Launch to Scale Ep. 01: Getting Executive Buy-In and Support

Mitch Kaster

Employee advocacy has become an important part of today’s marketing strategy, specifically around social media, content marketing, and lead generation. Partly because this can help you reach a larger, more trusted audience but also because it can spark engagement across the massive reach of your best advocates, who happen to be your employees.

There are several important steps to launch and scale an employee advocacy program. Getting your leadership involved and having their support is the first step. In this video series called Launch to Scale, I’ll share with you a proven approach to go from launch to scale for employee advocacy and episode one will cover how to get executive buy-in.

Transcript

Employee advocacy has become an important part of today’s marketing strategy, specifically around social media, content marketing, and lead generation. Partly because this can help you reach a larger, more trusted audience but also because it can spark engagement across the massive reach of your best advocates, who happen to be your employees.

One important part of successful employee advocacy programs, which often goes overlooked is: getting executive buy-in. Not only is it a great way for your leaders to be more socially-active and for them to boost their thought leadership but it can help your company, increase share-of-voice, extend organic reach and generate new leads.

My name is Mitch, as a Customer Success Manager at PostBeyond, I work closely with most of our enterprise customers, and one question they always have is, “what does it take to launch and scale an employee advocacy program across the organization?”

In this video series, I’ll share with you a proven approach to go from launch to scale for employee advocacy and today we’ll be starting with getting executive buy-in.

Throughout all of our best-in-class programs, there’s one underlying factor they all share in common: executive buy-in. Regardless of company size or industry, leadership buy-in and support remains consistent across all employee advocacy programs.

Without executive support, employee advocacy programs often run the risk of failure or hit a roadblock for scale.

The first step for getting executive buy-in is to be clear on the value. There are a lot of competing priorities for your leaders and often times, the list just keeps growing and growing.

Being clear on the value of employee advocacy and how it can help drive measurable business results is the right way to secure buy-in.

When you’re speaking on the value, make sure you come prepared. Do your research on what the benefits of employee advocacy are and how your team can launch or scale a program. Gather data from industry benchmarks or research to demonstrate to your leadership team why employee advocacy is important and why it’s important now.

Communicate in their language. Leaders are results orientated so focusing on bottom-line outcomes of how an employee advocacy program can benefit the business is what matters most to them.

Increased brand presence for your marketing leader, shortened sales cycles for your sales leader or more qualified talent for your human resources. Ensure you’re speaking the right lingo to your leaders.

Know who the right people are. The first step for getting executive buy-in is to be clear on the value. There are a lot of competing priorities for your leaders and often times, the list just keeps growing and growing.

Being clear on the value of employee advocacy and how it can help drive measurable business results is the right way to secure buy-in.

When you’re speaking on the value, make sure you come prepared. Do your research on what the benefits of employee advocacy are and how your team can launch or scale a program. Gather data from industry benchmarks or research to demonstrate to your leadership team why employee advocacy is important and why it’s important now.

Communicate in their language. Leaders are results orientated so focusing on bottom-line outcomes of how an employee advocacy program can benefit the business is what matters most to them. Increased brand presence for your marketing leader, shortened sales cycles for your sales leader or more qualified talent for your human resources. Ensure you’re speaking the right lingo to your leaders.

Know who the right people are. Understand how the decision-making process is like in your organization and who would be likely participating in an employee advocacy program. Of course, marketing will start with your social media and communications but your customer-facing teams like sales will definitely be onboard to get active on social media.

And finally, learn who are already socially-active. Whether it’s at the water cooler or a survey, learn who is already active on social media. They will likely to be your biggest advocates and the best place to start.
As you launch and gain traction with a program, the second important step for getting executive buy-in is to….ensure the program is visible to your executives or senior leaders and to train them on a platform.

At PostBeyond, we believe “visibility creates opportunity” and it couldn’t be more true for your leadership team. Leadership support is critical for the program but their ongoing participation often gets noticed by employees. The more active senior leaders are, the more likely their employees are to follow suit.

That way, these leaders will truly understand the program’s value proposition so they can answer the question, WIIFM or “What’s in it for me?” when their employees ask.

Launching and scaling an employee advocacy program with leadership buy-in is a really important first step. So a little bit of effort getting your leaders onboard will go a long way in getting employees to start sharing on social media.

By using these tips and an employee advocacy platform, you can hopefully engage your employees on social media, amplify your social reach and engagement and influence the people that matter most to your company’s growth.

My name is Mitch and thanks for watching this episode of Launch to Scale.

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