How can employee advocacy improve your B2B reputation?

People buy from people. While you can identify your USPs and craft concise ad copies to please algorithms, the humane experience is lost if your employees aren’t actively discussing your company, your products, their roles, and the satisfaction they derive from their work. We can invest in driving traffic and allocate significant budgets, but without employees serving as genuine brand advocates and experts in your offerings, you’re playing a losing game. People connect with people; a company forms the foundation, but trust is built upon the cornerstone of its employees.

Employees at the front line of B2B interactions develop genuine connections that may carry with outside of the work environment. It is significantly cheaper to retain and grow alongside current employees than it is to have to replace them. The more satisfied employees are, the less likely they are to divert their attention away from your brand and bring in high-quality referrals for you.

IMO, activating employees as brand advocates can significantly strengthen B2B reputation. > employees humanize the brand with their authentic sharing which provides credibility & connection beyond corporate marketing > advocates expand reach & impressions exponentially through employees' expansive social networks > thought leadership & content shared by staff receives higher engagement as they already have audience relationships established > employees can convey insider perspectives on culture, values & purpose more powerfully which builds trust providing guidelines, resources, empowerment, & education to unleash staff's brand ambassador superpowers as their voices create invaluable customer connections.

Having a strong employee advocacy is a great way to showcase and improve B2B but also B2C reputation. Employees who are engaged and advocating for the place they work at shows a commitment by the company that it puts employees first and treats them well. That means they're good to do business with and can be trusted.

Les stratégies d'ambassadorat ne peuvent émerger et conna?tre le succès qu'à condition que l'ADN de l'entreprise le permette. Une ADN forte, fédératrice, fun et humaine facilitera le partage et la contribution. Au contraire, une ADN de marque faible, inconsistente ou négative représentera un frein quasiment impossible à surpasser. En un mot, l'Employee Advocacy se doit de révéler le meilleur de l'entreprise, jamais de cacher le pire.

Some employees may want to be a brand ambassador but they do not know how. Others may not realize they can make an impact on your brand and reputation. We recently held two contests to motivate and educate employees on how to support our brand online. We encouraged employees to follow our corporate social pages and rewarded them for engaging with us with likes, comments, shares, and tags. We provided instructions and templates but also encouraged creativity. Top employees won prizes and best of all many have continued with their engagement since the contest concluded. As a result, we've seen significant organic growth on our LinkedIn page and this past month we gained more new followers than all of our top competitors.

Employee advocacy is cat herding. That's the biggest challenge. Other challenges include employees sharing what you don't want shared. And you'll need someone with strong diplomatic skills running the program. Otherwise you risk annoying or demoralizing your employees.

I once failed at establishing employee advocacy at a company because of the following challenges: - The staff were uncomfortable with social - Some didn't know what to post - Some weren't motivated Usually these are the 3 major challenges. The solutions: -Educate them of the benefits to them (not your company, eg build their personal brand/increase their followers) -Provide proper incentives (not just some sticker rewards. Money, coupons etc) -Provide content ideas. Use a tool like SocialKit to get personalized content ideas for each staff. They can also record voice notes and it will turn it into LinkedIn posts. -Start with those who're willing. Don't force anybody.

It's really important to encourage employees to share content wider than just branded content. The value of employee advocacy comes in having expert employee voices talking about the things that they are passionate about that showcase who they are & their expertise & experience. Sharing content & engaging in conversations that add value to their networks is key which will (& should) invariably be a mix of branded & non-branded content.

Sharing the direct impact of an employee's engagements effort beyond their set job responsibilities outlines how valuable they are to your team. Measure their voluntary contributions and highlight them in ways that resonate best for your employees. Recognition can vary, examples include written praise, awards, and bonuses. Similarly to how you would outline a clear CTA for your leads, doing the same for employees, increases the odds they complete your desired CTA.

If you take a general day to day example; imagine each employee has an average of 500 connections on LinkedIn. If just 20 employees talk about the company they work for, what they do, how they do it and why they are part of it - just once, you could potentially reach 10,000 individuals through employee advocacy on? LinkedIn?at zero cost. In fact, it can be more effective than high-budget campaigns and support in building?thought-leadership and user generated content!

You can't force employee advocacy - if you treat your employees well in the first place and create a unique and rewarding company culture, then the advocacy should be an organic outcome of that. As Cisco have done, it's a great idea to create a platform, community or forum where employees can share their experiences, but again, this shouldn't be forced. Similarly, empowering employees to post freely about their own company experiences on the likes of LinkedIn is one of the most powerful branding tools a B2B company can have!

?? Having a great company culture does the job for you. Everyone loves to talk about how amazing their company is when they really feel it is amazing. ?? Ensure your company supports purposeful initiatives and hire staff that align with them. (They will be very proud of the company's efforts) ?? Tell everyone how proud you are of your employees and feature them when they deserve it and celebrate their successes. (Social media and traditional media work wonders) ?? Create a referral programme to incentivise advocacy

Your employees' social media reach is much, much larger than your brand's. It can be near impossible to be heard if you're a smaller brand lacking in clout without it. But the trick is, are your employees connected with your target audiences? If they're not, employee advocacy will have limited utility.