You’re not alone if you are unsure how to support your company on social media.

More than 20% of workers don’t know if their company wants them to share relevant company news or brand updates, 15% are afraid to post the wrong thing, and another 15% simply don’t know what to share to support their company’s social media efforts.

The fact is that not only does your employer want you to engage with their posts and share their content, an active social presence can also greatly benefit your career. Social media is an easy tool to expand your professional network, provide access to new opportunities, and increase your company’s sales effectiveness.

In a few easy steps, you can start building an active social presence that helps you become a brand champion and expand your professional horizons.

Know Your Audience to Prevent Burnout

Before you post anything, you should think about what channels you’re on and the audience you have on each of them.

Your content should provide some value or have relevance to the different audiences on your channels. The most common channels for work consideration include:

• Facebook: Facebook will likely consist of your friends and family, with a few professional connections mixed in. Because of this, your content should have some personal element or story. Merely sharing an article about your company opening a new office or announcing a new partnership will feel too impersonal for your friends and family unless you add your own story onto it. There are also business groups popping up on Facebook that could open you to more business-focused posting opportunities, but these remain independent of your main profile.
• LinkedIn: The top business social network, LinkedIn is where you’ll connect with past or current colleagues, as well as other professionals in your industry. This is one of the most common places to see company news or workplace accomplishments shared, and you can easily hop into conversations on posts relevant to your industry.
• Twitter: Most Twitter followings are a mix of the people you’d find in Facebook and LinkedIn audiences, plus other users that want to engage with your content. Your Tweets must be no longer than 280 characters, so the site forces concise messages. Twitter thrives on hashtags, and retweeting posts is commonplace, so your content has a high potential to reach a broad audience if you follow the best practices outlined below.
• Instagram: A visual-focused site, Instagram is hit or miss for many businesses. Consumer-facing brands can captivate audiences with high-quality imagery of their products, but those in the B2B space will have a harder time gaining traction. For our employee brand-building purposes, Instagram is best used for showing your presence at work-related events or mixers.

Not every news or announcement will be appropriate for all of your channels, and that’s OK. It’s better for you to put your full effort into one social media channel and succeed than to try being on every channel and not see any engagement.

Whichever channels you decide to invest in, follow the 80/20 rule to avoid spamming your followers—only 20% of your content should be self-serving or from the company, and 80% should be content from industry influencers and publications, or related to your other interests.

After familiarizing yourself with your social media channel audiences and committing to follow the 80/20 rule, you’re ready to post, and these four strategies will help you share content in a meaningful way.

4 Strategies for Sharing Company Content

When you’re in a time crunch, simply resharing a company post is a great way to show support for your company. But this shouldn’t be your sole strategy for sharing content.

To drive engagement and get the most value from your social media posts, try these four strategies:

• Pull a Quote: If a particularly exciting or provocative quote is in the piece, share the article with the quote as your comment, and add any commentary or ask your audience for their thoughts (as long as you can fit within any character limits).
  

  “You go to the top compliance vendors, you’re likely to see content and technology that looks very low-budget-early-2000’s in terms of the quality and user experience”- says my colleague @robertdtodd who held leadership roles at LinkedIn and McKinsey & Co…https://t.co/wMwucgnC20

  — janine yancey (@jyancey) May 1, 2019

  ‘There really is not much difference between work and home, because I choose to do things that bring me joy, so there really is no struggle.’ @markwschaefer on #worklifebalance https://t.co/EMgBjfmTpa via @ExpWriters

  — Julia McCoy (@JuliaEMcCoy) December 30, 2018

• Answer a Question: If the original post asks a question, you can share it with your response. Alternately, if you know that a subset of your followers may have an opinion they’re eager to share, you can share the post and ask for their opinions on that question.
  

  Here is a question that I have received from some of my connections over the last few months and I don’t have an answer. Mainly because I’m not a recruiter or in HR.

  So…I want to get some insights from my recruiter/HR friends and connections to weigh in…https://t.co/bnqpYKx6Uu

  — Bernie Fussenegger #Digital360Chat (@B2the7) April 19, 2019

• Add or React to the List: If a post references a list-based article, such as “8 Emerging HR Trends for 2020,” suggest a 9th trend, or react to the existing list (i.e., “this trend surprised me because…”).
  

  I’d add community-building: 10 Trends That Defined Digital Marketing in 2016 https://t.co/bQNu4wXGLx via @marketo

  — Erika Heald | Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) December 9, 2016

  Also on list: Ineffective/inconsistent problem-solving, hyper-focus on law thus creating confusion bw what is illegal or what is unfair (& ignoring problems when they are *only* unfair), & unwillingness to accept (& apologize) when wrong. #DramaFreeWorkplace https://t.co/5eIUPiPlov

  — Patti Perez (@patticperez) April 19, 2019

• Make it Personal: If you have an anecdote you can share, or some personal stake in a topic, reshare the piece with your story. It’s more than saying “I work in this space and I agree,” it’s saying “companies need to realize that an employee’s onboarding has lasting effects on their time with the company. A seasoned employee just told me that their onboarding was the moment they realized they’d stay with our company for years.”
  

  Me too and its real. I had worked for Dell before, but when I came back 2.5 years ago, something had changed. It’s not just people either. We have also become much more focused on the environment. Proud to say #iworkfordell https://t.co/dIZrBpc1si

  — Casey Gotcher (@supgladiator) April 30, 2019

  “Own The Data, Own The Experience, Own The Relationship” – I see it this way: know the data, know what the customer wants for the experience, manage the relationship. My clients are owning the data and technology, not the agencies. Yes, the customer owns the experience. #martech

  — Jesús Hoyos #martech #crm #solvis (@jesus_hoyos) April 2, 2019

One small caveat: With everything you post on social about your company, ensure you have the permission to disclose the information. Things you shouldn’t share include:

1. 1. • Information about clients or customers that aren’t referenceable
      • Internal changes that have not been made public (i.e., executives leaving or joining the company)
      • Proprietary data or statistics
      • Company financials outside of approved earnings statements

As long as you have permission to share certain information, any of the four approaches above is an authentic way to engage with your company’s content.

Smarter Brand Advocacy

By understanding your audiences and tailoring company content in an authentic way, you’re on the right track to blend company news into your social media.

As you continue to share company content, try out new ways of sharing your posts. Pay attention to which of your posts get the most engagement, and model your future content on those. The goal is to share your company content in a way that your audience is eager to engage with.

Further, remove any doubts or questions you may have about sharing company content by partnering with your company’s marketing or social team. Ask them for advice, and see if they have social media guidelines for you to follow or any resources to help you thrive on social. It’s likely your company’s social media professionals would be thrilled to have a conversation with you, and help provide you with the tools you need to become a brand advocate.

If you’re feeling stuck when it comes to curating content to share on your social media channels, leave me a message in the comments and I’ll notify you when my social listening dashboard and content curation course is ready for BETA testers.