Employee Advocacy On LinkedIn??

It's a common belief that the answer to poor (and getting worse) organic content reach from a company page is employee advocacy. So why are so many organisations getting it horribly wrong?

That plus;

• The new video feed and how it impacts the videos we post.
• Multiple image posts - new dimensions
• Images on external links are shrinking and it really doesn't matter!
• An outrageous post of the week

Informed is a weekly podcast which you can listen to and subscribe to for free on any podcast app. These notes are merely brief overview of what I covered in the podcast so do listen to the full show on Spotify below or simply search for 'Informed by Mark Williams' on your podcast app of choice

The New Video Feed

I was chatting recently with Lynnaire Johnston about this new feed (she doesn't yet have it) and she made the valuable point that this new style of delivery might necessitate a change in the way a video is produced.

Because the scroll has audio enabled (unlike in the normal feed) it puts more emphasis on the opening few seconds of the video and less emphasis on the words you type to accompany the post - these appear at the bottom of the video in this feed. This doesn't mean that you should worry less about the words because they still play an important role in the normal feed on both mobile and desktop (see image below).

In addition, the new video feed appears to zoom in somewhat which creates an issue with text on the video or even captions if you add them yourself.

As a reminder, this video feed is only enabled once you tap on some video posst you see on the main mobile feed, at the moment this is only for about 40% of the videos I see in my feed. Once you are in this feed you can the scroll to see more videos and those videos all autoplay with sound.

I suspect that LinkedIn will fix the zooming issue but that will probably take some time so it's worth ensuring your text does not go near the edges of your video for now.

Multiple Image Posts

The way images are displayed in a multi-image post is beginning to change as you can see here in these example of 2 and 3 image posts;

LinkedIn?? have provided this helpful document which can be downloaded here.

I've had this change for a while but apparently more the majority of users are now seeing this in their feeds.

Images On External Links

LinkedIn?? have announced that images on posts with external links are shrinking unless you sponsor (advertise) that post, in which case the image stays the same size as it has always been.

Lots of people are up in arms about this!

Why?

External link posts are seen by very few people anyway so not seeing a larger or small image results in the same...it's not seen!

OK I'm being a bit cynical there but honestly guys, have you not learnt yet?....don't post external links, unless you really have to.

Employee Advocacy

Earlier this year I was a panel member on stage at UpLift Live when a question about employee advocacy on LinkedIn was asked. My slightly cynical response was to state that asking employees to Repost or Like a company page post was not employee advocacy in any sense yet that is as far as most organisations go.

I stand by that answer but it did occur to me that it was worth trying to explain what a more productive method would be.

Firstly I am not a fan of the phrase 'employee advocacy'. To my understanding an 'advocate' is someone who promotes someone or something. This leads to a belief that employee advocacy is all about encouraging employees to promote the company that they work for.

And for the most part, that is what happens. Employees either repost company page content or directly promote the organisation that they work for either to other potential employees or customers.

This is highly ineffective.

Below is a classic example. Robert Half have published an article (ironically about employee advocacy) and then asked their employees to post it...so they do!

This is merely a distribution mechanism and, as you can see by the lack of engagement, not a very effective one!

Whilst this might be employee advocacy for some organisations, others 'ask' their employees to post about the amazing work environment or how they are so happy working for them or how impressed they are with the products or customer service etc etc.

It just comes across as forced and hollow...frankly nobody is buying it!

We all know that promotional content does not do well on LinkedIn, it is difficult to attract engagement and so typically achieves poor reach. So why do companies do it? It strikes me as being nothing more than a 'ticking the box' exercise.

"employee advocacy...done!" ??

All that said, we know that company page content has extremely limited reach and this reach seems to be getting worse so it does make sense for organisations to use their employees personal accounts for their benefit.

If however the objective is promotion, it simply won't work. The problem is that the objective is wrong, if the objective was greater visibility then employee advocacy could work, if done the right way.

When an employee of an organisation becomes influential on LinkedIn then the organisation will benefit from their greater visibility. To become influential on LinkedIn though, the employee shouldn't be posting about how amazing the company is, that's not great content.

The trick is to identify individuals within an organisation who have the motivation and ability to gain a following and influence on LinkedIn. This does not need to be many employees, just a few with the right mindset and desire.

The second part of this is about what employees are asked to do and many organisations will be deeply uncomfortable with what is the right approach - to encourage employees to develop their own personal brand by producing content that is helpful, interesting, entertaining and focussed on the audience.

This is usually seen as a threat in most organisations and that is the heart of the problem.

In the podcast I also get into the topic of recruitment and how this strategy will impact the sort of people that are recruited.

Tip: Start small by encouraging a few select employees to comment on company page content. Make sure the content is focussed on the audience and not the company and let the employees contribute to it by adding meaningful comments that add value to the piece.

These same employees should also be encouraged to comment of many other posts (not from the company) that are focussed on topics that will be interesting to your target audience.

Let them build their confidence and credibility this way first.

Then give them the tools and skills to start posting great content designed to encourage engagement.

Once they have gained a strong following and influence, they can occasionally post something about their employer or it's products/services but the main objective is to increase visibility and influence.

Ultimately, the power of employee advocacy lies in authenticity. By encouraging employees to share their unique perspectives, you can create a more compelling and genuine narrative for the organization.

Post Of The Week

This a belter from Lara Bywater and mainly because the topic is just....well, unbelievable really!

How on earth could anyone be so stupid as to think that this business card is OK? Maybe they would defend it by saying it's just harmless banter...if you believe that then just read the comment thread!

It's not clever, it's not funny and it shows a complete lack of empathy or understanding of how a woman would receive this.

The post is also well structured with a great hook line.

Well done to Lara for a great post and for having the courage to call out this sort of behaviour.

That's all for this week.

If you are in Odense in Denmark at Linkedsummit this week, come and say hello!

Until next time...