Empower Your Employees: A Practical Guide for Achieving Advocacy Victories Within Your Workforce
In today's digital age, businesses are recognising the power of employee advocacy in driving brand awareness, engagement, and sales. Employee recognition, training, and empowerment play crucial roles in fostering a successful advocacy program.
Employee recognition can take various forms, ranging from internal shout-outs, notes of gratitude, gamification, or incentive rewards. Such recognition drives greater interest and participation in advocacy programs.
Providing employees with useful assets, such as photos, videos, infographics, and ready-to-share content with leeway for customization, encourages them to post company content. Many employees need training to effectively share content on social media, and offering training programs can help them confidently share authentic messages while maintaining brand consistency.
Ismael El Qudsi, the Co-founder and CEO of SocialPubli, an influencer marketing platform with over 500,000 opt-in influencers, emphasises the importance of setting clear goals aligned with business outcomes, engaging employees through transparent communication and genuine involvement, providing training and appropriate guidelines, and fostering authenticity without over-scripted content.
Key strategies for success include defining clear goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), communicating the program's value to employees, providing training, coaching, and tools, setting guidelines rather than scripts, encouraging leadership participation and cross-department collaboration, and incorporating community and recognition elements.
Common pitfalls to avoid include overly scripted or mandatory social media sharing, lack of leadership buy-in or visible involvement, insufficient training and unclear guidelines leading to inconsistent messaging or employee uncertainty, and ignoring authentic employee voices or dissenting opinions.
Examples from companies like Microsoft and DHL show that empowering employees with resources, trust, and opportunities to share authentic stories leads to more engaged employee advocates and a stronger brand culture. Building an employee advocacy program with these best practices, while avoiding mechanical or pressured participation, supports long-term success and avoids backlash or disengagement.
Leaders can differentiate their messages based on their areas of expertise when promoting products or services. It is important to position the employee advocacy program as something employees want to be part of, rather than feeling forced to participate. Employees should be given freedom to create their own content for the program, rather than being micromanaged.
Social media success requires tracking metrics such as engagement, reach, and clicks. The Forbes Agency Council, an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative, and advertising agencies, highlights the importance of employee advocacy programs in creating an authentic online presence for organisations.
In the insurance sector, participation in employee advocacy programs can grow significantly within the first year, with one case showing a growth of 5,315%. Companies can create training programs that show employees appropriate ways to share content, ensuring authenticity and brand consistency across all platforms.
However, it is essential to remember that employee advocacy programs should not force participation to maintain authenticity. Household goods, electronic devices, and gift cards are popular rewards for employee advocacy campaigns, but the most effective incentives are those that make employees proud of the company's culture and values.
- Ismael El Qudsi, the Co-founder and CEO of SocialPubli, also emphasizes the importance of employee advocacy in the finance sector, stating that setting clear goals, providing training, fostering authenticity, and avoiding overly scripted content are key strategies for success in this area as well.
- In the lifestyle and technology industries, businesses could learn from the success of companies like Microsoft and DHL by implementing employee advocacy programs that encourage authentic employee voices, offer training for social media sharing, and provide resources and rewards that make employees proud of their company's culture and values.
