In today's connected world, businesses constantly search for innovative ways to boost their brand presence and break through the noise. While digital marketing, social media and influencer partnerships are all essential components of a robust brand strategy, one often overlooked asset could be lying right under your nose: your employees. Your team members can be your most authentic and compelling advocates. These tactics can apply to the largest of brands down to the smallest financial advisor location.
Understanding Brand Advocacy
Brand advocacy occurs when employees actively promote their company's content and messaging. These advocates aren't just enthusiastic about their jobs; they're also passionate about the products or services offered and genuinely believe in their value. These individuals willingly share their positive experiences with the company, both online and offline, ultimately helping to build trust and credibility with your target audience.
Why Employees Make Great Advocates
- Authentic Messaging: Authenticity is crucial in today's marketing landscape. Consumers are increasingly skeptical of traditional advertising tactics and are likelier to trust referral recommendations from people they know. Employees are the heartbeat of your organization. When they advocate for your brand, their genuine passion and belief in your products or services shine through, making their endorsements more compelling.
- Cost Effective: Employee advocacy can be a cost-effective marketing strategy. Your employees are already on your payroll, and they can become advocates without the need for additional expenses on influencer partnerships or ad campaigns.
- Trustworthiness: People trust people more than they trust brands. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, employees are more credible than CEOs and journalists.
- Expanded Reach: Employees can significantly expand your brand's reach through their social networks, both online and offline. Ultimately, it helps tap into new audiences and markets, increasing your exposure.
- Improved Recruitment: Employee advocacy not only benefits your brand's external reputation but also improves your workplace brand as well. When potential hires see happy employees enthusiastically promoting their workplace, it can be a powerful recruitment tool.
- Boosted Engagement: Employee advocacy can boost employee engagement and job satisfaction. When employees feel valued and proud of their company, they are more likely to be engaged, productive and motivated.
How to Encourage Employee Brand Advocacy
- Create a Positive Work Culture: A positive work culture is the foundation of successful employee advocacy. Ensure your employees feel valued, appreciated, and aligned with your company's mission.
- Educate and Train: Provide training and resources to help employees understand your brand's messaging, fundamental values and best practices. This empowers them to share information confidently and accurately.
- Employee-Generated Content: Encourage employees to create content, such as blog posts, videos or social media updates, related to their experiences with the company. This content can be a powerful testimonial. Develop guidelines to ensure consistent messaging.
- Lead by Example: Encourage your leadership team to lead by example and become advocates themselves. When leaders actively promote the brand, it sets a powerful precedent for the entire organization.
- Recognize and Reward: Recognize and reward employees actively participating in brand advocacy. This can be done through “gamification” with incentives, awards or simply acknowledging their efforts publicly.
- Provide Tools and Content: Make it easy for employees to advocate for your brand by providing ready-to-share content, visuals, and other resources. Several platforms are available to help support these efforts, like GaggleAmp, Hootsuite Amplify, Haiilo and Post Beyond. LinkedIn also offers significant employee advocacy data natively in the platform under analytics, which allows visibility of employee engagement on brand-related posts.
Data-Driven Results
To gauge the effectiveness of your employee advocacy program, track key performance indicators such as increased social media engagement, website traffic from employee-shared links and the growth of your company's social media following. This data can help refine your strategy and identify top advocates within your organization. Additionally, monitor sentiment analysis to ensure that employee advocacy is positively impacting your brand's reputation.
The Pay Off
Your employees are not just your workforce; they are your brand's greatest potential advocates. Harnessing their enthusiasm, authenticity and trustworthiness can significantly boost your brand's visibility and credibility. By implementing strategies to turn employees into brand advocates and measuring your success, you can create a win-win situation where your employees feel proud of their association with your brand, and your brand benefits from their advocacy. It's time to unlock the full potential of your most valuable asset—your people.
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“Employees are more than workers. They’re your best untapped storytellers!”
– Dinah Alobeid, Director of Communications at Brandwatch
Ben Kulis is Lone Beacon's Operations Manager