Succeed with Employee Advocacy
Turn employees into brand ambassadors
In a highly competitive and dynamic corporate scenario today, where it is essential to have innovative strategies and focused on a solid presence in the market, how do you stand out?
My name is May, I’m an Experience Manager and in this article, we will explore what is Employee Advocacy, its benefits, tips to achieve success and the risks of not adhering to this strategy focused on practices that go beyond simply engaging employees, turning them into true corporate ambassadors.
What is Employee Advocacy?
You may have come across some companies that employees really love and share their experiences with the brand, making you want to be part of the team or even buy solutions from them.
This is the result of well-applied Employee Advocacy strategies.
Employee Advocacy is the strategy of getting employees actively involved in promoting the brand and spreading the corporate culture. So instead of the brand relying exclusively on marketing departments, companies work on the employee’s positive experience with the brand and encourage them to share their experiences with the company and positive messages about the organization on their personal social networks, thus contributing to building a positive image of the corporation.
Benefits of Employee Advocacy:
1. Authenticity and Credibility:
Traditional advertising sources, such as marketing campaigns for the brand, have limited credibility because they focus on selling an idea, whereas when people come across information coming from employees, the information becomes much more relevant because the employee is perceived as a much more reliable source precisely because they experience the brand and the messages shared by these employees and have an authenticity that resonates with the public, generating greater credibility and bringing us the second benefit on this list:
2. Amplifying brand reach:
As a brand, the corporation has a specific capillarity, but when we get employees to become brand ambassadors, we guarantee the maximization of the brand’s communication capillarity because in addition to the public directly impacted by the brand, employees will also significantly amplify the reach of corporate communication with increased brand visibility, reaching potential customers more effectively.
3. Engagement, satisfaction and minimizing turnover:
As mentioned earlier, the Employee Advocacy strategy is focused on engaging and “taking care” of employees, providing a positive experience with the brand and then they will take care of their consumers and users. That’s exactly what we’re talking about here.
This approach reinforces the bond between the employees and the company by promoting a sense of ownership and engagement that makes them much more inclined to stay with the company and contribute to achieving the organizational goals.
4. Talent recruitment made easy:
When I started listing the benefits, I mentioned the desirability of being part of the brand’s team and experiencing the positive experiences shared by the brand’s employees and it is exactly this impact that the fourth benefit addresses, facilitated recruitment ;)
By spontaneously promoting the company’s vision and the positive experiences they have had with the brand, employees also help to build a positive corporate image, making the company much more attractive to potential talent, facilitating recruitment and helping to build qualified teams.
Achieving Success through Employee Advocacy:
1. Training and education:
A common characteristic of talented professionals is the search for improvement and this is a great opportunity because the company can provide training for employees, mentoring, production and monitoring of IDPs, partnerships with institutions, programs such as focused study guilds and much more. These options and many others can range from specific training for the employee’s job, security and languages to sharing and how to maintain a balance between personal and corporate content.
2. Appropriate incentives:
When I talk about appropriate incentives, I’m referring to two macro groups of incentives, those related to the employee experience as a whole and incentives related to sharing corporate content.
Incentives related to the employee experience are essential because they will impact the employee’s day-to-day life and are part of the daily culture, directly impacting on the well-being, satisfaction and engagement of professionals. It’s curious, but many companies still offer benefits without considering who the users of these benefits will be and what is really relevant to these people, and this is a very serious mistake. When you consider offering benefits to your company’s employees, make sure you understand their priorities and vision of value, so that you can be assertive in providing a truly meaningful and engaging experience for them. These will be the main (and essential) benefits for your employees to become genuine ambassadors for your brand.
The incentives related to sharing corporate content are additional benefits, where you can create incentive programs that recognize and reward employee efforts and positioning when sharing corporate content, which can include anything from public recognition to tangible benefits, such as awards or professional development opportunities.
3. Facilitate Participation:
If you really want employees to be ambassadors for your brand, ensure that participation in the program or the sharing process is easy and accessible.
In many corporations we deal with a high volume of data and confidentiality, but you can provide resources like pre-approved content for sharing, security training, clear and accessible documentation on essential good practices for confidentiality and other actions that make sense for your company’s context.
Risks of not adopting an effective Employee Advocacy strategy:
Ignoring this strategy could result in the loss of extremely valuable opportunities
1. Employee disengagement:
The failure to involve employees or even the lack of genuine interest in employees on the part of the company has a direct impact on the employee experience, leading to disengagement and directly affecting their productivity and satisfaction. Without an effective strategic positioning to reinforce the employees sense of belonging, there will be no feeling of connection with the company, leading them to seek opportunities in more engaging organizations.
2.Loss of Narrative Control:
By not adopting an effective Employee Advocacy strategy, the company runs the risk of losing control of the online narrative. Because it addresses not only sharing initiatives, but also the quality of employees’ experience and satisfaction with the brand. If the strategy is not assertive or even non-existent, negative messages can spread without a positive counterpart, damaging the brand’s reputation.
3. Less Influence on Public Perception:
The absence of internal advocates leads to a strictly commercial perception of the brand, minimizing opportunities for expansion, credibility, desirability, hiring talent and so on. This also results in the need to depend entirely on traditional marketing strategies, missing out on opportunities to directly influence public perception through authentic voices.
Conclusion
This is a vital strategy for building a solid and positive brand presence in the market. By turning employees into ambassadors, you can enjoy engaged employees, amplify the brand’s reach and benefit from an authentic brand image.
I hope you enjoyed reading it and if you have any questions, just call me!
See you!
