Employee Advocacy
Employee advocacy is quite simply defined as ‘the promotion of your company by the people who work for it.’ Your employees are the people that know and love your company, and at the same time, they have their own online world of networks and connections. Read about it here for more detail on what employee advocacy is. Compared to a celebrity or influencer, your employees are perceived as more approachable and truthful, which is the key to a successful campaign. But how do you go about implementing such a beneficial program?
Why You Should Outsource Your Employee Advocacy Program
Implementing an employee advocacy campaign is a powerful way to extend the awareness of your brand and business organically. Whether your employees are sharing your social media posts, informative articles, advertising campaigns or a glimpse of your corporate culture, they’re sharing brand content that is helpful to your target audience, and content that builds trust.
However, there is more to a successful employee advocacy campaign than sharing posts. Your program should be designed to also benefit your participants , while helping them expand their skill sets and grow their personal brand, while growing yours.
“For salespeople, an employee advocacy program can increase efficiency. It also provides a great basis for social selling. Employees can also enhance their credibility and position themselves as industry experts. Nearly 86% of employees involved in a formal advocacy program say it had a positive effect on their careers.” Christina Newberry, Karin Olafson for Hootsuite, 2021
Without a well-structured, well-executed and well-managed advocacy program, your campaign runs the risk of being a waste of time. Factors that contribute to the failure of your campaign include:
- There is no clear strategy to follow
- Lack of internal representation, i.e no one to provide guidelines, updates, recognition or take responsibility.
- Employees are too afraid to post, in fear of posting the “wrong” content
- Employees are not familiar with platforms like LinkedIn
- Employees don’t buy into the program and fail to see the benefits for both them and the company.
Your workforce is undoubtedly your most valuable asset and by empowering your staff, you are giving them a sense of pride and ownership, which in turn has been proven to boost corporate culture, productivity and performance.
“By putting the employee first, the customer effectively comes first by default, and in the end, the shareholder comes first by default as well.” Sir Richard Branson
Not only are you empowering your employees, you are also reaching an audience you may not have distributed content to, and this way, it is delivered in a trusted and authentic way.
By outsourcing your employee advocacy program, you work with dedicated providers with insightful resources, complete with progress reports and monitoring.
Outsourcing a company allows you to get on with your job function and day-to-day tasks, and still see results from your advocacy program that you don’t have to manage, experts will.
Employee advocacy has the power to raise brand awareness and create trust. As outlined in Edelman’s Trust Barometer Study, buyers trust your employees more than they do the marketing department, CEO, or company spokesperson when it comes to a purchase decision. Being informed and educated influences our decisions and ultimately, the way we act.
“If you want something to happen, you have to make people able and you have to make them want to.” Dr. Steve Kerr (Former Chief Learning Officer of General Electric and Goldman Sachs)
By educating and empowering your workforce, your company will reap the rewards, intrinsically and extrinsically.
