How can you use employee advocacy to amplify your brand's message?

It starts with Organizational Culture. You want your team to believe in, to take ownership in the organization. You can't mandate advocacy. Real advocacy from an organization's workforce comes from believing in and caring about their organization and mission. See building organizational culture!

I would go back a step and understand if the organization is even in a position to create and launch an employee advocacy program at this time. To successfully do this a number of elements need to be in place and relationships between roles, teams and functions need to be healthy. I suggest organizations show courage and undertake a holistic assessment on it's ability to do this work. And by doing so have a deep understanding of the skill gaps, threats and risks that can and will impact such a programme. To not do this work is naive and put the organizations and its people at risk. Only when you have done this research can you define the goals that will deliver the desired outcomes and impacts.

It will depend entirely on what the leadership style is and how integrated staff are in the strategic objects of the organisation. There has to be a collaborative understanding - staff need to feel that they are the organisation. So, in my opinion, you need to review leadership and culture first.

?? Key strategies: ??Cultivate your employees as brand ambassadors by dedicating time & resources to strengthen company><staff bond. ??Foster open communication channels, allowing employees to express concerns freely without fear of reprisal. ??Improve internal comms to facilitate a 2-way dialogue. ??Embrace feedback from employees & invest in team-building activities to foster a sense of pride in the brand. ??Organize workshops & regular events that instill pride in employees for the brand they represent. ??Actively monitor & respond to negative feedback across various platforms, including Glassdoor. ??Recognize, reward employees for their contributions through emails, newsletters, & professional platforms such as LinkedIn.

Employee advocacy is a powerful strategy for amplifying your brand message Create a positive company culture: Clearly communicate the company's mission and values: Provide resources and training: Encourage the use of social media: Make content sharing easy: Recognition and rewards: Encourage content creation: Implement special initiatives: Measure the results: Be transparent and honest: you mobilize an internal communications force that can significantly strengthen your brand image, expand your reach and increase trust in your company. However, it is essential to respect the privacy of employees and ensure that their participation remains voluntary and positive.

When I am identifying advocates I always make sure I am clear on the following, not so obvious areas: - Why have I chosen this person? - What value will they bring? - What is it about their knowledge, skill set and experiences that will help achieve outcomes and impacts? - What relationships do they have with key stakeholders and how can we leverage this? - What skill gaps do they have and how will we work together to fulfil these? - Will they work well with the other people in the project - how will personalities work together. Will there be potential friction and how will this be addressed? Your selection process always needs to be fair, consistent and equitable.

Employee advocacy has a positive impact on the entire business, with the sales teams, talent acquisition, HR, and marketing teams benefiting the most. While not all employees may be willing to share content, there are already individuals and thought leaders within your organization who naturally engage in sharing. Identify potential ambassadors from the mentioned teams, introduce them to the program with a fancy name, and ensure they receive training explaining the process and its benefits. The employee advocacy manager should encourage participants to share content during , clearly outlining what is acceptable and what is not. Employees should be empowered to share on LinkedIn.

Imagine a tech company identifying passionate employees through surveys and LinkedIn analytics. They create a user-friendly advocacy platform, offering training on effective social sharing. Top advocates receive public recognition, reinforcing their contributions and encouraging ongoing brand support.

Curating content for employees is what 'powers' employee advocacy: - Make it easy for employees to access this content in the form of a central digital repository with 'click2share' integrations with channels important for your brand - socialise the idea, of how advocating for the brand through curated content can help build their own profiles - once the idea picks momentum, let employees participate in creating content. You might be surprised by the numerous reasons, why an employee loves your brand/company! - Also, this is true about large enterprises, where 80% of the great content ideas never see the light of the day simply because they are not visible to people who matter. Employees will help unearth those.

Always encourage them to create their own original takes on your joint topics. You will both get more out of it, if it is more than pushing "Share" button. This doesn't mean that ready made content is unnecessary. It means that all the content you have should probably be atomized too, so one can use bits and pieces of it sometimes and the whole thing some other time. It helps to have something ready made and then add their own touch to it.

Before you can create employee advocates you need to have a consistent, impactful brand that is backed by social proof and workplace evidence. This will mean creating employee experiences and learning and growth opportunities that employees think are worth talking about. A large gap in many organizations but also a great opportunity for the ones that step up. To make the most of this you'll need a clear scope for how you want advocates to engage with the various communication channels and how you don't. Without clear scope and rules of engagement you run the risk of it becoming an employee free for all. Not a great look for your employer brand. A key part of this is also leveraging relevant social media platforms like LinkedIn.

For instance, a fashion brand ensures effective employee advocacy by curating content. They blend company updates with behind-the-scenes glimpses, aligning with employees' interests. Using diverse formats like videos and blogs, the brand makes the content easily shareable and customizable. This approach resonates with employees and enhances the authenticity of their advocacy efforts.

In my experience, its key to empower advocates on how to tell their stories within your brand guidelines and give employees the autonomy to create original content.

It's going to be key that you have consistent ways to check in with advocates and measure progress. Key questions I ask my team of advocates is - What is resonating with people and why? - Any actions that did not go to plan? What are the lessons to get a different outcome and impact? - Any key changes in how people are perceiving the employer brand - what have been the influencing factors? - Anything in our approach that needs to be different and why? - What are the first steps to making this change? - Anything that we are doing that is a threat or risk to people and brand?

D'après mon expérience, pour créer l’employee advocacy il faut que vous ayez une culture d'entreprise dans laquelle ils s'identifient et ils n'hésiteront pas à parler du bien de l'entreprise partout.

Employee advocates should receive recognition and regular feedback on their work. While incorporating gamification into your program could be a nice incentive, it should not be the primary reason why they join your advocacy program.

For reputation, I believe in natural, authentic employee advocates. Largely, create a culture they want to brag about. Then encourage them run with it. That’s going to gain you the most.

You are not going to have advocates unless you create employee experiences that are valuable and meaningful. And have a genuine mission people want to buy into. Without this what are they actually advocating for? Always start with understanding what your employee emotional value proposition is. Without this you cannot move forward with a plan of action. When you know the reality you want to create for your people you can then design the action that will lead to an impactful brand. Then you can begin to consider a plan for employee advocacy.

Employee advocacy must be genuine for it to appear authentic; there is no faking it. Rather than enforce that employees post about your brand, employers should simply encourage it. Employee advocacy should never be linked to performance or be used against employees in reviews.

Engage employees in developing the brand. Create a tiger team that includes diverse perspectives. This really creates a sense of ownership for all employees when they know their peers helped create it. In my experience, developing a brand without employee buy-in makes it harder for them to be an advocate.

Employee advocacy is an evolving process that is never truly complete, it is a continuous work in progress. We should not overlook the importance of welcoming new members to the company and providing consistent training on employee advocacy. Offering sessions on how to become a thought leader and suggesting ways for employees to enhance their personal brand on LinkedIn and social media in general.

Employee advocacy is a core component of a good strategic communications program. Advocacy demonstrates both expertise and values and is the best way to highlight company culture. A successful employee advocacy strategy should: 1) Let the experts be the experts without a 'management' layer trying to bookend subjects 2) Be consistent in tone and voice. Employee advocates should amplify an established brand voice 3) Encourage advocates to be the best versions of their authentic selves 4) Celebrate diverse voices 5) Not be afraid to go off script a little

Offer continuous training to help employees understand the brand’s goals, values, and messaging, enabling them to become more effective advocates.