What is employee advocacy?
Employee advocacy is the programmatic approach to activating non-marketing employees as messengers (or advocates) of the brand. As a marketers, this means finding a way to share digital content with your employee base—and empowering them to share it on social media.
Now, what on earth would cause a marketer to want to trust tens, hundreds, or even thousands of employees with the delivery of their message? Can’t so much go wrong? But, of course. However, with the right tools, training and conceptual framework, employees can (and should) become your brand’s strongest advocates.
Since this is a four-part series, I will heed the advice of (my favorite) TED speaker, Simon Sinek, and first start with the “why.”
Why are employees such a strong brand asset?
The answer is simple: consumers are weary of marketers and advertisements. They don’t trust the media, big business or the government. More likely to trust a search engine result than a CEO (or journalist), 2015 represents a time when consumers are skeptical of business and innovation.
Edelman’s Trust Barometer reveals that in the five-year period from 2009 to 2014, there has been a marked shift in the sources buyers trust when it comes to shaping their purchase decisions. What is extraordinary? With skepticism surrounding business and (endless) ‘innovation,’ there has been the emergence of trust placed on regular employees—people like themselves.
These implications are incredibly powerful. Marketers who overlook the influence of their employees’ company sentiments will struggle to achieve trust in a market where consumers seek brand input from the “average” employee.
While small and family-owned companies have what is called a “trust advantage,” people want to know from businesses of all sizes how the brand will impact them personally, affect their family and shape society at large. Where do they look to seek this information? Search engines. After that?
Employees.
Today, more important than a billboard, social media advertisement, email campaign, or any other existing corporate-sponsored message are the words of the employees behind the brand.
What are leading companies doing to involve their employees?
B2B or B2C brands and organizations are shifting their marketing budgets to incorporate employee advocacy by developing their earned media channels. Unilever is an example of a company that has significantly made the move from paid to earned media since 2000.
What Unilever and other data-driven marketing organizations show us is a clear trend: smart marketers are adjusting their budgets to capitalize on the earned networks of their employees. (I have personally worked on programs that have seen the Cost Per Impression drop from over $7 to less than $0.20 by leveraging their employees trusted networks.)
Where do you go from here?
The question is not, “Is my company ready for employee advocacy?” The question is instead, “How can I accelerate the use of my already socially engagement employees to create a controlled and strategic rollout of planned employee advocacy initiatives?”
Stay tuned for Part 2, which describes what you need to consider when implementing an employee advocacy program.