Why Your Business Needs an Effective Employee Advocacy Strategy
Darren Westall
November 21, 2020
Marketing
In recent years, brands and businesses have looked to humanise their operations, and truly create champions of their products or services in their teams. Whilst your employees may value and believe in what you offer to consumers, a strong element of employee advocacy can enable your sales and marketing functions to increase interest in your products and services.
What Is Employee Advocacy?
Put simply, employee advocacy is the promotion of your organisation and services by those in your team. Perhaps your employees are already advocating for you without even recognising it – it can be as quick and easy as a LinkedIn post of appreciation, an Instagram snap of a team event, or a Facebook tag for your company page. However, here we’ll be discussing how you can power up your employee advocacy activities in a strategic, measurable and rewarding way.
Thinking About Implementing Employee Advocacy? Consider These Steps First.
Before you begin to push the steps to employee advocacy, there’s planning that must be accounted for, and this must be strategic. Rather than simply sending out an email asking employees to share posts on social media about your products, services, or the workplace, consider putting together a planner of what your teams will be sharing and when. Think about the type of content that your target audience will want to see and be interested in; is it a whitepaper detailing your latest research? Perhaps it’s a quick infographic giving valuable insights, or a LinkedIn poll to engage their network. No matter the type of content, there must be one common factor: it has to stay centric to your audience, offer value, and ultimately promote your business, product, or services.
If the prospect of putting together a tactical planner or spending time with your teams to tackle ideas seems too daunting, platforms such as Paiger can not only help you to generate content ideas but also automate messages to your team members to request for them to share posts which boost your brand’s awareness across their networks.
Another key factor to include in your planning is that the content your teams share must be organic. Again, rather than sending out an email blast to your employees requesting for them to share new content, first ensure that the content is relevant and something which they truly value. If they were to share content which isn’t aligned with their own ideas, then their peers will pass over it quickly – above all else, it would simply seem disingenuous. Remember, platforms such as LinkedIn revolve around people – so if your content doesn’t seem like it’s made for people who know you, it’ll only work to alienate your audience.
Working with an employee advocacy plan which is both strategic and organic will ensure that your sharing of content is effective and will resonate with your audience.
Once you have planned out your employee advocacy strategy, it’s time to put it into action! To begin with, you may want to consider implementing the new strategy with a core team before rolling it out across your business.
Who Are the Influencers in Your Office?
No, we don’t necessarily mean the person who has a large Instagram following and is vying for a spot on reality TV! We’re thinking more of those who are already seen as experts on platforms such as LinkedIn, who have a large and engaged network.
Whilst employee advocacy is great for your wider reputation, it’s a great tool for boosting your sales and marketing strategies. When promoting your products or services, you will have likely worked to bring potential buyers and customers on the journey of your business with you. It’s no secret in sales that people buy from people – and your employees are perfectly placed, as experts in your services, to promote your brand. 85% of customers look to seek out trusted, leading advice before purchasing, and with their wealth of knowledge on your product, your employees are the perfect people to promote your business.
Incentivise And Simplify The Strategy!
We understand that some employees may be hesitant to change their activities, and it may be harder to get these team members on board with your employee advocacy planning. So, to get them engaged, you need to ensure the strategy is simple.
With Paiger, ensuring brand advocacy and enabling your teams to boost the business (and their own) profile across social media is easy. Paiger enables you to broadcast content to your teams, allowing them to add their own personalised message or input, as well as tagging others and inputting links all from one simple to use platform. This means that, in a literal click of a button, your employees can share relevant and insightful content that is presented to them via SMS or email, and engage their social media networks further.
Ensuring that your team members are also aware of the benefits which the strategy can bring is key. There is a whole host of research across the internet which discusses the benefits of employee advocacy and what a team member’s share can bring – and we’ve picked out a few of our favourites to share with your employees below.
- Brand messages reached 561% further when shared by employees rather than being shared by the company - which means that those all-important employee shares can further brand awareness for potential buyers (which means more potential sales!).
- Content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than content shared by company channels - meaning that your employees’ own profiles will gain a boost in authority and interactions.
- And an important one for your sales teams - leads developed through employee social channels convert 7x more frequently than other leads!
Make It Fun!
We know – a lot of new business strategies may not revolve around the idea of ‘fun’. However, making your employee advocacy strategy engaging for your teams may be the difference between getting the buy in from them and them not sharing any content at all.
Paiger can present you with a leaderboard to see who your most active team members are – and they can see it themselves! So, consider weekly updates on employee advocacy and maybe even offer prizes for the team member who shares the most relevant, insightful, and engaging content!
Overall, there are a number of things to consider when planning and implementing your employee advocacy strategy, but with so many benefits to bring to your sales and marketing functions, it certainly shouldn’t be overlooked. Whilst we’ve discussed a number of topics which sit within employee advocacy, Paiger can help to manage all of them and more in one simple, easy to use platform.
Employee advocacy is integral to our own brand, and our team are experts in engaging sales and marketing teams to bridge the gap across a range of businesses.
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