shared or posted is pre-vetted for appropriateness is also an important legal requirement. By taking these steps, you get the benefits of having brand advocates while minimizing the legal risks for your business.
