It’s been a long-running question for companies: How can we get employees involved in brand engagement—without it turning into a social media debacle? When two Domino’s Pizza workers created a YouTube video of their hygiene hijinks, it created a media disaster and reinforced companies’ reticence to involve employees in social media efforts.

But Facebook scholar Clara Shih says businesses can involve employees in their efforts and keep track of what they do online. Shih is co-founder of Hearsay Social ^[1] a start-up that develops tools to help companies train employees in brand engagement and monitor their activities on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The company has just raised $18 million in funding to expand its efforts. Hearsay Social also provides tools such as integrated campaign manager and a regional management console, which help businesses craft and manage campaigns at the local level.

At the end of the day, employees are already online; it only makes sense to prepare them to better engage with customers.

Read more at Venture Beat ^[2].