Create an Employee Advocacy Program on LinkedIn. It's Like Increasing your Marketing Staff.

If you aren’t using employee advocacy on social media as a way to engage and spread the message about the work being done at your organization, you are missing a big opportunity.

Studies show that word-of-mouth is more trusted than other forms of marketing or advertising. Your employees are already on social media, including LinkedIn, so leverage their networks to amplify the content you work so hard to create and encourage/train them to share their own.

How to develop an employee advocacy social program:

Policies

Do you have a social media and a media policy? If you don’t have these policies you will want to develop them first. These policies can protect you legally. When developing the policies, in addition to communications and public relations experts, be sure to include include representatives from legal, human resources, and management. Things to consider include:

• Will you allow your employees to use the organization name as part of their handle or name? This doesn't apply on LinkedIn but does on other platforms.
• Who can post for the organization?
• Who can speak to the media?
• Do employees need to use a disclaimer such as?thoughts are my own?

Social Ambassadors

It’s a good idea to start with a small group of social ambassadors before expanding. This allows you to test the concept, policies, and procedures. Plus, it builds interest throughout the organization.

• Share the concept of the ambassador program and ask for volunteers or approach staff who are already vocal advocates in person and on social media. Who is already sharing your content? Who is active on LinkedIn and social media?
• Start with a small group. Ten or 20 ambassadors should suffice, depending on the size of your organization.
• Bring the ambassadors together to share the vision, mission, and details of the program.
• Help the ambassadors finesse their LinkedIn profiles. Provide a branded background graphic they can use.
• Train them on how to share content, give them the tools to do it, and communicate regularly with ambassadors. Consider recognizing them publicly within the organization to inspire others to join the program.
• Consider a private LinkedIn Group to allow ambassadors to interact with each other and build community.
• Bonus: consider gamifying the program. List of top sharers on your Intranet site or reward them.

Content

Use existing content and create additional social media assets to support the ambassadors.

• Develop a custom profile background image for ambassadors. This can also be shared with all employees.
• The graphic can be a JPG, GIF or PNG file and should not be larger than 8MB. The recommended size is 1584 x 396 pixels.
• Encourage ambassadors to regularly check the company's LinkedIn page, and other platforms if you include them in your program. They can share the posts and add comments.
• Content that is most likely to be shared includes human-interest stories, technology advances, and case studies. Content should be emotional and/or educational. Think about the content you stop to consume.
• Create content and curate it for employees to share organically on LinkedIn. Company page admins can amplify the reach of the employees’ content.

Things you can do right now for all staff

While you build the program, you can do two things right away:

• Develop and share a LinkedIn profile background image, as described above.
• Remind or teach staff how?to link to the LinkedIn company page on their profile.

Your staff is a great resource to help amplify the content you create. By designating ambassadors, training them, and providing content, you can be sure the content is professional, approved, aligns with brand standards, and presents your organization the way you want it to be seen.

Note: This newsletter is based on an article I originally wrote for the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network and a presentation I gave at their annual conference.

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