We don't assign an official status to employees who participate on the community, but certainly do encourage them to participate as individuals (not brand representatives/official company spokespeople).
We just ask them to abide by our social media policy as if they were posting on any other channel. The only extra is we ask them to disclose that they are a team member if they ever recommend a product or service to ensure transparency - which I think is the only concern from not having them as official.
We might officially identify employees in future, but I would want to ensure that team members have some training and support set up before that happens. In our organisation that is a difficult challenge, so we are yet to tackle it.
I will be interested to hear other perspectives. Good topic.
Jason
Similar scenario to @JasonHill in that we freely allow employees to participate as individuals but don't identify them directly via ranks or icons.
The risks are managed by holding employees to the social media policy, which requires staff to call out they work for the company when discussing the brand on any channel (owned or otherwise). We recommend employees just add a note to signatures so it is automatically called out on all their contributions.
In my organisation any employee that has community as part of their nominal role is given an official account (rank icon, special rank and standard signature). This is to differentiate the brand representatives responsible for the channel from general employees (although there is a case for all employees being a representative of the brand).
