How to engage employees as influencers on your social channels

While social media practitioners increasingly encompass a wide range of disciplines and titles — from community managers to paid social experts, analytics leads and more — your organization’s focus will depend on the needs of your audiences.

As strategic communications skills also become increasingly crucial to successful social media strategies, your employees should be one of those audiences on your radar, too. Activating your employees to become your brand ambassadors and influencers by weaving them into your social strategy can assist with employer branding initiatives, educational and reputational support, and much more.

Ragan and PR Daily caught up with Amanda Ponzar, chief communications and strategy officer at CHC: Creating Healthier Communities to ask her a few questions about how she approaches activating employees as influencers. Ponzar will be a speaker at Ragan and PR Daily’s upcoming Social Media Conference, which takes place in person Sept. 21-23 at Disney World in Orlando.

Ponzar’s responses have been lightly edited.

Ragan: Why did you get into communication in the first place? What drove you to it?