Employee advocacy is the promotion of your brand via your staff. Traditionally, this meant staff talking to other people about where they work at events, whether it be in a social or professional setting. Today, this word of mouth comes in a different format – social media.
An often untapped resource when it comes to social media marketing, employee advocacy empowers staff to share smart, quality content that not only benefits the business, but also their personal brand. And with employee networks, having on average 10x more connections than a company has followers, as well as people being 3x more likely to trust company information shared by an employee than by a CEO, the power of your people should not be swept under the rug.
While our clients usually understand the value of employee advocacy, there are some misconceptions around how to make it work. So before you start plugging to your staff, consider the following:
DON’T copy and paste
Many businesses think regular posting and instructing employees to re-share is all you need to improve your digital presence. While it may make a short-term difference, simply sharing or copy and paste methods are not enough.
DO re-share posts with commentary
Instead, give employees guidance on how to share and interact with the business online. Tell them to re-share posts that are of interest to them and their connections and let them add their own commentary. By making it interesting to your staff and allowing them to write in their own voice, employees will be far more enthusiastic and committed to helping.
DON’T expect instant results
Encouraging employees to be brand advocates can be difficult. Our social media accounts are where we build our reputations – do they want to share their work in this space too? How long will it take?
DO ease the process
While there may be some initial resistance, it is important to push the benefits for the employee, rather than just the business. By sharing and interacting with your posts, they can build their own professional network, develop a reputation as a thought leader and contribute to the business in a meaningful way.
DON’T tell staff to do it in their own time
Social media is so integrated in our lives, yet it is often still viewed negatively in the office. While it is true that social media can be a distraction and take away from real work – employee advocacy doesn’t have to be.
DO allow social sharing during work hours
For starters, most of your employee advocacy is likely to be spent on LinkedIn, known for being the “professionals” social channel, not a place where people are watching cat videos or messaging friends! Secondly, the best way to ensure your staff use their social time wisely is to trust them to do so. In fact, research has found employee advocacy tends to increase employee engagement, which in turn leads to more productivity, not less.
DON’T give up
It can be easy to throw in the towel and accept defeat when your employees do so much and results take so long. But don’t give up. While conversion is important, your digital presence is more than just a way to gather leads – it is a way to get awareness and eyes on your hard work, indirectly leading to prospective clientele.
DO measure and report
In order to measure the success of your social media work, it is important to implement a strategy, goals and metrics to keep track of employee advocacy and in turn, your social efforts, are performing. You can measure marketing objectives like engagement, new followers, web traffic and subscribers.
Do you have an employee advocacy program in place in your business? If you don’t, or need some assistance giving it a bit of a boost, we can help. At RAW Marketing, we are passionate about the power of digital and work with LinkedIn every day. See what we can do by getting in touch!
Sources:
https://business.linkedin.com/elevate/strategy-guides/official-guide-to-employee-advocacy-m
