Your employees are already on social media. They’re on platforms your resort or business is not, and they have followers you’ll never get. And they are probably sharing business content on their channels right now.

With an employee advocacy program, this activity becomes official, and you can use their social media access to extend your organic reach while engaging with your team.

Employee advocacy is the promotion of an organisation by its workforce. This promotion could be in the form of sharing information about specific products or campaigns. Or sharing brand content with others in your industry. It could simply be employees sharing snippets of company culture.

The impact of employee advocacy? 

• Your brand reputation is boosted with both your customers and recruits;
• Positive impact on growth and sales due to increased brand awareness; and
• Improved staff recruitment, retention and engagement.

Hootsuite’s research suggests that if an employee shares just six pieces of content on LinkedIn, the employer enjoys:

• Six job views;
• Three company page views;
• One company page follower;
• Six profile views; and
• Two new connections.

Moreover, more people trust content from an employee than the CEO. Even more trust a company technical expert. Overall, employees sharing content creates a higher degree of brand trust.

And it’s not just a one-way street – employees benefit as well. Nearly 25 per cent of companies say employee advocacy programs help staff better understand the brand, and in turn, increase engagement.

Salespeople believe an employee advocacy program can increase efficiency and is a basis for social selling. At the same time, employees can enhance their credibility and establish themselves as industry experts.

How to get started

Create a positive and engaged workplace culture where your staff love their jobs, not just the paycheck.

Organise the program with set goals and KPIs in place so that you can track your results and create content your staff want to share and be proud to do so.

Identify employee advocacy leaders from across the business who are regular social media users and enthusiastic about your brand.

Set up social media guidelines and policy so your team knows not just what the message is but the best way to communicate it, how often they should post, the correct language to use and how to manage comments.

Don’t force employees to become involved. Instead, reach out to them, explain the program and then recognise those who have taken part and the impact it has made.

Give your employees the tools and resources to advocate your brand with a library of entertaining and engaging content available to share, like videos and graphics.

Reward your advocates not only with rewards like gift cards but with increased visibility and credibility within your business. Gamification is a great way to promote advocacy and encourage more employees to become involved.

If your business runs an employee advocacy program, we’d love to hear more about it in the comments.

Source: Hootsuite