Social employee

Social employee is a term used to describe workers operating within a social business model. Following an organization's social computing guidelines, social employees use social media tools both for internal workflow and collaboration purposes and for external engagement with customers, prospects and stakeholders through a combination of social media marketing, content marketing, social marketing, and social selling. Social employee programs are considered to be as much about culture and engagement as they are about business processes and best practices. In addition to increased leads and sales, social employee best practices are said to improve business outcomes important to social media marketing, such as increased connections and web traffic, improved brand identification and "chatter", and better customer advocacy.

The term "social employee" was first introduced to describe those exhibiting the emerging characteristics of workers operating under a social business model. The concept gained broader recognition in late 2013 with the release of The Social Employee, co-authored by marketing consultants Cheryl Burgess and Mark Burgess. In the book, the term was used to describe the end result of efforts of organizations such as IBM, Adobe, and Cisco to restructure their organizations, using a social business model and social computing principles to address the changing needs of both the workplace and their workers.

The term is often used interchangeably with similar designations like "employee advocate" or "social employee advocate". For prominent or upper-level social advocates, the terms "social leader" and "social executive" are often respectively used.

Crucial to the perceived value of the social employee is the concept of the digital footprint. While organizations are able to generate large bases of followers through social media, research shows that brand marketing and engagement efforts through these networks are not as effective as those of individual employees. In fact, some research indicates that employee experts are more trusted than any other member of an organization. Because of this, social employee programs are designed to train, empower, and support employee engagement efforts in the hopes of authentically engaging larger communities, increasing the frequency of shares, reviews, and other forms of "earned media" and expanding the brand's presence on the web.

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