Employee Advocacy Guide

Table of Contents:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. What is Employee Advocacy
                  2. Why is Employee Advocacy Important
                  3. Benefits of Employee Advocacy
                  4. Top Employee Advocacy Statistics
                  5. Strategies
                  6. Leadership Buy-in for Employee Advocacy
                  7. Employee Buy-in for Employee Advocacy
                  8. Employee Advocacy and Workplace Engagement
                  9. Best Practices for Employee Advocacy
                  10. Employee Advocacy Platforms and Software
                  11. How to Drive Adoption
                  12. Metrics for Employee Advocacy
                  13. Employee Advocacy and Content Marketing
                  14. Examples and Customer Stories

                

             

          

       

    

What is Employee Advocacy?

Employee advocacy is defined as an organization promoting itself and its brand through its employees. In the last decade, the most common medium is employee advocacy on social media. With over two-thirds (67%) of Americans turning to social media networks as their primary source for news and events, it just makes sense to promote the brand where your customers are consuming content.

Employee advocacy can be everything from sending internal company e-newsletters, with social share links, to a full formalized program with goals, key metrics, and specified software. As with most marketing campaigns, the more effort, and strategy that goes into a program the better the results.

Why is Employee Advocacy Important?

As mentioned above, these programs work best when there is a formalized plan. These programs are important for many marketing departments because of all the potential gains both externally and internally.

In our primary research report, we found employees overwhelmingly approve of companies’ social media posts, with the majority finding them informative, engaging, interesting, relatable, timely and of high quality. We also found one of the top benefits mentioned by management was that these programs are effectively “building a shared sense of purpose.”

Executives recognize both the internal and external visibility gains and brand benefits of employee advocacy; however, just 1 in 10 reported implementing a structured, comprehensive program as part of their digital strategy. Those organizations that can create, implement and manage a formalized program will gain a competitive advantage.

Benefits of Employee Advocacy

Whether or not your company is active on social, your brand is; competitors, customers, and employees are talking about you. Managing your reputation online is crucial as, according to Glassdoor, 79% of job applicants use social media in their job search. This increases to 86% for applicants who are in the first 10 years of their career. In addition to managing online reputation, there are numerous other benefits that help to generate positive ROI for organizations.

1. Build Authenticity

The trustworthy and authentic voices of your employees build brand credibility and improve brand image. Allowing employees to share and comment on brand messages and updates creates a culture of transparency that resonates with customers. It’s also important to note, employees who are aligned with company brand values are more likely to remain loyal to the organization.

2. Gain Trust

Only 55% of consumers consider corporate marketing materials to be a credible source of information. And according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, brand promotion done through an employee is twice as likely to be trusted than from the CEO. The genuine voices of employees instantly add trust and credibility as they are seen to be more unbiased.

3. Reach a wider audience

When you post on social media from your brand account, your reach is limited mainly to people already familiar with your brand. When brand advocates post about your product on social media, that reach can grow exponentially — especially if you don’t have a huge following on company pages. Brand advocacy helps you increase brand awareness organically.

Employees have an average combined total of 10X more followers than brands’ social media channels. Our research also shows that when an employee shares a piece of branded content, it will (on average) reach 561% further than it would on your branded channels.

4. Improve Employee Engagement and Company Culture

Culture is one of the most important and misunderstood pillars of any organization. It acts as the glue that keeps the organization together and it’s what keeps employees loyal to the brand. Employee advocacy helps promote culture by giving employees more insight into company goings-on.

5. Repurpose Employee’s Social Media Use

The average employee will spend almost two hours a day on social media. Even leveraging a fraction of that time by having employees share pieces of content will help to build the brand.

6. Develop Thought Leaders

Piggybacking off the success of your best and brightest will facilitate brand growth. When subject matter experts share branded content they instantly boost brand credibility. Employee advocacy can also help to create future thought leaders as continuously sharing high quality, curated industry content will showcase them as in-the-know experts and help to grow their network.

7. Increase Sales

Sales teams need access to company content to create brand awareness and drive sales. It’s also crucial for them to be active on social, as this is likely the first interaction your customers will have with your brand. Equipping them with new and industry-relevant content is an easy way to ensure that their social presence is kept up-to-date and positions them as an authority within your industry.

8. Humanize your brand

We’re living in a world of AI and chatbots — but people still want human connection. When 42% of people distrust messages coming directly from brands, putting a face (or several) to the name is vital. When customers and employees act as brand advocates on social media, you add personality to something otherwise seen as corporate and cold.

Learn more about how employee advocacy can help humanize your brand.

9. Create more content

User-generated content (UGC) is any content created by customers or employees to highlight your brand or product. UGC can include testimonials, photos, videos, reviews, and case studies. There’s also employee-generated content (ECG) which encourages employees to create and share relevant information.

When you encourage customers to create and share content:

1. You get authentic, third-party content that resonates with your target audience
2. Resharing that content makes your customers feel appreciated and involved

In one survey, 75% of respondents said that UGC makes content more authentic. Sharing UGC on your brand pages can increase engagement too: 45% of marketers agree that user-generated content helps improve social media campaigns.

10. Save time and money on marketing

When customers and employees proactively recommend and share your brand, it takes some of the marketing work (and cost) off of your company’s plate. This gives you valuable time back to focus on other parts of your business.

Brand advocacy is a free (or almost free, depending on incentives) organic marketing channel that can grow brand awareness and boost sales.

To download a PDF version of this page, click below.

Top Employee Advocacy Statistics

Most organizations today have made investments to increase their social presence and as a result, employee advocacy has become a key marketing strategy for leading enterprises. One struggle these organizations face is continuously cutting through all the noise on social media. This is where employee advocacy steps in. By leveraging the voice of your employees, companies can increase the social media reach of their branded content. As a result, employee engagement and advocacy are essential components of an effective social media strategy.

But where’s the proof?

We’ve compiled 45 statistics on employee advocacy, social media marketing strategy, and social selling. When woven together, these stats build a compelling case for why organizations need to implement this program.

Social Advocacy in the Workplace

PostBeyond, in partnership with Golfdale Consulting, conducted primary survey research of employees and management throughout the US and Canada on their usage, perceptions, and policies regarding social and mobile communication technologies in the workplace. Here are some of the key highlights:

• Interest in employee advocacy has grown by 191% since 2013, with 45% of respondents naming it a top external objective.
• While over half of managers recognize the visibility gains and brand benefits of social advocacy, just 1 in 10 reports implementing a structured, comprehensive social media advocacy program as part of their digital strategy.
• Company branded messages reach 561% further when shared by employees versus branded channels.
• 70% of adults online reported trusting recommendations from friends and family, but only 15% trusted companies’ social media activity.
• 33% of employees agreed that relevant content would encourage them to share.
• Organizations with high employee engagement outperform those with unengaged employees by 202%.
• 30% of employees claim they would be Very Positive in recommending their employer. This percentage jumps dramatically to over 70% among those who rate their experience of pride and belief in the values of their organization as “Excellent.”

(Source: 2018: The Year of Social Advocacy In The Workplace)

Employees Engagement and Advocacy

• Within an organization, an average of 21% are estimated to be an employee advocate, with another 33% having high potential to be an employee advocate. (Weber Shandwick & KRC Research)
• 50% post social media messages, pictures and videos about their employer.
• 39% have shared positive online comments about their organization.
• 33% post social media messages about their workplace without any employer encouragement.
• Disengaged employees cost an organization a lot. On average, each disengaged employee equals roughly $10,000 in profit annually.
• 31% of high-growth firms have a formalized employee advocacy program. (Hinge Marketing)
• Almost 86% of employees who participate in an employee advocacy program cite the increased social presence as having a positive impact on their career.
• 85% of new graduates surveyed said employee treatment was more important than other factors when deciding which company to work for. (Nielsen)

Source: 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer

Social Media User Statistics

• 91% of social media users access social channels through mobile. (Pew Research Center)
• This means, 217 million people are turning to social media to keep up with current events. (Pew Research Center)
• 76% of those surveyed said they were more likely to trust content shared by their network (people they know) versus content shared by brands. (Adweek)

Why is Social Selling Important

• According to IBM, when a lead is generated through social selling or employee advocacy that lead is 7X more likely to close compared to other lead gen tactics. (IBM)
• 80% believe their sales force would be more productive with a larger, more engaged, social presence. (The Sales Management Association)
• 77% of B2B buyers said they do not engage with a salesperson until after they’ve performed independent online research. (CEB)
• 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level executives use social media while making purchasing decisions. (LinkedIn)
• 91% of B2B buyers are active on social media. (IDC)
• Nearly 64% of advocates involved in a formal employee advocacy program cited attracting and developing new business as a positive program benefit, and nearly 45% attributed new revenue streams to employee advocacy. (Hinge Marketing)
• 27% of high growth firms, those with revenue growth over 20%, reported employee advocacy programs as helping to shorten their sales cycle.
• 72.6% of salespeople using social selling as part of their process exceeded quota 23% more often and outperformed their peers. (Aberdeen Group)
• 73% of top performing organizations have a centralized content library to help their different teams access the right company branded collateral. (Aberdeen Group)
• Those who used sales enablement content have on average 69% more revenue growth YOY than those who did not use sales enabled content.

Marketing and Brand

• 79% of firms surveyed reported more online visibility after implementation of a formal employee advocacy program. 65% reported increased brand recognition. (Hinge Marketing)
• Measurable benefits include increased web traffic (44.9%), better search engine ranking (32.4%), and increased content downloads (24.6%).
• Employees have on average 10x more connections than brand channels. (MSLGroup)
• Messages shared by employees reached 561% further than the same message shared on a company’s branded channel.
• Brand messages are re-shared 24x more when distributed by an employee.
• 83% of global respondents say they either completely or somewhat trust the recommendations of friends and family.

Employer Branding and Human Resources

• 79% of job applicants use social media in their job search (Glassdoor). This increases to 86% for applicants who are in the first 10 years of their career.
• Nearly 2/3 of respondents say their employer doesn’t use social media for talent acquisition effectively.
• 69% of applicants will not take a job, even if they are currently unemployed if the company has a bad reputation.
• Increasing employee engagement investments by 10% can increase profits by $2,400/employee, per year.
• 78% of job seekers say employee ratings and reviews are influential in their job hunt/ decision-making process.
  • 27% more likely to feel optimistic about their companies’ future
  • 20% more likely to feel inspired
  • 20% more likely to stay at their companies
  • 15% more likely to connect with co-workers beyond their core teams.
  • Socially engaged employees are more optimistic, inspired, connected, and tenured. (Altimeter Group & LinkedIn)

Empowering your employees through employee advocacy is one of the best ways to achieve alignment within your organization. It can mobilize your sales team, increase brand recognition and streamline communications.

Employee Advocacy Strategies: Three Important Steps

Without a well-thought-out implementation strategy, a program may not get enough adoption to show value. Before fully launching a program it is important to consider these three steps:

1. Social Media Policy Revamp

Updating and recirculating a social media policy will help to mitigate risk by providing employees and executives with more guidance and best practices when sharing on social. Download this guide to help design, plan, and implement an employee social media advocacy strategy for your enterprise.

2. Training

Social media skills will vary throughout your organization. Different age groups and departments will have different needs. It is critical to map out a strategy for training employees on how to use all the different platforms as well as how to write social posts for business. Download our handy one-page Social Media Cheat Sheet to help guide employees on which content works best for each social medium. 

3. Pilot Programs

Studies show, on average 30% of your employees currently act as employee advocates. Meaning they are already promoting on behalf of the brand. Leverage these enthusiastic individuals to create an employee advocacy pilot program. Since these individuals are bought-into the organization they can work with you to help to further refine social media policies and training programs. As enthusiastic participants, they will not be put off by any program hiccups — this helps to ensure a smoother, more successful, full-scale rollout.

Leadership Buy-in for Employee Advocacy

In order to secure buy-in, executives will need to see a fully thought out plan with goals, metrics and a strategy to achieve them. In addition to a formalized plan, it is important to communicate why leadership buy-in is so crucial for long-term program success.

PostBeyond has helped launch hundreds of successful employee advocacy programs and the ones that do the best are those that are fully supported by executive leadership (most notably CEOs and presidents). Why is this? Leaders help elevate the brand and give validity to the program.

Back in 2015, CEO.com reported that 61% of FORTUNE 500 CEOs had no social media. In just three years that has rapidly changed. In fact, 9 in 10 CEOs of FORTUNE’s most admired companies are socially engaged. Sharing company messages through their channels can quickly increase impressions as well as promote brand authenticity as many actually have more Twitter followers than the company’s branded accounts.

In addition to a larger reach, executive buy-in increases employee adoption rates. When CEOs and presidents enthusiastically participate in an employee advocacy program the adoption rates increase dramatically. The more employees who participate, the more the program grows. As the program grows, it continues to generate more engagement and positive results throughout the organization, which adds validity to the program.

Employee Buy-in for Employee Advocacy

A question that comes up a lot is, ‘why would I share?’ or ‘what’s in it for me?’ We call this the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me factor. In addition to training employees so they feel comfortable sharing, it is also important to communicate why employee advocacy is beneficial for their professional brand image.

1. Builds Personal Brand & Thought Leadership

In competitive industries (like finance, management consulting, travel, and technology) establishing a personal brand and being seen as a thought leader is no longer a nice to have. Employee advocacy programs make it easy for employees to showcase themselves as thought leaders as they have access to continuously updated relevant industry content (both branded and third party) that they can share out to their networks.

2. Expand Networks

Continuously sharing interesting social posts will build a social presence and lead to more engagement. Without much effort, employees can build and expand their personal professional networks.

3. More Transparency with Their Organization

Employees who are invested want to know what is going on in their organization. Employee advocacy streamlines sharing company content and updates across large organizations, creating more transparency. Numerous studies show high-quality internal communications foster stronger employee-organization relationships. Watch Sarah Beatty, Customer Success Manager at PostBeyond, as she shares best practices on how to drive employee advocacy program adoption.

Why Is Employee Advocacy Important? It Drives Workplace Engagement

Employees are, on average, checking their social media profiles more than 10 times a day during working hours. Employee advocacy helps transition some of this time into more productive business activity. The right platform allows employees to easily share content with their social networks or consume workplace relevant content from desktop or mobile.

With 69% of applicants unwilling to consider a job from a company with a bad online reputation, creating an engaged workforce and promoting a positive culture online is key to attracting and retaining top talent. Employee advocacy allows large enterprises to promote workplace culture, recognize top employees and increase transparency amongst teams, offices and even countries.

Best Practices for Employee Advocacy

In addition to implementing the strategies mentioned above, there are also best practices to ensure a successful program.

1. Be Patient, Understand the Process

On average, 30% of employees are already acting as social advocates and are highly engaged. However, within that 30%, it is essential to understand that there are content consumers, sharers, and creators. This is often called the 1-9-90 formula. “1” is the percentage of individuals who create social content. “9” is the percentage of individuals who share social content. “90” is the percentage of individuals who only view social content. Programs should be built with this formula in mind in order to create attainable goals and strategies.

2. Run a Pilot

Leverage the 30% of highly engaged staff for your pilot. Work with them to create guidelines, training programs and assessments on additional programs needs for the company-wide implementation. It is important to showcase any initial wins to create program credibility and secure continual buy-in.

3. Secure Leadership Buy-In

Employee advocacy programs that achieve the most success are those with leadership buy-in. Creating the right environment is key to increasing and maintaining higher user adoption rates.

4. Guide, Not Command

Establishing policies and guidelines for employee advocacy is important, not just for risk mitigation, but also to enhance program buy-in. Social media guidelines commonly outline approaches to content creation, sourcing, and sharing. Posting work content on personal social media accounts can be intimidating for some employees so organizations will need to instill confidence.

5. Train Employees

Instill confidence by training employees how to best use social media and how to post for business. For example, Nationwide used reverse mentoring to train senior executives on the benefits and use of social media.

6. Measure and Evaluate

As with any other marketing program, employee advocacy requires measurement and objective evaluation. According to a management survey, most companies do not measure the effectiveness of programs as a Key Performance Indicator. Indeed, over a quarter of them (28%) are unaware of any measurement. In order to ensure success, employee advocacy metrics and attribution need to be set-up.

7. Leverage Technology

Many programs fail because program adoption and metrics tracking are inefficient. Efficient corporate employee advocacy programs utilize MarTech to streamline processes. It creates one central repository for content, allowing employees to easily source and share content, and marketers to track metrics and program performance.

Employee Advocacy Platforms and Software

There are numerous employee advocacy platforms available today. Each platform has its own benefits so it’s important to find one that matches your overall strategy and growth plans. When looking at employee advocacy platforms it is important to consider the following:

• User experience and ease-of-use
• Mobile application
• Integrations with enterprise tools
• Workflows for content approvals
• Robust reporting and analytics

If you’re comparing employee advocacy platforms then you can use review websites such as G2 to see how every platform ranks based on unbiased customer reviews.

The Top Employee Advocacy Platforms

Hootsuite Amplify

Amplify is the built-in employee advocacy solution for Hootsuite’s social media platform. Hootsuite is known for being an all-in-one solution for social media including management, social listening, publishing and employee advocacy. Known for its clean and simple user interface, many G2 reviewers like how little clicks you have to do to share social content. They’re ideal for many marketer who wants a powerhouse platform that offers the full social media package.

Smarp

Smarp is an all-in-one platform for internal communications and employee advocacy. Smarp helps companies communicate with their entire workforce, corporate and frontline. Since they offer internal communications as a primary offering, companies will love how you can build an employee community.  G2 reviewers love how easy it is to use and how well the content is formatted and personalized for each employee.

PostBeyond

PostBeyond is an employee advocacy and social selling platform focused on making it easy for employees to share content on social media. Their core use cases are to help companies enhance brand visibility, generate leads and establish thought leadership. G2 reviewers love how easy it is for employees to share industry news and branded content. It’s simple to setup, offers gamification and provides robust reporting through UTM parameter tracking.

Sociabble

Sociabble is a mobile-first solution for internal communications, employee engagement and employee advocacy. The company is based in France so many of their customers are located in Europe. G2 reviews have noted that users love how well designed and organized the platform is, which allows users to easily share content. What’s fun about Sociabble is gamification and how they’ve tied it with their pledged to fight deforestation. They plan  to plant one tree for every social share by a user. Kudos to Sociabble for supporting a great cause!

EveryoneSocial

EveryoneSocial is one of the highest reviewed employee advocacy platforms on G2 and it’s for good reason. Marketers, sellers, communicators and recruiters can benefit from their platform and they serve a wide range of companies ranging from 150 to 50,000+ employees. Reviews on G2 point out that users like their scheduling feature and how the leaderboard motivates everyone to post more regularly.

GaggleAmp

GaggleAmp helps companies increase brand awareness and enable sales teams and HR teams with their internal communications and workforce advocacy platform. Their solutions tends to cater to the small business customers with their enticing pricing packages. They also offer a free trial to give marketers a sense of how the platform works. G2 reviews love that their employees can share company posts on the platform and performa prescriptive actions on social media such as liking the company’s corporate LinkedIn profile.

Bambu by SproutSocial

Bambu is a built-in employee advocacy to SproutSocial’s social media management platform. The core use cases available on their website are brand amplification and social selling. They’re a great solution if you’re looking for an all-in-one social media platform that offers multiple tools such as social media management, social listening and employe advocacy. Many reviews on G2 have pointed out how much they like the simple, minimal dashboard that makes social sharing easy.

Dynamic Signal

Dynamic Signal is an internal communications platform that also offers an employee advocacy solution. As noted on G2, their key focus is on getting the right content to the right people. Available on both desktop and mobile, employees can access personalized information such as their payroll details, directory information and company newsletters. Many customers have cited that they love Dynamic Signal’s all-in-one approach to internal communications and employee advocacy, specifically how users can view, share and schedule content within one platform.

Oktopost

Oktopost is known for their social media management platform which marketers can use to publish content, engage with audiences and measure specific metrics. They also have a built-in employee advocacy platform to help employees position themselves as thought leaders They offer a wide array of integrations with marketing automation tools for deeper marketing measurement. Reviewers from G2 point out how easy the platform is to use  and how well it integrates with Salesforce to get a clear picture of client and prospect activity.

ClearView Social

ClearView Social is used by professionals in specific industries such as Legal, Accounting and Staffing. Reviews of G2 mention ClearView Social’s ease-of-use and how you can find industry content and share to multiple social networks. A neat feature they have is PeakTime which allows employees to share content at the most optimal time for engagement,

How to Drive Employee Advocacy Adoption

Employee advocacy program adoption needs to be the main focus when implementing employee advocacy. Program materials outlining both the company and personal professional benefits needs to be a priority. Gamification is another strategy; making a program interactive, engaging and rewarding will certainly increase participation. PostBeyond offers a leaderboard where employees can compete for the top score on the platform and prizes. This fosters healthy competition and continual program engagement.

Employee Advocacy Metrics

Measuring the true impact social media marketing and employee advocacy will ensure the program continues. Most current programs just track vanity metrics (engagements, likes, and shares). When employee advocacy is only measured through these vanity metrics it becomes hard to prove if the program is achieving results, justifying spend and showing ROI. Vanity metrics should be tied to larger goals and attribution metrics to provide value. Tying advocacy to overall company metrics will show the true impact of your program. Sarah Goodall from Tribal Impact provides some great examples:

For Sales: Revenue generated, pipeline influenced, opportunities closed

For Recruitment: Number of new hires via employee referrals, cost of hire lead sources

For Marketing: Volume of traffic to the website, attribution tracking

Read the PostBeyond step-by-step blog article to set up employee advocacy attribution metrics.

Take a look at these examples of employee advocacy in action.

1. IKEA

In 2015, IKEA UK ran a contest on Facebook to celebrate the “joy of storage.” They invited Facebook fans to share photos of their IKEA products with the hashtag #JoyOfStorage for the chance to win “an amazing personalized wardrobe.”

IKEA fans posted user-generated content showing off IKEA products in their homes, and the UGC became a mini advertising campaign for the company — and the “joy of storage” tagline. The more people who posted, the wider the reach, and the more other customers were inspired to take part.

2. Starry Internet

Good customer service turns customers into advocates. Washington Post writer Dave Jorgenson had a great experience with Starry Internet — so he tweeted about it:

Source

In a world where internet and cable providers are notorious for bad customer service, Dave’s experience with Starry Internet stands out. He even clarifies that his tweet isn’t an ad — he’s just a huge fan of his internet company and wants the world to know it.

3. #TeamPixel by Google

When Google launched the Pixel phone, they were known for search, not phones or photography.

Google launched the #TeamPixel campaign to showcase the quality of the Pixel 3’s camera using social proof. They encouraged Pixel users to show off their phone photography with the hashtag #TeamPixel, creating a community of Pixel users — and a huge library of UGC for Google.

The results? Over 105 million impressions and 5 million engagements — all without paying a single influencer.

4. Starbucks

Starbucks is a brand that consistently ranks near the top of the Forbes’ 50 Most Engaged Companies list and it is for good reason. They are a great example of putting brand advocacy in practice. Their focus is on empowering their employees to build a community based on values and meaning with the brand.

Their brand advocates are most notable for using the #ToBeAPartner hashtag. The term “partner” is officially given to employees who promote Starbucks on social media. This helps foster a sense of community and belonging amongst employees and it focuses on the people behind the brand.

Former Starbucks CEO, Howards Shutlzs has said, “Employees are the true ambassadors of our brand, the real merchants of romance, and as such the primary catalysts for delighting customers. Employees elevate the experience for each customer – something you can hardly accomplish with a billboard or a 30-second spot.”

5. GoCardless

PostBeyond customer GoCardless was scaling quickly — and wanted to amplify that growth and grow brand awareness through employee advocacy. They launched an employee advocacy program through PostBeyond that encouraged employees to share company content on social media.

One year after launching the program, GoCardless had become a more socially-connected company — and had the results to prove it:

• 67% of active employees sharing content
• 1,000,000+ in potential reach on social media
• 7,500+ likes, comments, and reshares per month
• 17,000+ click-throughs
• 139% more website traffic compared to organic social media

Learn more about GoCardless’s employee advocacy strategy here.