Employees are the most valuable assets in an organization. For a workforce to be happy and productive, you need a robust culture. Not many businesses understand that tapping into the unlimited potential of their teams requires a certain level of planning and advocacy.
So, what is employee advocacy, and how can you integrate it into your existing marketing strategy? Let’s find out.
Employee Advocacy: What Is It?
Marketing your company through your employees is the very definition of employee advocacy. People often speak up for their employers on social media and public places. People posting events and inconsequential posts like team lunches and outings gather a lot of attention and count as employee advocacy.
What Kind Of Employee Advocacies Are There?
In today’s world of online-centric marketing, social media is the king. You can utilize the part of social media through employee advocacy by activating your employees across various channels. You should have a content strategy and a goal for different social media to reach new growth. It is a very measurable form of a performance indicator. Not only are you raising brand awareness, but you are also achieving the following:
Attracting New Business
Employee advocacy comes with boosted visibility. This will get you plenty of attention from prospects. People are more likely to trust their peers than an advertisement. So instead of thrusting ads in the faces of people, brands are choosing to relay the same messages through their employees. You can boost your image by imploring your employees to post articles in your niche, create case studies and clan testimonials, create posts demonstrating thought leadership, and even promote webinars.
Hire The Right People
The key to the success of an organization depends on the people who work in it. Most organizations make a conscious effort to foster workplace ethics and morals by providing various benefits, perks, and so on. But there is no way to promote these things as an organization without coming across as unpleasant.
However, if these empowering posts come through your employees, they give an impression of a quality workplace. It also seems much more relatable and authentic. You can cater to your employee advocacy program to post job openings, positions, news about your company, information on products and services, or even simply how it looks like working near an organization.
Companies that employee advocacy programs are 58% more likely to get the right kind of talent. They are also better at retaining the top quality people in their organization.
How Can You Practice Employee Advocacy?
Like any form of content marketing, employee advocacy must be controlled, and you need a solid groundwork before you can start.
Understand Your Goals
You have to define quantifiable goals such as increasing website traffic by 20%. Increasing the number of followers on Facebook by 5000. This gives your employees an evident structure of what they are trying to accomplish. It makes them more involved in the progress because this can be continuously tracked.
Facilitate Open Communication
An employee advocacy program requires a lot of transparency when it comes to communication. It isn’t easy to get a message across hundreds, thousands of people without a common means of communication. Having organized meetings and keeping your employee force updated regularly is necessary to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Improve Leadership Participation
An employee advocacy program cannot be successful unless the company’s leaders show their faith in it. Include executives who are in the industry working as thought leaders and market disrupters. Ask them to lead by example and show how employee advocacy can be a powerful tool in marketing.
Create A Content Team
While it is a great strategy to use your employees to share content, you must ensure that the content quality is top-notch. This is something that requires a diverse view from quality content curators. They should understand your customer base and how to reflect their opinions and interests. They are also the best people to determine which of their colleagues are the right people to share this information. You can find motivated individuals who are social media experts and train them to create informational and promotional pieces. Create an incentive program to trigger extra motivation for finding such content.
Conclusion
As you can see, integrating employee advocacy with your content marketing strategy can do wonders to create the intended buzz. It helps you reach your target audiences and enables you to enhance your brand value online without advertising. For more assistance on how to tap the potential of employee advocacy, contact us today.