Achieving an Effective Employee Advocacy Program - CareerMetis.com

Achieving an Effective Employee Advocacy Program Companies have a variety of tried and true methods forbuilding brand visibilityand value to prospective clients and employees â€" from public relations and advertising to content marketing and other techniques.One of the least understood of these methods is a relatively new approach known as employee advocacy.evalThis strategy relies on an underutilized One of the key takeaways of our study was that firms have various levels of adoption of this strategy.As shown in Figure 2 â€" 3 out of 10 respondents to our survey said their firms were not currently considering employee engagement on social media, while 53% were either piloting such programs or considering them. Meanwhile, 1 in 6 had implemented formal, comprehensive programs.Another key finding of our survey was that employee advocacyworks because of the person-to-person connections it creates. This is critical, because even as our society continues to undergo a major digital transformation, most people still have a natural impulse to seek out and value human contact. What does this mean for businesses?For one thing, it means that clients and prospects tend to put more trust in a face than a corporate logo. As a result, people are looking for businesses and people who not only have the expertise and thought leadership they need, but just as importantly, are entities they can trust.Social media to the rescueevalThe findings of our study make it clear that prospective clients and employees are finding and researching organizations through social media.That’s very good news for marketers, because social media is the perfect medium for companies and their employees to persuasively demonstrate their expertise and corporate culture.Why is it important to be able to demonstrate your firm’s corporate culture? For many firms, the answer comes down to basic survival. Our research results show that finding and keeping good people is the next-to-most important priority for most organizations Nearly ¾ of respondents to our survey said that they had not been given any formal training on how to use social networks to engage professionally. But we also found that more than half of firms that are conducting formal employee advocacyprograms also provide social media training.When we asked respondents what type of training would be most beneficial, they named using social media to create engagement as the most important topic, followed by training on specific social channels, strategies for content marketing, methods for generating and nurturing leads, and ways to motivate employees to become brand advocates on social media.To accomplish such goals, respondents said that explaining to employees the importance of social media provided the biggest incentive to participate.More tips for effective employee advocacyKeep in mind that using social media for employee advocacygoes far beyond merely creating accounts and profile pages on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Let’s look at two of the most popular platforms:LinkedIn â€" By far the most popular social media choice among business professionals, LinkedIn is an ideal platform for demonstrating thought leadership. To do so, the key is to identify and join relevant LinkedIn groups. Have every expert in your organization do this, based on their own particular areas of expertise on topics that are relevant, and with which your firm seeks to be associated. Then, to build credibility, your individual employees should post appropriate content of value to their various LinkedIn groups on a regular basis.Facebook â€" You’re probably quite familiar with the content that dominates the Facebook pages of friends and family, such as animal videos, comical memes, and so on. But Facebook is also an ideal platform on which to demonstrate your organization’s culture and to display its fun, even quirky, aspects. To be clear, your company’s Facebook page is not where you want to get into serious discussions of business issues. Instead, keeping it interesting and lively is the way to quickly gather friends and followers.Keep your eyes on the prizeIn case you’re still on the fence about whether employee advocacycan help, consider one more set of data from our survey. Over 96% of our respondents said they were reaping benefits from employees’ engagement on social media.evalAs shown in Figure 4, increased visibility and brand recognition were at the top of the list, followed by other measurable benefits such as increased web traffic, better rankings on search engines, more content downloads and reduced marketing costs.Perhaps even more important is the potential for attracting new business and faster growth. Our study found that high-growth firms (organizations with revenue growth greater than 20%) were more than two times as likely as other firms to have employee advocacyprograms.High-growth firms are also more likely to say that their employee advocacy efforts are helping to shorten sales cycles (27.1%). In addition, 6 4% of high-growth firms credited their employee advocacyprograms with attracting and developing new business, and nearly 45% said their programs had helped create new revenue streams.Some final thoughtsIf there’s one key to success in employee advocacy, it’s having a content strategy and sticking to it.Maintain a balance of promotional content (posts about new positions, events attended, or key partnerships and/or awards) along with thought-leadership pieces (educational, informative blogs for example).Share links to other companies’ relevant posts, and they will very likely return the favor by promoting yours. Try to encourage your employee experts to maintain a consistent, steady stream of high-value content.Creating an employee advocacyprogram is not quick or easy … but the benefits to your firm and your employees make it well worth the effort. Best of luck on the journey!