Why Employee Advocacy Is Important For Your Company

Employees have large networks of friends, followers, and connections on social media sites who can easily be influenced. By recruiting employees to share your brand’s valuable content results in extended reach and helps build credibility all over the web, leading to more business and enquiries.

It’s no secret that enterprises are (finally!) embracing social media. Rather than being seen as a distraction at work, social networks are now seen as channels for employees to connect with each other, share ideas, and spread the word about their company culture.

According to Altimeter Group, social media education is now a top priority for companies. Nonetheless, there’s a considerable knowledge gap between employees and employers here. Employees aren’t comfortable sharing content to social networks because they’re afraid that what they are sharing is not okay.

So, what’s a company to do?

We teamed up with Neal Schaffer of Social Tools Summit and Maggie Huston of Oracle Social Cloud to discuss the most important questions about employee advocacy. Here’s our take on why advocacy is important for your company:

Starting with a thorough social media policy is key. Keep in mind that this policy shouldn’t specifically tell employees what to share, but act more as a guide to build strong habits for day-to-day social media use. This is why many enterprises are adopting employee advocacy platforms – they work to build thought leadership in your employee base and will help you to meet your strategic business goals.

Now that you know how to approach an employee advocacy program, here are a few stats on why you should implement a program:

  • Sales reps using social media as part of their sales techniques outsell 78% of their peers (Source: Forbes)
  • 72.6% of salespeople using social selling as part of their sales process outperformed their sales peers and exceeded quota 23% more often. (Source: Aberdeen Group)
  • Content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than content shared by brand channels (Source: Social Media Today)
  • Brand messages reached 561% further when shared by employees vs. the same messages shared via official brand social channels (Source: MSLGroup)
  • Brand messages are re-shared 24x more frequently when distributed by employees vs. brand (Source: MSLGroup)

Pretty impressive, right?

Employee advocacy involves all areas of your business – sales, talent acquisition, and PR just to name a few. Content shared by employees helps to showcase company culture, attract talent, increase brand health, and generate leads. It’s both an active investment in your employees and a way to showcase your brand.

To learn more about employee advocacy, watch the full webinar with Neal Schaffer and Oracle Social Cloud.

Have you implemented an employee advocacy program? What were the results? How did it help your enterprise? Share your thoughts with us in the comments, and feel free to share this resource with your network.

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