Many companies are seeing the benefit of “social selling” or “online thought leadership”, but struggle with consistency and execution.
The benefits of these kinds of initiatives to an organization, and the employees themselves, are well documented, and include greater trust, authenticity and credibility, better and less expensive customer acquisition, revenue generation and lower cost, but more effective, media and content distribution.
Employee advocacy programs will fail if:
- The employees don’t know how to use the platforms (like LinkedIn) and / or are fearful of making mistakes or posting the “wrong” content
- Employees don’t buy-in to the program and can’t see what value it holds for themselves, as well as for the company
- There is no clear strategy and execution plan – you can’t just wing it
- There is no internal executive sponsorship to drive accountability, participation and recognition
Any employee advocacy program needs constant, special attention, so how is this best achieved?
In my opinion, the program management needs to be outsourced, to experienced influencer-marketing professionals. After all, your employees are influencers in your industry.
Providers of these employee advocacy programs will have dedicated resources to train the participants, collaborators to coach them and a system to monitor and report on their progress, and the effectiveness of the team as a whole.
Your employees are undoubtedly your most precious asset, and a well structured, well executed employee advocacy program will not only benefit your organisation, but will engage and empower your staff and give them a sense of pride and ownership in your business, which is shown to improve productivity, morale and retention.
Are you ready to implement employee advocacy at your company?
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