Can you spot the celebrity worker in the office and use her to the firm’s advantage?

Look around your workplace. Can you spot a celebrity in your midst? You know, that one employee who has tens of thousands of followers on twitter and as many fans on Facebook, many of who care a lot more about what the celebrity has to say on a daily basis than his own boss in office does? The kind who possibly even has a larger online following than your own brand? Thanks to easy access to social media, the celebrity employee—one with a great reputation apart from or in addition to your corporate brand—is a very real possibility in many workplaces, and how you engage with such social media rockstars inside the organisation may seriously impact how your business is viewed by the outside world. It’s really sometimes comes down to a generational mindset. A number of employees join the workforce with an existing social-media presence cultivated while in college, and that’s not something they are likely to abandon. So realise this first—their presence on social networks isn’t something you can quash or contain. Now more than ever, employees are increasingly working very hard at developing their personal brand, and it’s perfectly reasonable for them to defend this effort, especially since it’s quite probable that their following will last for longer than their job with you. Yet, peers can often view their social media presence as dereliction of their required work duties. Moreover, if the employee is seen as representing the company on twitter, the question arises—who owns the content posted or the followers acquired—the company or the employee? There’s also the concern that the employee could possibly inadvertently share confidential information, or equally dangerous, a controversial viewpoint which may be traced back to the employer in question, leading to a PR crisis. That’s not even to tread on the possibility of severely inflated egos, team friction (and inflated compensation expectations) as a by-product of the ‘stardom’, or the worst case—they may become a free agent and decide to leave the company for another job, hence taking his or her following along. But don’t get me wrong—there’s a world of good that can come out engaging such employees in a meaningful manner. Think about it, these folks are the eyes and ears out on the ground, and could be great for identifying leads that could be potential customers for your product or service. Being influencers themselves, they can help identify who the other influencers are in your space, and keep you clued into industry sentiment and insights. Encouraging them to align and associate with your vertical has its benefits too. One, customers get to connect with a real human face of your organisation, which can positively impact perceptions of your brand and your customer orientation. By virtue of them being well regarded experts in your domain, your organisation is seen as an employer of choice, lending many organisations some much needed credibility which they may have lacked previously. And who can deny that the media coverage from being quoted in industry pieces also brings positive exposure to the company. Right then, so how do you constructively channelise such employees? Clearly, there need to be social media guidelines in place, not only for these employees but the organisation at large. These could include when your employees should be posting, and how much of their day can be spent on social media with respect to their existing duties. Remember, building an engaged following online can be heady and addictive, so it’s important you make sure employee output can be measured and these employees are pulling their weight just like everyone else on the team. Of course, if there is an expectation for your celebrity employee to align their presence with yours, there are a couple of additional considerations you must keep in mind. First and foremost, be explicit about who owns what. For instance, let’s say you actively encourage an employee’s social media presence, then there may be issues later over who actually owns the community and the following that was cultivated. Ideally, this is the sort of thing you’d want to make clear early in the engagement, preferably before any work has begun, so you end up avoiding any conflicts later in the day. Also, be up front about what the expectations of the involvement are—where the two brands overlap and what can be done towards mutual benefit, if at all. More importantly, the messaging needs to be clear, to ensure you’re not saying different things, or even hindering your marketing efforts. And should a pay-related discussion occur—employees may expect a pay rise in return for access to their followers—focus the discussion on measurable results and outputs, and not just on access. Above all, engage more people in the social media conversations for your company. This way, if one person leaves you won’t lose an entire segment of your conversations. And as always, keep the lines of communication open and encourage employees to talk openly about their online profiles and their blogs or postings. At some level, both the management and the employee need each other, more than they often think they do!