With so much of our workforce working from home right now, it’s time for a refresher on Employee Advocacy. But what is Employee Advocacy?
Employee advocacy is when your employees promote your organization through their personal social networks. According to Weber Shandwick, 50% of employees share pictures, videos or messages about their employers on social media, with 33% publishing them without any encouragement from their employer. This means that around 60 million employees are already sharing (mostly positive) information about their employers online. But why does that even matter?
Why Employee Advocacy Matters
Having employees advocate for your company on their social networks can be huge in terms of increasing social engagement, website traffic and brand awareness, generating sales and attracting top candidates for employment. Why? Because, on average, your employee advocates have 10 times more followers than corporate accounts and can be your best brand ambassadors. When employees share your content, your company has the opportunity to reach new audiences and new levels of brand loyalty.
Not only do they love your brand, they also add a strong sense of authenticity to your brands message; their followers are more likely to engage with your content if it’s coming from a friend. In fact, according to Cisco “77% of consumers are more likely to buy a product from someone they trust.”
Now that teams are working remotely, it’s important for them to have some company culture to connect them to your organization. Employee advocacy programs allow you to keep your most vested employees engaged by delivering all of your updates directly to them. Sending all of your social media, video, blog, infographic, image, and other content through your advocacy platform helps remote employees stay engaged with the latest corporate initiatives, helps them see what their peers are up to, and helps encourage them to share this content to their social media channels, driving awareness of your company’s work.
When your employees are advocates, they’re always ready to take an active role in promoting your brand or company.
This is great news, right? Now that you know many employees are already posting about their jobs, how do you make the most of their posts and get other employees on board?
One of the easiest ways to engage your employees is through an advocacy platform (like SocialToaster). That way, employees are able to quickly and easily post brand-safe messaging. It’s also important to empower your employees to be brand advocates through training, support and encouragement from leadership, and recognition for their participation.
Recognition can take many forms; prizes, certificates, public recognition or friendly competition are all ways that you can show your employee’s that you appreciate what they are doing and you acknowledge them as a voice of your brand – and everyone can use a little recognition these days.
Like we said before, your employees love your brand and take pride in what they do at your company. Given that Americans spend an average 47 hours of their week working, it’s no surprise that so many are already sharing about their employers on social networks. SocialToaster is a communications tool that harnesses the power of your most prideful employees and turns them into employee advocates, ready to share your brand’s message with their family, friends, and followers.
Ready to get started with your advocacy marketing efforts? Send us an email, request a free demo, or give us a call at 855.62.TOAST today!