You’ve probably heard some of the buzz about employee advocacy and wondered if there’s any merit to the hype. What is this recent marketing shift about, and what differences can it make for employees and the companies they work for?
At the heart of employee advocacy is a mutually beneficial marketing partnership between a brand and its employees. The partnership helps a company gain reach and awareness while helping employees build strong personal brands.
A vibrant employee advocacy program entails at least three elements. Firstly, it requiresthat employees have access to a pipeline of industry-related news and trends to curate for their audiences. Secondly, it calls for company-published content for employees to share and generate discussions around. And finally, there’s the need for attribution metrics and other analyticsthat help marketers to measure the engagement thatthe employee advocacy program generates,providing the ability to make adjustments when needed.
Although employee advocacy is still in its early stages, it’s creating enough positive change to make many companies rethink their viewpoints about social media usage in the workforce. Here are five benefits of an effective employee advocacy initiative.
1. Better Social Selling Results
Employee advocacy can help amplifyyour company’s social selling efforts. In fact, its positive impact on social selling is one of the clearest measurements of thedirect ROI generated from an employee advocacy program.
In social selling, a brand builds meaningful online relationships with consumers in order to engage with them and close more deals. And with an employee advocacy program, your employees can leverage their already existing online relationships topromoteyour company in front of whole new audiences.
Companiesoftenencourage their employees to curate general industry links and share general company content. But when an employee advocacy program is focused on social selling, the content that each employee shares is selected by the employee to be tailored to his or her interests. When you provide your sales employees with content that’s fine-tuned to their specific niches and needs, for example,they can accuratelytarget theirsocial media prospects.
Further, an employee advocacy program aimed at social sellingcreates another advantage: It can analyze which types of audience members engage with which types of content. The company can then determine how its various pieces of content contribute to each stage of the sales funnel.
2. Higher Levels of EmployeeEngagement
One commonality among managers and business leaders worldwide is that they eagerly wonder how to engage employees and keep them consistently motivated. And for good reason.The most engaged employees are usually the ones who contribute the most to a company’s bottom line.
Another clear proof of employee advocacy’s ROI is its ability to skyrocket employee effort and engagement. A good advocacy program empowers its people to takeownershipof the success of their company,which leads to the feeling that one’s hard work ispaying off. This sense of value and accomplishment leads to even further employee engagement, and a healthy cycle develops.
Further, studies have suggested that employee engagement is linked to lower levels of absenteeism, reduced turnover and decreasesin job-related accidents. It has also been shown to boost sales and increase profits. Employees who are advocates for their companies tend to go out of their way to make sure customers are happy, and they’re more likely to find solutions to business problems.
3. Greater Reach and Discoverability
Your content isn’t being consumed by as much of your audience as you might think. One reason for this lack of reach is what marketer Mark Schaefer calls“content shock.”This is what happens when current content supply is high, while content demand is low. Another reason why content consumption is lower than you’d hope is a lack of trust in corporate messaging.Many people in your audience ignore content out of skepticism.
In contrast, target audiences are more trusting of content when it comes from a brand’s employees.According to Cisco, employee social media activity generates 8x more engagement than their employers’ posts. Further, employees have an average of 10x more followers than their employers’ social media pages.
These statistics point to major opportunity for brand reach. Do you want more people to be exposed to your brand? Employee advocacy can achieve this.
4. Reduced Paid-Media Costs
The pay-to-play beast that is social media can get exorbitantly expensive. But when you consider the above stats regarding reach and discoverability, it becomes clear that your employees can help you dramatically reduce those costs by sharing your brand’s content.
To calculate your employee advocacy program’s ROI compared to your usual socialmedia paid distribution spend, you’ll need to determine three values:
- Your average monthlycost per click for every social channel your brand uses
- The monthly number of clicks generated from your employees on eachchannel
- The monthly cost of your employee advocacy program
With these numbers, you can calculate how much you’d have to pay Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. to generate the same number of clicks your employees earn for your brand.
Simply multiply themonthly number of employee-generated clicksby your average cost-per-click on a social channel. Run this calculation for each channel, and add the totals.Then, subtract any cost you’ve paid for your employee advocacy program.
5. Strengthened Personal Brands for Employees
Contrary to the belief of some organizations, monetary rewards aren’t enough to keep top performers highly satisfied with their employers. Beyond financial compensation, your employees also want career growth and recognition.
Another proven way to get the best engagement and performance out of your people is to help them build favorable, well-known personal brands. Employee advocacy can do just that.
As you make it easier for your employees to curate and share valuable content to their audiences, a win-win situation starts taking shape. Not only is your company’s brand experiencing more reach, but your employees are building their own reputations and becoming more loyal to you in return.
Are You Ready for the Reach and Growth of Employee Advocacy?
It’s true that any new initiative will require buy-in from top leadership. But one great thing about establishing an employee advocacy program at your company is that your employees are likely to be on board from the outset.
Few company-wide efforts provide the synergy and win-win elementsof this new approach to marketing. And few initiatives offer the ROI that arises from an employee advocacy program. The key is to implement employee advocacy at your organization as soon as possible, while it’s still a new and emerging concept. The sooner you begin, the more of a competitive advantage you’ll be able to establish.