Employee advocacy goes a long way—it’s great for your team, builds a cohesive brand among workers, and helps people feel proud about their company. It’s also great for business because it can boost customer engagement! Start conversations and get to know the people your industry serves when you implement an employee advocacy strategy in an intentional way. Equipping your people with the right tools to talk about their work increases authenticity, extends your reach, creates human connection, and encourages employee expertise. All these factors combine to step up current customer engagement—it just has to start with employee advocacy. Here’s how!
Content galore
A successful employee advocacy program entails arming your people with the appropriate content to advocate for your brand. By supplying your team with marketing guidelines and materials for social media posts, you give them the necessary resources to big you up across platforms. With increased content comes increased customer engagement. The customers won’t be able to reach you if they can’t see you. It’s as simple as that.
Extended reach
All your employee advocates are unique, meaning they reach a special group of people that traditional marketing tactics might not. When they post on their Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook accounts about the brand, the message becomes visible to their friends, family, former colleagues, and other professional contacts.
These demographics undoubtedly include current or potential customers. Providing smart, well-designed content for employee advocates to use both as-is and as a jumping-off point in building their brand makes it easy for them to put themselves out there. In turn, customers will better understand your company culture and remember that interesting Instagram reel the next time they need your services.
Employee expertise
Education goes hand-in-hand with employee advocacy. An important part of any employee advocacy program includes training on how your team can talk about your company and serve as industry experts on their work. When you execute the two steps discussed above—providing content to extend reach—you also educate your employees on describing their work. When customers engage because they’ve seen social media posts, they want accurate and easy-to-understand information. Customers who have taken the time to engage deserve quality attention. Equip employee advocates with the training they need through webinars, workshops, and other learning opportunities, and you’ll boost effective customer engagement. In this case—ignorance is not bliss. The more your employees know, the better.
Increasing authenticity and trust
It can be a hard pill to swallow, but customers don’t always want to hear from CEOs and may not respond to traditional marketing like they used to. While executive roles are key to keeping a company running and marketing matters, they’re not always the most identifiable voice. That’s where employee advocates come in. Hearing a message from someone you know personally, follow on social for their great content, or used to work with feels much more relatable to a customer.
When a customer can see themselves in the people promoting your company culture and messages, they’re more likely to engage. Employee advocacy programs encourage people to share genuine experiences and insight—your customers pick up on this authenticity; it’s just human nature. Invest in employee advocacy programs that are responsive, engaging, and real.
Employee advocacy equals engagement
Empower your employees with great content, educational tools, and the time to extend their social media reach. The customers receiving their messages will feel the authenticity and build lasting memories of your brand when they see it coming from employees.
Contact Ghostit today to learn more about how we can help create compelling content for your employee advocacy program. When your team has the tools they need to take over social media, customer engagement will follow!
