How to successfully use employee advocacy program

There was a time when people used social media to connect with their friends and family. Not anymore. Today, social media networks are all about information gathering, product chatter, and forming communities. Now every brand is first rushing into social media networks to promote their products.

There’s a good reason for this too. Unlike traditional forms of promotion, these social sites come loaded with huge chunks of customization. Customer targeting, tracking ROI, real-time responses. You name it, and these social media sites will do it for you.

But what if all this power, all this customization could be used by you, your brand and your employees? What if all your employee's personal reach and networks could start contributing to your brand’s promotion?

This, in a short, is the very idea behind social advocacy.

When executed and planned properly, the reach of the brand’s word can create a boom. This, in turn, boosts sales and shoots up the number of both potential and converted customers.

What sets social advocacy apart from all other forms of brand communication is that most of us, depend on our peer groups for advice. If prospective customers see your brand through their peers’ eyes, they may be more inclined to converse with you, collaborate with you, and even become your customer.

We list out a few things to keep in mind before using a social advocacy platform.

1. Give employees reasons to promote your brand.

It just should not have to be another point on their KRA sheets. It should be something they want to do. Something they should take pride in. Then only will the communication feel more authentic to their peers. The first step in this direction is great content.

Content that encourages your employees' interest to make their personal networks connected. Make the content shareable and exclusive, make it about the emotions of your employees that they will pass on to prospects.

Let them talk about awards their teams have won. Or perhaps get them to talk about the company’s new expansion and how they feel about it. Also always remember to appreciate their work.

2. Provide guidelines for staff sharing on social media platforms

One of the drawbacks of social media is oversharing. Excess communication can hamper your goodwill, just as none at all. Which is why it is important to plan a set of guidelines for your employees to follow while they are sharing company related content.

These guidelines will help employees understand the style of communication better and get more efficient at sharing the right information.

3. Maintain your brand image at all times

It is of most importance to trust your employees with your brand’s promotion. But that being said, it is also necessary that this promotion and communication does not clash with the brand’s overall image. After all, word - good or bad - gets easily viral on social media.

Fortunately, there is an easy and perhaps the better method to ensure that the arrangement between brand and employee is a long lasting one. All you’ve got to do is to use the employee advocacy tools correctly with your present and former employee.

If you’d like to know in more detail how employee advocacy on social media can help your brand, feel free to get in touch with us we will be happy to tell you more.

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