Employee advocacy on social media is a highly effective
marketing strategy that can boost your brand’s visibility and generate sales.
Companies with thousands of employees such as Starbucks, KPMG, and Google have
all implemented employee advocacy strategies that produce positive results in
various business areas. However, despite their impressive numbers, smaller
organizations can also benefit from employee advocacy on social media.
The benefits of employee advocacy on social media include:
Increased brand awareness, better networking, easier sharing & promotion,
and increased sales. All of these benefits can help your brand’s bottom line,
so it’s important to have an effective strategy in place before launching any
employee advocacy program.
Employees have more connections and followers than corporate
brands, so they are in a unique position to share their experiences at and
passion for your company with their own networks. The best part is that
employee-generated content is incredibly authentic, so it is often shared far
more than content created by the brand.
According to a study by Entrepreneur, employee-generated
social media content is 8 times more engaging than content created by the brand
and is shared 25 times more frequently. This gives your brand a greater chance
of building trust with consumers, which is key to any successful word-of-mouth
marketing strategy.
Employee advocacy programs that focus on promoting thought
leadership are extremely powerful in attracting potential customers and
partners to your organization. The right program will empower your employees to
post about your products and services in their own words, with their own style,
and their own insights. This makes your employees a highly credible and trusted
source of information on their social media platforms, which is the key to any
successful employee advocacy program.
To start, select team members who already have a strong
social presence and who regularly promote your company on their personal
accounts. This will give you an idea of which employees are most likely to be
excited and motivated to participate in the program.
Once you have a list of candidates, start to encourage them
to get involved in the program by providing resources. This may include a
newsletter with company events, announcements, and recommended content (either
your own or interesting links to discuss). Maintain a Slack channel where
advocates can share ideas for new content and bounce ideas off each other.
In addition, provide training sessions on how to share
content effectively. This can include topics such as media relations,
cybersecurity, and social media.
Getting senior management buy-in is critical for your
advocacy program to succeed. C-level executives are the people who can set an
example and motivate other employees to become engaged in social media.
One of the best ways to encourage employee participation in
your advocacy program is to create a leaderboard that awards points for
engagement activities.
