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It can be frustrating to put out content you’re proud of and still fall short of your marketing goals. While it’s normal to have some growing pains at the start of your content creation journey, you may not be using every tool in your arsenal.
If you feel like your wheels are spinning as you try to improve your marketing strategy, employee advocacy may be the next step for you. Employee advocacy is the practice of engaging your employees to share your company content and thought leadership in a way that increases brand visibility and enhances your credibility. A lively employee advocacy program should make it fun to share—meaning you should never use heavy-handed, Michael Scott-like tactics to motivate them—and make it easy and stress-free.
However, to get an employee advocacy program running, you need a strategy behind what you’re asking them to share. So if you’re ready to build your earned media value to create a stronger brand name, increase your online presence, and meet your KPIs, here’s how to start your employee advocacy content strategy.
Why you need a content strategy for employee advocacy
Just as you wouldn’t take a road trip without directions, so you shouldn’t start employee advocacy without a strategy. You need to understand what type of content works best for your company and the types of content your employees are willing to share.
This is where a content strategy comes into play. An employee advocacy content strategy ensures that this content:
- Reflects company goals and values
- Is organized and timely
- Will target the right audiences
- Can be authentically and enthusiastically shared by employees
If you want to encourage your employees to share, their input on the content strategy is invaluable. Plus, your employees may have insight into the interests and needs of their personal network, helping you create more valuable content.
Implement these types of content in your employee advocacy content strategy
Depending on the social platform you choose, you’ll want to create content that caters to that specific space. Users on each social media platform come there for different reasons. For example, LinkedIn users are typically business professionals who want content that expands their skills or keeps them up to date on industry trends.
Consider putting the following types of content to work in your employee advocacy strategy.
- Company news: Sharing company updates (at least ones that are ready to become public knowledge) is a natural fit for employee advocacy. Whether you’re looking to support recruitment goals or simply increase brand visibility, these types of posts can help position your company as a dynamic, growing, evolving business.
- Product/services news: You can use employee advocacy to create buzz around new products or partnerships with other brands through short how-to videos, blog posts, or infographics.
- Educational content: While you may not want to give away the secret sauce for a new product or service, educational content can increase trust and credibility. This could be explainer videos, blog posts, case studies, and more.
- Employee stories and behind-the-scenes: Ask employees to create videos or blog posts about what they love about working at your company. 47% of consumers say they trust brands more if they take care of their employees—this is a chance for you to show it.
- User-generated content (UGC): Always repost content about your brand created by others. Encourage UGC by sending products to influencers for them to review on their socials or through employee advocacy.
- Recruitment content: Employee testimonials are a great way to increase resumes for a job post. 92% of people would consider changing jobs if the other company had an excellent reputation.
When sharing content, be sure to include third-party content as well. If you only post about how great your company is or what your company does, you may end up looking like you’re only interested in talking about yourself—and that’s not a good look in any marketing strategy.
Best practices for your employee advocacy content strategy
An employee advocacy strategy needs to be communicated clearly to be successful. Follow these best practices to get yours off on the right foot.
Set KPIs for your employee advocacy content
Clearly outline your key performance indicators (KPIs) for your employee advocacy content so you can continually improve your strategy. Unless you know exactly what you want from your employee advocacy program, then you’ll never understand how it benefits you.
Choose KPIs like engagement metrics and use reporting tools to measure them on a regular basis. This helps you hone in on the content that maximizes your KPIs and business goals as a whole.
Follow a clear content calendar
Content may be king, but reigning alongside it is consistency. Posting regularly is essential to any successful content strategy.
Use a content calendar to communicate deadlines to employees, keep your content organized, and check whether you’ve created content on a certain subject in the past. Content calendars help you create monthly content themes and allow your employees to give input on topics well before they’re created and posted.
Set up clear employee advocacy guidelines and policies
Employees need clear guidelines on what’s appropriate to share about the company on social media, or else they won’t share anything at all. Write concise rules and keep them easily accessible to employees. Store them on a shared Dropbox or print them out for people to hang at their desks. What’s more, clear instructions can help keep your company out of any sticky situations with negative press online.
Connect your employee advocacy content to sales and lead generation teams
Content that reflects real-time sales and lead generation situations is a natural fit for employee advocacy content strategies. After all, no one knows your audience better than the sales and lead generation teams.
Reach out to them and ask what their goals are and implement this in your content. When connecting with them, be prepared with questions to ask about how to create the right content, including:
- What are the three most common objections that you hear from leads?
- Who’s the most accurate client persona?
- What is the company doing that’s better or worse than competitors?
- What questions do leads ask you about the company and our products/services?
- What does the sales process look like from start to finish?
- Does the company website work for you? What changes would you make?
Reflect your sales funnel in your content strategy
Create content for each type of customer in the sales funnel. You need content that appeals to people in the three different stages. These stages are:
- Awareness: content that teaches people about your brand for the first time.
- Evaluation: content that typically interests people who have heard about your brand before.
- Purchase: content that convinces people to buy your product or connect with your business.
How to get your employees on board
You can’t mandate that your employees share, but you can help them overcome hurdles to sharing by implementing policies like the following:
- Incentives: Reward employees who share a certain amount of content per month with a gift card to a favorite local coffee shop or eatery.
- Company culture: Put your employees first at your company. Encourage them to use vacation time, implement an open-door policy so they can share concerns, and reward them when they work well. When you build a solid company culture, their praise in employee advocacy content will be authentic.
- Tools to make it easy to share: Implement employee advocacy software to make it a cinch for employees to share content.
Clearview Social elevates your employee advocacy strategy
Clearview’s robust employee advocacy software makes it easy for your employees to share on their personal pages. Our one-click email feature allows you to send pre-approved content straight to their email that they can share in seconds.
Follow your KPIs easily with robust analytics in a customizable dashboard that outlines the content that works best for your brand.
Plus, Clearview is easy to use. And if you need any help, our on-page chat responds almost instantly.
Make social sharing easy as for your employees and Get A Free Demo with Clearview today.