By now, it’s common knowledge that employee advocacy takes regular, average-joe employees and turns them into budget-friendly, highly effective brand ambassadors. Just to prove our point, recent surveys have revealed that consumers trust the word of an employee within an organization more than that of even the CEO of the company.
What an eye-opener, right?
Although the concept of employee advocacy may sound fairly simple, it is sustaining the program that needs a lot more effort. One of the key factors of running a successful employee advocacy program is maintaining a high level of employee participation. If no one is sharing your brand content, then the whole point of the program is moot.
That’s why it’s important, now more than ever, to encourage your employees to build your brand on social media. But how?
We’ve rounded up the top expert advice on how to spruce up participation in your employee advocacy program.
1. Make a Game Out of It
No one likes an advocacy employee program that’s dull. No one likes anything that’s dull. Spice up your program by offering proper incentives. You can create a system of rewards and perks based on shareability, quality of retweets, or amount of buzz a post creates. Incentives can come in whatever motivates the employees – be it a day off, sponsored family picnic, an iPad mini…, you catch my drift?
2. Link Employee Participation and Performance Goals
Holding employees accountable always helps as it creates a sense of urgency. Create a content calendar and use performance goals to achieve this, but don’t overdo it to the extent of mandating advocacy because that ain’t going to work!
Otherwise, linking advocacy and performance works like a charm. After all, being an influencer on social media can come with huge perks.
3. Give all Participants Credit
Everyone wants to be appreciated for a job well done. Chances are that junior employees are the ones banging out great content. Sadly, they often don’t get credit for their work. By putting a stop to that, you’ll certainly take your employee advocacy program from drab to fab in a breeze.
4. Choose Unique Incentives
Sure junior level employees might find monetary rewards fabulous, but their seniors might not feel the same. By offering a range of incentives to choose from, you can ensure that everyone’s happy. Perhaps you can find something neutral, such as extra vacation days for the tweet champs.
5. Involve the Employees
Employee advocacy programs are all about – you guessed it – the employees! Engage them right from the outset – it makes them feel connected with the content. Even better, encourage them to add their very own content for a personal touch. This is sure to take your brand awareness up a few notches.
6. Re-Share Content
If nothing else, social media has created a legion of narcissists. Admit it, you’ve checked and rechecked a post to see how many Likes you’ve gotten!
Build on that feel-good factor when you repost, retweet or reshare content employees put on their personal social media accounts or blogs.
7. Celebrate Individuality
We can’t stress this enough, an employee advocacy program calls for a personal touch. Let employees explore brand content and build on what interests them. Tie this to your brand; the key is to align the interest and goals of the company with those of individual employees and vice versa.
With these tips, you can build your employee advocacy program and take it to an exciting level.
