1. The evolution of influence
2. What is employee advocacy?
3. Interesting stats on employee advocacy
4. The power of trust
5. Benefits of employee advocacy
6. Here's how you can turn your employees into influential advocates
7. Famous Brands & Their Success Stories in Employee Advocacy
8. Take up your influencer marketing to an awesome level?
9. Challenges and Mitigations of Employee Advocacy
10. Conclusion
“Why should influencers have all the fun?”
Employees are no longer a group of people working in the background. At least not for the companies who are openly sharing their office-fun online.
Social media is not only for the individual influencers talking to you on your rectangles anymore. Many companies and their teams are taking their employee advocacy to a next level by creating consistent content online.
Apart from getting a tag of ‘fun-company-to-work-with’, such organizations are enjoying a lot of other benefits of being active on social media.
In this article, we’ll discuss what’s employee advocacy and what benefits do companies get with it. We’ll also list down some famous companies that are creating content online successfully.
When a company promotes or advocates its messaging and products (or services) via its employees, it’s called employee advocacy. It involves employees sharing company content, engaging with the brand on social media, and actively participating in marketing and branding efforts. Essentially, it transforms your employees into trusted brand ambassadors.
One of the key reasons why employee advocacy works so well is trust. People trust their colleagues more than they trust the brand itself or even external influencers. Thus, when employees show their enthusiasm and thrill of working for a particular company, the audience automatically takes this as a very positive sign and instantly trusts the organization.
Employer branding is a process of promoting your brand as the best place to work. With a solid employer branding, highly skilled and good profile candidates show interest in working with the firm.
Employee advocacy allows your current employees to show off their life at your company and automatically attract your potential employees.
Thus, potential employees often research a company's online presence, and positive employee advocacy can be a significant draw.
By sharing company content, employees extend the brand's reach to their own networks, amplifying the message far beyond what the brand could achieve alone.
When employees talk about the company, their authority is rooted in first-hand experience. This lends credibility to the brand's claims.
Active employee advocacy leads to higher engagement rates on social media. Employees' friends and connections are more likely to interact with content shared by someone they know.
Turning Employees into Influencers
Before you start encouraging your employees to share content on social media and talk about your company, you need proper planning and preparation.
Provide training on social media best practices and company messaging. Equip employees with the knowledge and tools to effectively represent the brand.
Just like Dell did with its Dell Insider program! They used to ask employees to show interest, they’d fill up a form, and then they received a link to the personal branding training. After completing the training, the employees could take part in the program with awareness and compliances in mind.
Encourage employees to share company content, such as blog posts, product updates, and company news, on their personal social media profiles.
Recognize and reward employees who are active advocates. Publicly acknowledge their efforts and the impact they've had on the brand.
Avoid making advocacy mandatory; it should be voluntary. Encourage employees to participate because they want to, not because they have to.
While it should be voluntary, provide clear guidelines on what's acceptable to share and what's not. This helps maintain brand consistency and reputation.
Several companies have harnessed the power of employee advocacy effectively:
The tech giant's employee advocacy program, called "Dell Insider," has been a resounding success. Employees are encouraged to share company content, and in return, they receive training and access to exclusive content.
Similar to Dell, Adobe's employee advocacy program focuses on personal branding. Employees are trained to build their personal brands while also sharing Adobe's content.
IBM's program, "IBM Voices," encourages employees to share not only company news but also their own thoughts and insights on industry trends. This approach humanizes the brand.
Starbucks has taken a unique approach to encourage its employee advocacy. They’ve dedicated separate channels dedicated to employees on different social media platforms. For example, see their Instagram channel called “Starbucks Partners (employees)”.
The channel posts content from their employees sharing their happy experiences working at their respective Starbucks cafes. They also have a dedicated and popular hashtag called #ToBeAPartner that they use on every post they upload. Pretty amazing, huh!
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While employee advocacy can be immensely beneficial, it's not without challenges. Common issues include:
Employees might feel overwhelmed by the volume of content to share. Mitigation: Curate content and provide personalized suggestions.
Some employees may be hesitant to share company content, fearing it will negatively impact their personal brand. Mitigation: Encourage them to add their perspective when sharing.
Measuring the impact of employee advocacy can be challenging. Mitigation: Use analytics tools to track engagement and reach.
Some companies fear hiring candidates who have a solid personal brand on social media. They think that influencers might not be the most loyal to their firm. But that’s far from the truth. If employee advocacy is done well, such influencer-employees can bring so much ROI to your business apart from the labor-hours they’re putting in.
Also read: 6 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Finalizing Your Influencer Marketing Content
This article talks about the ongoing trend of employee advocacy on social media and how companies can turn their employees to collective influencers to win their target audience.