Cisco, the multinational technology conglomerate, has been making waves recently with its new employee training program focused on developing LinkedIn influencer skills. The company is providing this training to all 84,000 of its employees worldwide in an effort to boost thought leadership and expand its reach and impact online.
This move signals a new frontier in social media marketing, one where every employee becomes an influencer for their company and brand. While controversial, Cisco’s gamble highlights the growing importance of social media presence and personal branding in the digital age.
The Details of Cisco’s LinkedIn Influencer Training
Cisco’s LinkedIn influencer training is a multi-faceted program focused on teaching employees best practices for engaging their networks and creating shareable content.
Some key components of the training include:
– Crafting an influential LinkedIn profile that clearly communicates one’s expertise and unique perspective. Employees are encouraged to optimize profile elements like their headline, summary section, experience entries, and media gallery.
– Developing a strategic approach to posting content that provides value to one’s network while aligning with business goals. Guidance is provided on content types, CADENCE, HASHTAG usage, and more.
– Techniques for building engagement including likes, comments, shares, and relationship-building with other influencers and thought leaders.
– Analytics and metrics for tracking the impact of one’s influencer activities on LinkedIn. Employees learn how to interpret vital stats to refine their strategy.
– Best practices for amplifying influencer content across other social channels like Twitter and Facebook.
Cisco allows time for employees to create content and engage meaningfully with their networks as part of the workday. They are active participants, not just passive learners, in this training program.
The Potential Benefits for Cisco
Cisco has invested heavily in this company-wide LinkedIn influencer training for good reason. Some potential benefits include:
– Increased brand awareness and reach, organically amplified through its thousands of employee influencers.
– Employees acting as industry experts and thought leaders, boosting Cisco’s credibility and prestige.
– More employee-generated content that shows Cisco’s vision while nurturing its desired brand identity.
– Expanded talent pool for potential hires, as Cisco employees engage and build relationships with professionals worldwide.
– Enhanced SEO as consistent creation of high-value content improves domain authority.
In essence, Cisco is empowering its vast workforce to collectively shape perception of the brand at scale. The more its employees engage meaningfully on LinkedIn, the more Cisco extends its influence through connections, engagement, and shareable intellectual property.
The Risks and Challenges
While the potential upside is substantial, Cisco’s LinkedIn influencer initiative does come with risks.
Some key challenges Cisco will need to navigate:
– Ensuring employees share content that aligns with company values and messaging. Off-brand posts could dilute or distort Cisco’s desired image.
– Preventing poor engagement habits like overly self-promotional content and spam interactions. This can undermine influencer credibility.
– Potential for PR missteps, pan posts, or oversharing of confidential information. Proper training is essential.
– Maintaining productivity as employees devote work time to content creation and community engagement. This balance will be critical.
– Ceding some control of brand narrative to thousands of employees. Cisco will have less oversight than with a centralized social media marketing team.
Best Practices for Success
To meet these challenges and realize the full benefits of its employee influencer initiative, Cisco should follow these best practices:
– Establish clear social media policies and community management guidelines that protect the brand and employees.
– Require manager sign-off on content plans to ensure alignment with business goals.
– Limit oversharing of work activities or confidential information through training on proper content boundaries.
– Encourage impactful content formats like data-driven insights, trend analyses, how-tos, and perspectives on industry issues.
– Host regular brainstorming sessions for content ideas that identify knowledge gaps and opportunities to support Cisco’s strategic priorities.
– Foster a culture of sharing and amplification where employees actively engage and promote each other’s content.
– Analyze performance data to identify top influencers for formally recognizing their achievements and expanding their impact.
Precedents from Other Brands
While novel in its scale, Cisco isn’t the first brand to activate its employees as online influencers:
Company | Influencer Approach |
---|---|
Adobe | Cultivates select “Adobe Life” influencers from its workforce who share content and insights regularly. |
HP | Encourages employees to post HP-related content and uses regrams to amplify messages. |
IBM | Grants all employees access to its social media channels including blogs, Twitter, and Instagram. |
Hootsuite | Has an employee advocacy program where staffers drive brand awareness through their networks. |
Cisco is taking this approach to the extreme, making influencer activation mandatory rather than voluntary. But previous successes from other brands suggest the model can work.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Influencer Marketing
As more brands recognize the power of social media, employee influencer programs are likely to become more commonplace. This represents a long-term shift from centralized branded content to decentralized, employee-generated content.
Key predictions for the future of influencer marketing:
– Employee influencers will become the norm for large enterprises seeking to expand reach. Mandatory participation in advocacy programs will increase.
– Influencer marketing budgets will be dispersed across dozens or hundreds of employee accounts rather than a handful of external celebs or micro-influencers.
– Influencer analytics will mature, providing brands better data to track content performance and optimize strategies.
– Specialized software and managed services will emerge to help brands manage network-wide influencer programs.
– Compliance and governance processes will grow more rigorous to prevent brand risk from unauthorized employee posts.
– More localized, geo-targeted influencer content will allow global brands to better resonate in foreign markets.
– The best corporate influencer content will be less overtly promotional and more focused on tangible value.
Cisco’s bold move could signal a tipping point for brands re-evaluating their social media marketing. Harnessing the power of their employees for organic reach and engagement will be alluring. However, brands will need smart governance to realize the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of this influencer trend.
Conclusion
Cisco’s massive investment to train all of its employees as LinkedIn influencers demonstrates a new phase of social media marketing where brands look inward to maximize their online impact. While risky, the approach has significant upside if executed thoughtfully.
As more brands follow Cisco’s lead, the strategies and best practices surrounding employee influencer activation will continue maturing. Soon this could become standard practice for large corporations across all major industries. With the right governance and strategy, they can tap into their workforce’s knowledge and networks to achieve social media influence at scale.