Employee advocacy is, in its most basic definition, a program in which you encourage your employees to promote your brand or company. This means you turn your employees not only into productive members of your team in terms of getting tasks done but also engage them in creating your brand image online. In other words, a properly designed employee advocacy program can and will help you build thought leadership within your sphere of influence. Read on to learn more about how to utilize employee advocacy to build thought leadership as a brand:
What a Good Employee Advocacy Program Does
Before looking at how an employee advocacy program can help build thought leadership for your brand, it's helpful to define an employee advocacy strategy. This is a marketing or promotional strategy that utilizes employee effort to build brand awareness. It can include elements like:
- Encouraging employees to share positive elements of their work life, offering an “inside look” at your brand.
- Amplifying the company’s branding by increasing awareness when they share posts and engage the public on social media and beyond.
- Gives employees the chance to act as an expert and recommend services and products to their family, friends, and social media followers.
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How a Good Employee Advocacy Program Will Build Thought Leadership
Being a thought leader in your industry means that you are seen by other brands and your customers as an authority or expert in your field. It is more than a level of profit and more about influencing others to think differently about a particular point, usually involving your product or service. It isn’t being a “jack of all trades and a master of none,” but instead keying in on the areas in which you are knowledgeable and then using your skill or education to share with your audience within these parameters. While there are many ways to build this type of thought leadership, one of the best ways is having it built, in part at least by employee advocacy programs.
How Employee Advocacy Builds Thought Leadership
The following are some practical ways that —when you put a good employee advocacy program into action or utilize employee advocacy software— you can create real change in terms of building the thought leadership of your brand:
Enhances Your Brand Visibility
The first way that employee advocacy programs can help build thought leadership is by enhancing your company’s visibility. It makes sense that the more people are posting and sharing your brand’s posts or talking about your brand, the wider audience you will reach. By allowing employees to advocate for your brand in this manner, you instantly increase your reach across multiple platforms, which will effectively increase your visibility. This is all without having to invest a great deal of money in marketing campaigns.
Builds Trust and Boosts Audience Engagement
When you post as a business, often readers stay a bit closed off to your posts. After all, if you are a business, posting as a business, this can create a disconnect when it comes to the public, who are just regular people. However, when your employees post on your behalf or even share your company posts, it gives credence to the message you are sharing. It builds trust, and it encourages engagement. It’s like getting the cool kid to do something and then watching as all the others fall in behind. Your employees act like those “cool kids,” telling all their friends how awesome your brand is and why they should trust you. Employee advocacy programs have been proven to increase social media engagement for a brand by 25%-40%, and messaging is reshared 24 times more often when shared on employees’ personal channels versus your business channel.
Empowers Employees
Your employees are immensely talented individuals who know a great deal about how to do whatever service you perform or how to create whatever product you make. In fact, in some cases, your employees might know even more than you do when it comes to the day-in and day-out aspects of your business. Thankfully, you can empower your employees to share this knowledge and expertise through employee advocacy programs and encourage them to share what they know with the backing of your brand. This can be very beneficial for employees who are eager to share the knowledge they have gathered over the years with those who aren’t as knowledgeable.
Helps Establish a Set Brand Image
Another way that employee advocacy can help you build thought leadership is by establishing your brand’s image. When your employees post and share specific elements of your brand, from posts to messages or even memes, it helps create an image of your brand that goes out there to the public. You can then use this image in various elements of marketing to further promote your brand or services. Of course, it’s important that all your employees understand what image your brand wants to convey and stick with this messaging. However, in general, having employees be advocates helps promote an image of your brand to a wider audience.
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Gives Employees a Sense of Ownership
When there is a big disconnect between the management and the employees or those who produce the product or perform the service, this can lead to discontentment and a “them vs us” mentality. Employee advocacy programs, though, give ownership to employees to promote and enhance your brand’s image. It gives them the power to speak for the brand they work for and gives them a sense of pride in doing so, since they are representing the brand to the outside world. Always make sure that you, as a business owner, recognize the effort an employee makes within an employee advocacy program, so they know their efforts are not going unnoticed. Also, consider offering rewards to employees who post and share consistently to help promote your brand.
Can Improve Your Company’s Reputation
When you have a good employee advocacy program in place, your employees can help build or improve your reputation. This can help your company appeal to potential new employees as well as customers. It isn’t you saying that your company is a great place to work or has great service. Instead, it’s your employees who do the work (production and service) saying it's a great place to work. It allows them to share their real experiences to entice others to come and join the team. Having employees speak for your brand is one way to help the general audience accept your messaging a little bit more, as it’s not coming from the head of the company but the guy or gal who works out in the field.
Use Employee Advocacy to Build Thought Leadership
Contact us at Clearview Social to learn more about our employee advocacy software. Our easy-to-use software will help your team share content while at the same time helping you build that all-important thought leadership in your industry. Reach out to us today for a free demo and see how our employee advocacy software could revolutionize the way your brand’s social media performs, offering you email reminders, one-click activation, prompts, and more. Don’t waste another day not utilizing your employees to be the voice and image of your brand online and beyond.
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