There’s no denying that social media has taken the world by storm. Facebook boasts some 640 million users worldwide. Twitter receives 95 million Tweets everyday. LinkedIn has over 101 Million members worldwide.

Social media is a huge engagement, staffing, retention, and increasingly, branding tool. It’s at the foundation of what Bob Kelleher calls tri-branding. “Tri-branding is when companies use social media to link both product and employment brand, and to get their customers to sing their praises or live their brand.”
Kelleher, CEO of The Employee Engagement Group and author of the critically-acclaimed More Than Words: 10 Employee Engagement Steps that Drive Results, urges companies to leverage social media in two key ways in order to drive their tri-branding efforts:

* Branding. Companies should be leveraging social media to boost brand. Many enlightened organizations currently use social media to tweet, post, and blog job openings, and to share what a great place your company is to work for.
* Communicating. Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y all communicate very differently. To engage and reach Gen Y employees, leaders need to speak their speak. They need to be sending text messages, tweeting, generating video pods, and the like to reach this growing workforce population.

Many companies are afraid of the realistic downside of social media (employees saying the wrong thing, badmouthing the employer, inadvertently sharing information publicly that should only be shared privately, etc.). “But, when I address audiences, I remind them that once upon a time, we would lock our rotary telephones so employees wouldn’t ‘steal’ company resources by calling their relatives or friends with the 800 telephone line. And I also recall the head of legal storming into my office exclaiming: “You’re not really going to allow our employees to have access to email, are you? They’ll steal our intellectual property,”” says Kelleher.
As we reflect back today, it is rather ridiculous to think about these former ‘concerns’. That is where we are with social media today – social media is not going away. In fact, this is the world where Gen Y lives, and if companies want to engage and communicate with this generation, they MUST embrace social media. How? By creating their own You Tube channel where your Gen Y employees articulate your firm’s values. Or, have your employees join LinkedIn groups to share job opportunities. Identify your most ‘connected’ employees and ask if they would be interested in being your brand ambassadors.
And Kelleher cautions that if you’re not embracing and leveraging social media, your departing employees might be. Sites such as Glassdoor.com<http://Glassdoor.com/> are increasingly becoming popular with departing employees who feel their companies did not treat them fairly. One of the fastest growing sites Klout.com<http://Klout.com>, for example, provides individuals with their social media ‘ranking’. In the future, instead of asking employees what their credit ranking is, they might ask what their Klout ranking is.
Says Kelleher, “Employers will increasingly want to hire employees who are connected as branding increasingly will be an opportunity to involve your most socially connected employees – while engaging them at the same time!”

Bob Kelleher is a noted speaker, thought leader, and author of the just-released of LOUDER THAN WORDS: 10 Practical Employee Engagement Steps That Drive Results, which has climbed to the #3 Workplace book, #5 HR book, and #12 Management book on Amazon. (www.BobKelleher.com<http://www.BobKelleher.com/>). He is also the founder and CEO of The Employee Engagement Group (www.EmployeeEngagment.com<http://www.EmployeeEngagment.com/>) and consultant on the subjects of employee engagement, workforce trends, and leadership. For additional insights, Kelleher can be reached at rkelleher@employeeengagement.com<mailto:rkelleher@employeeengagement.com>.