Recently, I have noticed that small businesses and groups “ask” their employees to change their cover or profile photos for the brand of the organization they work for. And while some managers understand this to be a fine line, others have lobbied their teams to help promote the group’s brand.

You know how that happens, right?

First, the team manager makes a request that says something like this: “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we helped promote our business and we all changed our cover photos to branding? To have some artwork that we invented and it would be great if each of you posted it on your social media accounts. It’s a team effort! You don’t have to, but … “

And then you have the first person on the team to go ahead and change their profile or cover photo, and the next thing you hear is that the manager makes a distinctive point to recognize that team member. I’ve even seen some situations where managers have repeatedly asked, always rating it as not “required,” to see if a team member who hasn’t changed their private social media settings has the intention of doing so. You know, not-so-subtle pressure.

This is my suggestion for you if you are a leader or manager of a team and would like to have some esprit de corps for the team.

• Ask once and only once and provide the artwork, if any team member ever wants to help your group spread the word.
• Or you can do what I do and ask for nothing. Period.

My marketing team has sincerely told me, “Wayne, let’s ask the team to promote one of our social businesses or businesses on social media!”

I’ve never been enthusiastic about the idea, and I’m not sure if I ever will.

I think we should have a separation between work and personal, as much as we can. I know some people think it is “old school”, but the reality is that as a leader I understand that if my team has a personal life and the business world does not invade it all the time, they will be happier and productivity will be higher.

There are also some practical and legal reasons not to ask your team to promote your business or group on social media. It is particularly true when managers ask them with the “subtle” pressures that can sometimes occur when they want their team members to support the organization.

• Employers have the right to ask their employees not to be on their personal social media accounts during business hours. That is a legitimate request that should be made to employees (but not to contract workers, freelancers, or consultants who are not salaried personnel).
• Can you demand, even subtly, that your employees support your organization? The short answer is no. Do not do it. Social media accounts are the personal and private property of the owners, in this case, each of their employees. So, just like you can’t demand that they give you the keys to their houses, you can’t ask them (read, “wait”) to promote the business on their accounts.

But what if you want it to at least be an option for your team to promote your business or group on their social media accounts if they want to? Yes, you can make social media art and images available to them, let them know that it’s a resource for them if they ever want to use it on their accounts, but that’s it. In some cases, you or your employee may be in legal jeopardy because promoting your business on your social media accounts for commercial purposes may violate the terms of social media.

The bottom line in the age of social media is that if you want to build team spirit or have an amazing product launch and you want your team to get involved, you can provide the resources. But you can’t demand or pressure them, or do anything other than allow each person to do what they would like to do, if at all, on their personal social media accounts.