Motivating Employee Advocates to Help Your Brand
Employee advocates are among a business’s most valuable assets on social media.
When employees discuss and promote their employer on social media, they’re exponentially expanding the reach of that business and creating brand awareness and a more positive social media image.
Many employees are already active on social media or on more than one platform talking about their company. Here are two stats that really stand out:
- 76% of individuals surveyed say that they’re more likely to trust content shared by “normal” people than content shared by brands. (Adweek)
- 98% of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50% are already posting about their company. (Weber Shandwick)
But what does it take to keep employees invested as social media brand advocates over the long term?
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.
Employees can become distracted by many other competing job demands, or if their employer isn’t impressing upon them the importance of social advocacy, it can gradually slip by the wayside.
The good news is businesses can and should be taking specific steps to ensure employee advocates not only are maintaining momentum with their social media efforts but that they are continually growing and expanding their skill sets and reach on social media.
Let’s explore the six key things that businesses could do to keep employee advocates motivated on social media:
1. Align social media advocacy goals with employee performance reviews: Employees value their annual performance reviews, and consequently, they value the metrics upon which they’re evaluated. When you add advocacy goals to the performance review process, you’re sending a clear message that it’s expected and intrinsic to their professional growth.
2. Use leaderboards to encourage performance: When a business gamifies its social media efforts, it’s turning work into a competitive game that can help employees stay invested in their work. A leaderboard creates a public display of how each employee ranks, which can be a highly effective motivator for sustained performance over the long term. Yet, this can also be an opportunity to provide incentives for those who participate and rank high. Whether that is opportunities within the business, a paid lunch, gift cards, etc. Ideas are endless but can encourage more employees to get involved.
3. Make a long-term investment in social media: Corporate social media strategy is a long-term investment. Period. There are no shortcuts to organically build the kind of loyal, engaged audience that is the envy of any socially minded business. Part of this long-term investment involves investing in employees’ long-term success as social media advocates. Employees cannot be expected to become advocates overnight.
Related: Why Becoming A Complete Social Business Should Be Your B2B Company’s Top Priority
4. Teach employee advocates how to use social media effectively: Employee advocacy has (or at least should have) specific business objectives that are aligned with the company’s strategic business goals. Employees should be taught how to develop an appropriate voice and personality on social media, how to mine social media for data on audience demographics and audience sensibilities and tastes, and how to use fellow employees to amplify social media messaging. Have various open training sessions that not only educate employees but allow for open dialogue and questions about social media. All of these things come when you have a properly developed strategy for employee advocacy and accessible social media policy.
5. Cultivate thought leadership: By encouraging employees to develop their thought leadership skills on social media, you can create long-term motivation for them to do right by your business. Thought leaders develop their own unique, loyal followings on social media by writing authoritatively about subjects that are directly related to your business. Once they develop this following, they become unstoppable – their audience’s thirst for this information continues to drive them to make progress. Yet, it also helps boost employees career aspirations as more people are seeing their knowledge, passion, and pride in their work.
6. Roll out a social media sharing platform: Employee advocates deserve a user-friendly interface that allows them to post and keep track of all social media activity within their company. Plus, it opens up dialogue among employees to engage, comment, and discuss articles within. Doing this on company time in an organized manner can be challenging. This is where having the right piece of social technology in-place can make it easier and encouraging for more employees to use. I cannot emphasize enough how transformative such a platform is for keeping employee advocates motivated over the long term.
Related: Schedule a demo with us today to see how our social media sharing platform can motivate your employees to become brand advocates while driving new traffic and more leads.
Final Thoughts
Businesses that find long-term success with advocacy are the ones that invest adequately in their employees.
The keys to making this adequate investment are to align social-media goals to employee performance reviews, take advantage of gamification, think in the long term and invest in employee training, cultivate thought leadership, and use an automated social media sharing platform.
The mindset of social media has shifted and these social platforms are important for growing brand reach, driving leads, and helping close more deals.
And no longer can social media only be marketers job, it has expanded to where other departments can also be big social assets.
Learn how Dell enabled a social platform and now has over 10,000 employee advocates posting online. Download your case study.
