What NOT to Do With Your Staff Advocacy Program

staff advocacy program

Although Employee Advocacy is a marketing technique that encourages authenticity, sometimes your program may just not see the results you foresaw from a highly regarded employee advocacy strategy. Even though your employees may love the company culture, and you may have everything in place to drive staff advocacy, there are still something’s that don’t add up.

Just like when driving, accelerating is great; but braking is equally important. In order to get the most of your staff advocacy tool, sometimes it’s best to take a step back and analyze what’s going wrong. You never know, the answer may be blatantly obvious.

Here are a few things that you’re probably doing wrong on your staff advocacy tool

1. EXPECTING TOO MUCH TOO SOON

They say Rome was not built in a day, and for good reason too! Employee advocacy is amazing, yes, but like every good haircut, a pair of jeans, or wine, it’ll only get better with time.

Goals that are set too high too soon can easily turn your employees off of the program. Keep your expectations realistic, and know that as long as you haven’t made these mistakes, you’re on the road to success.

2. ENFORCING THE PROGRAM

What happens to rubber when you stretch it too much? Just like everything else, it reaches a breaking point and snaps… without warning. Making staff advocacy mandatory for all may seem like a great way to get the ball rolling but in reality, it can spell doom for your program.

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Compliance issues and legal concerns are valid, but training and guidance for employees – on what to and what not to do – can get you the best results.

3. STUNTING CREATIVITY

Very often, a marketer will present an article or social post on an advocacy platform, but leave no room for employees to add their own views. This takes away from the primary goal of staff advocacy – to get your employees to talk about your brand.

Give your staff the option to suggest original content. You never know, it’s probably something that is valuable to all.

4. LONG WINDED SET-UPS AND LOGINS

While we understand that a set-up and login are required, asking for information for the sake of asking or unnecessary storage takes away from the user experience. And while this is a no-brainer, it still needs to be pointed out that employees should never be asked to disclose their personal network passwords.

While it is an unethical practice, it is also against the law in growing number of jurisdictions.

5. OVERDOING INCENTIVIZATION

Rewards are undoubtedly a good motivational tool. While gamification of advocacy platforms is a good practice to increase engagement numbers, it could turn out to be costly in the long run. Besides, incentivizing every advocacy message is not recommended.

Your employees might get accustomed to them and begin sharing your content only because of an ulterior motive. This will only get you puppet marketers and not actual brand advocates.

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