You may have heard the term ‘employee advocacy’. It is a phrase which is increasingly being written and talked about. I’m here to help you understand what it is and how it works. In order to show you that it does work, I have shared a recent case study.
What is Employee Advocacy?
Put simply, employee advocacy is when employees actively promote the company they work for, from their own personal channels and/or engagement with people outside the company.
It mainly concerns using social networks where employees share and promote content via their personal profiles. The content can be either created by the company or can be about the company. The content can be created by the company and published on the company networks and also, content can also be posted on each employees’ personal networks.
Employee advocacy does not have to be via social media. Employees can advocate for their company in many ways, on their own blogs and of course in person. However, when we’re talking about ‘setting up a system’ of employee advocacy, we’re talking about using social platforms, and in most cases, LinkedIn as this the most effective platform.
Why is LinkedIn the best place for Employee advocacy?
LinkedIn is the most effective online network for B2B networking and lead generation, so it makes sense that this is where employee advocacy works most effectively. Also, with the ability to reach out to potential buyers, clients and customers from our personal profiles, advocating our companies is much simpler on LinkedIn.
Does employee advocacy work?
It always surprises me that companies aren’t making better use of the voices of their employees to spread the company message. It may be that only 3% of employees share content about their company, but those shares are responsible for driving a 30% increase in the total engagement a company sees.
This happens because, on average, the networks of a company’s employees are at least 10 times larger than the company page follower base. And on top of that, when employees share a post, it’s seen as three times more authentic than a post shared by the company itself. With these figures in mind, it’s easy to see that there is tremendous potential in activating employee voices on LinkedIn.
A case study
I began working with Company X – a creative agency. They had their own internal marketing and social media department, so I was not in control of what they posted about.
They are a small company of 12, mostly freelancers who also worked with other companies. They are all passionate about this particular company and enjoyed working remotely as a team.
My first meeting with them was to introduce myself and to introduce the concept of employee advocacy. I could see their eyes lighting up as I explained how it worked and how it would benefit each of them as well as the company as a whole.
See my blog: https://sarahclaysocial.com/why-endorse-employee-advocacy/ for more on this.
One of the founders had come to the meeting with a very sceptical mindset, saying he hated social media and would probably not be partaking in the scheme.
By the end of the first meeting everyone was excited to get started – the transformation was not only huge, it was immediate!
After some more training and guidance, the CEO’s and the rest of the team were not only commenting on the company page posts, they were also commenting on other peoples’ posts, writing and publishing their own posts and connecting with new people. The buzz around this was incredible!
What results were produced?
We measured various statistics for the previous month compared to the first month of the programme:
Page followers up 56%
Visitors to the page up 27%
Unique visitors to the page up 101%
Not only that, one of the CEO’s was at a conference in week 3 of implementation when someone he had known for a while approached him and commented how ‘…you and your company are all over LinkedIn’.
Although on LinkedIn we don’t expect immediate results, this company saw them. Their programme and their brand visibility continue to grow as they continue with this system.
If you want to be part of a system where your employees work together for the common goal of increasing the visibility of your company, please get in touch.
