What your employees are doing that you should require

Your company must be the foundation of employee's professional social media efforts. Today's employee is tomorrow's entrepreneur. Even if they have no plans of hanging their own shingle and coming back to eat your lunch, workers are marketing themselves like never before. They are on Linkedin, Twitter, and writing blogs about your industry from their perspective. Don't think in terms of controlling that energy, here are some tips to leverage that effort.

• Lead by example. Set-up YOUR profile on Linkedin or Twitter.
• Claim your company URLs on Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook even if you are not ready to use them now. If you can't manage the page it is better not to put it up. You don't want your name on a party that no one shows up to. 
• Find that social media savvy employee and have them give a tutorial over lunch for other employees.
• Don't let people walk away from that tutorial empty handed. Ask everyone to dress up a bit, find a clean blank wall and take everyone's head shot. Social profiles without a smiling mug will be ignored.
• When you set up your Linkedin page have all your staff indicate that they work for your company on the site as well. Now your company will be able to ride the wave of everything they interact with professionally.
• Solicit article submissions from you staff for the company blog. Link to their professional blogs. 
• Have a social media policy in your employee handbook that everyone must sign. Even if you don't encourage the professional use of social media what your staff projects to the online world could reflect negatively on your firm. (We will have more detail on this step at a later date.)

More than ever before, employees are not forever. Don't worry about them jumping ship. No matter where they go, the personal equity you build with each employee by helping them build their brand will help cast your net wider that you ever could by yourself. If you have done your job in the hiring process you have bright, creative, and professional people on your team. Help them shine and your company can profit from their glow in the process.

Caveat: Use discretion if you are in an industry where clients value your anonymity.