In this talk, Mark Burgess brings to our attention how employees, through social media, are changing how companies market to, and engage with, customers and prospects. With the transparency and opportunity for personal connections that social media offers, pushing fabricated, unauthentic sales pitches doesn’t work anymore. Instead, we are witnessing the rise of the social employee who creates a win/win proposition by leveraging their personal brands to build trust and increase the digital “surface area” of the brands for which they work. The result is nothing short of a revolution.

Source: www.youtube.com

“Employees are the brand at IBM” said IBM’s Ethan McCarty. But isn’t it true in a lot of companies? 

Are your employees thought leaders then? Or rather, what are you doing to develop – and show – their thought leadership?

As Burgess develops in his talk, there is a clear synergy between developing employees into thought leaders and building the corporate brand. 

But how can this be achieved? 

As shown in this topic, thought leadership is highly connected to knowledge. Empowering employees to share their knowledge easily and in an engaging and rewarding way therefore becomes critical:

– easily because they don’t have (much) time,

– engaging because they won’t do it if it’s not impacting,

– rewarding because that’s what’s in it for them.

Aggregating, promoting and spreading that knowledge through collaborative content hubs like the ones Scoop.it Enterprise offers that show the collective curation work of your brand’s employees is one of the most efficient ways to promote your brand: by promoting them.

A win-win deal for all.