Policing Social Media vs. Empowering Social Media

I've worked in Marketing for a LONG time. And since the dawn of social media in the workplace (yes, I'm THAT old), companies have been policing social media.

Does your business have an "appropriate use" policy in place? Or maybe it's only specific employees who are allowed to approve what goes out on the company pages?

Either way, the activity of policing social media is STOPPING you from growing your digital influence.

Yup, I said it. It's not actually CONTRIBUTING to anything except making your employees feel like you don't trust them.

And maybe you don't. There's a bigger problem there (for another article for another day).

But let's be honest. Your people ARE on social media. They are using it to build relationships for their own purposes.

And they COULD be using it to build relationships that benefit the company as well.

If we have enough trust in them to build it THEIR way 💡

So, if you feel like your social media policing ISN'T giving you the Marketing and Sales results you want, it's time to try something else.

It's time to try Empowering your people.

How can we start? Let's explore.

Stage 1: Accept Social Media Usage

Acceptance is a critical starting point for any new journey. But this becomes very difficult for most people (hello owners) because there is an inherent "letting go of control" that needs to happen.

So before we can move forward, we need to have this conversation...

What am I afraid of losing?

• Maybe it's fear of losing control over the narrative

• Maybe it's fear of you not being the most important person

• Maybe it's fear of giving away power

• Maybe it's fear of losing clients

• Maybe it's fear of turning off potential clients

It could be a variety of things. There are no right or wrong answers. And it's OK to experience fear. But when we make decisions out of fear, it keeps us from all of the potential ahead of us.

Like Yoda said, “train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose”.

When we can do this, we actually get to the space where we can empower our people. And until we can let go, we can't move forward to the next stages.

Stage 2: Empowering Personal Brands

You can see how giving people permission to use social media in the ways THEY want might be difficult if you haven't moved through Stage 1. So no skipping to this step if you're not ready to put in the work on letting it go.

Once you're here though, there's an additional layer of letting go that you'll experience...

...because not all people are going to say exactly what you would say.

AND THAT'S OK.

There isn't just ONE way to tell a story.

It's actually possible for everyone in your company to tell the SAME story with DIFFERENT words.

But they need to know THEIR words. And they need to be given the space to USE their words.

What this DOESN'T look like: getting everyone to memorize the same elevator pitch and then "grading" them on how well they present it.

The above process is what most companies see as the safe way of "empowering" people. But this is neither safe OR empowering. What this creates is a visible lack of diversity in your business, and a sameness that DOESN'T stand out from the crowd. Plus, when people are just saying words they don't care about, the ability for them to truly connect to another person doesn't exist. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

The definition of empowerment, from Oxford Languages, is actually, "authority or power given to someone to do something".

In the above situation, you are giving people neither the authority or the power to do something in their own way.

We MUST let that go if we are to move to empowering people on social media.

And once we've let it go, we create the space for our team to SHOW us their personal brands. We create the space to LEARN who they are. And we create the space to CELEBRATE who why are ON social media 💖

And if for any reason, you're finding yourself back in the FEAR category of "what if this person DOESN'T represent the company well on social media", ask yourself:

• Have we really defined what actions represent our company "well"?

• Why don't I trust this person to do that?

Maybe you have some of the "wrong" people on our team. It's highly possible if your current hiring process isn't Values-Based. But if it is, and your people have the same values as you, what are we so afraid of?

Stage 3: Create An "Us" Story

This is where things REALLY start to become meaningful. And it's where your people start to feel like they BELONG with you in the story.

This is where all the personal brands come to play together.

Now, belonging is all about a reciprocal relationship.

I feel, own and care for you.

You feel, own and care for me.

If neither of us are being our authentic selves (see Stage 2), this can't happen.

But when we are ALL invested in being our authentic selves in the digital world, and we feel, own and care for each other, the world SEES it.

The world sees US.

And US creates a different experience than "THE COMPANY".

When we focus our social media efforts on what "the company" would do, we inevitably separate the company from the people. But the brand of the company, that is, "what it FEELS like to do business with the company" is CREATED by the people. If we create the space for people to build those relationships in person but NOT digitally, then we are inadvertently BREAKING our brand experience.

When we focus our social media efforts on the "US Story" and we empower our team to build relationships BASED on that US Story, what the world sees and experiences IS our brand. It's the fastest route for any future hires, future clients, future partners or future investors to know who we are, and that we are all in this together ;)

What's Easier?

I'll be honest, if you're going for "easier" than policing will win every time. It's WAY easier to just tell people they CAN'T do things.

But in this day and age of "quiet quitting" and "the great resignation", that is NOT what is going to get you to a win.

And at the end of the day, policed content doesn't contribute to what you are ACTUALLY looking for by showing up in the digital space.

You WANT people to know you.

You WANT people to like you.

You WANT people to trust you.

And then you show up as a brochure.

No one likes or trusts a brochure.

They like and trust PEOPLE.

So sure, it is the path that takes more work...in the beginning. But once people are empowered in their personal brands inside of an Us Story, they do the work for you. They show up generating know, like and trust of their own accord because they WANT to. And when everyone is doing that, all of the people who want to hang out digitally with YOUR people, start to SEE you.

Then they start to like you (because they like your people).

And they start to trust you (because they trust your people).

And THEN they might even buy something 😉

Because THIS is how business works at the end of the day. And you can either police your people out of participating, or empower them to.

Maybe it's an idea for the Mavericks. But someone's got to lead the way, right?

If you're ready to explore what it looks like to empower your people to contribute to building your digital influence, let's chat.