Co-branding: How to Leverage the Merging of Personal and Corporate Branding on Social Media

Whether we're prepared for it or not, today's reality is that we are all our own personal brands. Whether you're on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, how you represent yourself on these platforms (or not) projects an image about you and the company you represent.

A growing trend in the corporate world is for employees to be given some measure of freedom to maintain their personal brands within the work environment. Whether it's a policy to allow your employees to update Facebook during work hours or encouraging staff to use their own social media profiles to interface with customers and clients, evidence suggests that the new phenomenon of "co-branding" is not only a good idea, it's a must-have for corporations to succeed in an increasingly social business world.

As an HR professional, here are some questions about personal and co-branding to consider:

•       Should you allow employees to maintain their own personal brands in a work environment?

•       Does your own personal brand reflect the right things about you and your organization?

•       Does your organization or encourage co-branding between itself and its employees in order to cast a wider social net in an increasingly social world?

On the hiring side, today it's just as likely that your potential hires are Googling you to find out more about your company and your role within it. Some of the best potential hires are researching and making strategic social media connections with individuals who are also co-branded with the organizations they wish to work for. Savvy job seekers know how to find the best companies and make informed decisions about where they want to end up before they even submit a resume.

Conversely, a job applicant's existing personal brand can also be an important factor in deciding how that individual will fit within your organization. This raises a number of questions to consider:

•       Does the potential employee already have a large social media following and a strong personal brand?

•       What impact will that have on your corporate brand?

•       How can you leverage co-branding to attract the most desirable candidates, and capitalize on the existing personal brands of your future employees?

The days of employees checking out of their corporate personas at 5 o'clock on are over. However, you need not fear the blurring of the lines between one's professional and personal brands.

In this session, we will answer the questions posed above, provide specific examples of effective co-branding, and demonstrate how a mutually beneficial policy of co-branding between you and your employees can be implemented and encouraged within your organization.

HR Professionals, HR Professionals with recruiting responsibilities, Senior Managers, Corporate Recruiters, Recruiting Leaders, HR Operations/Technology professionals, Social Media Community Managers.

Participants will learn the meaning of personal branding and co-branding

Participants will learn how to configure their own social media profiles to effectively co-brand with their employers

Participants will learn how to identify and evaluate the most important elements of a job applicant's personal branding — and how this can inform the hiring decision

Participants will learn the best practices for formulating a social media policy for employees

Participants will learn how their organizations can encourage and benefit from employee co-branding

Sprout Social Insights (Social Media for Business blog): Hiring: http://sproutsocial.com/insights/tag/hiring Recruiting: http://sproutsocial.com/insights/tag/recruiting Click here

		Don Power DonPower.com View Profile