By Nikita Geldenhuys

Social media is vital to your programme’s success

Roope Heinilä, CEO of the employee advocacy platform Smarp, explains that employee advocacy has always existed as a word-of-mouth marketing technique. Social media has simply made this form of marketing more scalable and more impactful.

“I believe that social media is a critical part, though not the only part, of any successful employee advocacy programme as it enables companies to reach a large audience on a personal level through human-to-human communication,” he says.

Businesses are, however, not the only entities that benefit from employee advocacy. Sapir Segal, content marketer at the B2B marketing software company, Oktopost, explains that allowing employees to be your ‘advocates’ on social media enables these individuals to become industry thought leaders – which is beneficial to their careers.

Essentials of an employee advocacy programme

As with most social media initiatives, content forms the backbone of any employee advocacy programme. “Like with all social media, content that is relevant will fly,” says Sarah Goodall, MD at Tribal Impact, a UK-based B2B social media advocacy company. In her opinion, the building blocks of an employee advocacy programme are content, tools, and training– in equal measures.

“Employees need contextual training to understand why advocacy is good for their professional brand. Tools help provide the analytics and ease of use for the employee. Content is essential, but someone needs to source it, manage it, and sometimes create it.”

Oktopost fleshes out the basics of an advocacy programme below:

  • Have a detailed strategy: Outline a strategy that includes the goals you’re trying to achieve, the metrics used to measure the goals, and the type of content that employees will be sharing;  
  • Offer training: Arm employees with the basic tools they need to succeed on social media;
  • Provide good content: Provide employees with rich and engaging content that’s relevant to their type of audience so they are willing to share it;
  • Do measurements: Track the engagement generated by the advocacy programme and compare these metrics against the rest of your social media strategies; and
  • Consider gamification: Gamify the programme (by applying the typical elements of game playing) as a way of incentivising employees for increased motivation and success.  

Reduce the risk of failure and reputation damage

Placing brand messages and brand reputation in the hands of employees might feel risky at first, but Heinilä explains the risks of running an employee advocacy programme are often overstated and misunderstood.

“Having a formal programme in place can actually reduce risk of inappropriate employee behaviour on social media as they are guided to the right content to share and are aware of what has been approved for sharing,” he says. “This eliminates the risk of employees not knowing what they can and can't share on behalf of their employer, and empowers them to engage their networks in the conversations.”

Goodall has found that relying solely on a tool for your employee advocacy programme can also be dangerous. “I’ve seen many organisations buy a tool and then let their workforce go. The result?  Employees start spamming out content to their networks, which looks bad for their individual brand and company brand.”

Employee advocacy can also fail when staff do not buy into the programme. Companies can avoid this scenario by motivating employees, as Segal says: “The advocacy programme may involve a slow on-boarding process ... Focusing on small focus groups will ensure that members stick to the programme and remain invested”.

What it boils down to …

The best programmes are usually the ones with clearly defined and measurable goals, explains Heinilä. These goals can be centred on user metrics or taken a step further to business goals such as amount of sales leads or signups to an event.

“The most successful (campaigns) for me have been where the company got the content mix right: a good blend of branded and non-branded content that is categorised correctly and mapped to the right employees,” adds Goodall.

She believes success lies in gearing advocacy programmes towards employees and not the brand. “While the by-product benefits are great for the brand, the employee absolutely has to come front and centre. Training and enablement should be geared around helping employees develop and flourish in their professional brand,” she concludes.