How to Build a Successful Employee Advocacy Program?

Since in the digital age that we live in today, social media plays a huge role in the marketing and promotion of a brand, employee advocacy is then considered the fastest growing means of building brand engagement. In order for employee advocacy to work companies have to focus on 2 points.

First, it is important for staff to have confidence in the brand and to have the desire to work to make things better; because after all, if brands can’t sell their company to their employees, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to sell it to their customers.

Second, to prepare a well-organized and complete employee advocacy program in order to track their milestones and measure the success.

To build a successful employee advocacy program companies must focus of some essential points that will be discussed below: 

1. Create social media guidelines and communicate them to all staff: Before companies encourage their team members to post on social media, they should create guidelines/policy around polite and proper online behavior, where employees feel safe sharing the brand online, and as the first line of defense to moderate risk for them and their employees.

2. Create an employee advocacy mission: In order for companies to observe the potential reach of their employee’s social channels, they need to provide them with a reason and a means to discuss something on social media and reward them for doing so. Then, what companies should make in this step is depending on what they have chosen as their primary business goal for the campaign, to create their advocacy mission. But they have to keep in mind whatever they choose to make sure it suits the format of the social channel they will be targeting.

 3. Educate employees about social media for employee advocacy: One of the best ways to encourage participation in advocacy initiatives is bringing everyone up to speed on social media knowledge—across all departments and seniority levels. According to research from IDG7, the top concern that brands have about social media is lack of employee social media skills and training: Poor judgment when posting online can cost brand damage to their reputation. Then Companies should make social media education a part of their business’s on boarding process. Companies may need to overcome assumptions that their employees hold about their existing skills and knowledge of social media. Many employees make the assumption that they know social media because they use it in their personal life; but this personal experience and knowledge doesn't translate to business. As we know, social media tools evolve continually, and training program will be challenged to keep pace with those changes, that's why companies can either develop their digital marketing training programs and ensure that the core program is agile and stays abreast of the latest emerging technologies, tools, or they can contact experts in this field similar to Right Service for digital marketing that provides workshops in various topics.

In addition to that, employees should be knowledgeable about employee advocacy and how it will also benefit their personal brand. This recommended book, “Employee Advocacy On Social Media” that is the first book in the Middle East discussing this vital topic, can be beneficial for them.

4. Appoint employee advocacy leaders: Executives set the pace for social media use in the company, but they also need someone who’s responsible for communicating employee advocacy missions and creating proper incentives. This is especially pertinent to large organizations, where it’s difficult to ensure participation across all departments. That’s why it helps to appoint employee advocacy leaders in each department or team, who will be responsible for representing the brand on their social channels and encouraging their colleagues to do the same. Companies should be careful since recruiting can be difficult.

5. Track the right metrics to measure the effects of employee advocacy: In order to create an effective employee advocacy program, companies need to measure and communicate tangible results of their initiatives. Even before they create their first advocacy mission, they should make sure it aligns with one of their company’s primary business goals.

Then they will make a plan for which social media metrics they will be tracking, whether it’s share of voice, traffic to your website, the number of sales leads, etc.

6. Choose the most adequate platform: Last but not least, companies must choose the most suitable employee advocacy platform that will support their program and can organize their employees engagement in one place.

With all the various employee advocacy platforms, companies have to choose according to the availability of the below main features in any platform:

• Company news feed
•  Instant notification
•  Need-to-know resources
•  Content segmentation and targeting
•  1-click sharing Impact metrics
• Crowd-source content from employees
• Advanced gamification
• Internal Commenting

One of the best international employee advocacy platforms and app that has all these features and more in an affordable packages for all company sizes is Smarp, therefore Right Service had teamed up with Smarp and brought it to the Middle East to be the first international employee advocacy platform That has an exclusive representative in the Middle East.

To know how Smarp can support you in your employee advocacy program and in employees’ engagement, contact Right Service offices on: +961 5 951343.

To know more click here to discover my latest book about this topic "Employee Advocacy on Social Media"