A guide to employee advocacy

Expand your social media impact and your reach with employee advocacy.

What is employee advocacy?

Employee advocacy is where companies encourage and inspire their employees to share content about their business on social media. The aim is to build awareness and increase overall exposure. Employees who become brand ambassadors can feel a sense of belonging and are more likely to be proud to work for their company.

Why is employee advocacy important for businesses?

1. Employee advocacy helps increase engagement, as people are more likely to interact with people they already know on social media. According to LinkedIn, employees who share content get 2x more engagement than if a company shared the content.  

2. People buy from people, and it’s about building the know, like and trust factor. This is where people need to get to know and like you before they buy from you. Leads created through employee advocacy are 7x times more likely to convert than company-generated leads or other channels.

3. Employees or individuals are also more likely to have 10x more 1st-degree connections that the company has followers, increasing potential reach (LinkedIn statistics).

These statistics clearly show how important it is to have employees on board and key brand ambassadors. People see your employees are a trusted source and are more likely to engage with their content than your company’s content.

What can businesses do to support employees?

Businesses need to have the right culture first and trust their employees with this process. Businesses can share tips with employees on managing their own LinkedIn community when business content is shared. To have a successful employee advocacy program, businesses need to consider:

1. Training and guidelines: businesses need to provide employees with the relevant social media training they require to post and access relevant company content (videos, product tutorials, interviews etc.). Sharing clear online social media guidelines is also important, as businesses need to protect their reputation and exposure to any potential legal issues/risks.

2. Incentives: offer employees some form of incentive, whether vouchers or to be placed in a monthly draw to win an iPad.

3. Hashtag: create a unique hashtag for employees to use with each post. e.g.#LifeAtSocialJooce

4. Monitor the program: make sure you track employee efforts, and this will help you understand what’s working and what needs to change.

How can you get employees on board?

Incentives are a great start and to make things more fun, a leaderboard to create a bit of internal friendly competition works well. Alternating blog posts to include one written by an employee or doing a social media account takeover can empower employees and make them feel part of the team. Sending push notifications to make sure your brand advocates continue sharing content is essential. These work well for all types of businesses where they’re small or large but make sure you have a budget for this to be successful!