The next frontier of employee advocacy

Dear Emily,

How do I get our employees to be more visible online and share company content?

Thanks,

Nicoleta

.......

Dear Nicoleta,

You are right that employees are the most powerful advocates a company has. Forbes refers to this recommendation power as the 'Yelpification' of the employee experience.

It makes sense - people value peer to peer recommendations on a great restaurant vs the owner standing outside clutching a menu and accosting them to come in, so it follows that they will probably trust employee over employer when it comes to whether to work for you. If, according to recent research by Weber Shandwick, only 19% of employees put trust in what their own employer says about itself, we don't have much hope blowing our own trumpet to candidates.

Given then that employees are our most powerful advocates, we should basically think about them as influencers. That’s before you even start considering that some of your employees actually do match the common definition of influencers - they have their own blogs, are part of important collectives and thought-leadership groups, they sit on panels about minority representation or have followers hanging on their every word when it comes to UX design…

'Some of your employees actually do match the common definition of influencers."

So when we start to think about our employees as influencers we can better approach about how to engage with them as partners in advocacy.

So consider this: why do influencers share content? Some suggestions...

1. It’s content they think is cool that builds their personal brand.
2. It speaks to something they genuinely care about or are proud of. 
3. It’s a paid or incentivised partnership they see mutual value in. 

Let’s see if we can apply that to your employee content then….

First off - we need to flip the script on the question to make it: How can you make your content worth sharing by your employee-influencers? Or even, is your company culture really worth shouting about in the first place? (If not then start there before proceeding!)

What are you saying in your content that makes the company look awesome but more importantly makes them look awesome for working there? Perhaps you’ve launched a game-changing new product. Or you have the most 'out there' Christmas party. Or your management team just shaved their heads for charity. What stories are you surfacing that would actually make someone click. This is the same content that your employees will be naturally willing to share.

If you have some great stories, think about a proper content release plan that starts internally. Hype your content and tease it the way you would with any content. Using those last examples, why not release internal teaser clips of your end of year party film and make it feel like a music video drop. Or count down to the big head-shave with shares of the tease clip equating to the the number of management that go under the razor. If it’s a really big piece of content do an internal screening with a VIP moment for the employee stars with the sharing link posted at the end. 

If you genuinely do something meaningful ...you'll find that 'shares happen.'

Got nothing good to say yet? Then why not actually do something good that's in line with your values and the values of your employees. If you genuinely do something meaningful that is in line with your values and that they care about employees will feel proud to work for you, and you'll find that 'shares happen.'

On the final point around incentivisation and mutual benefit, here's where things get controversial. But they shouldn't.

I have my own theory about the fact that 2020 will be the year that employee influencership 'professionalises' by which I mean that it becomes a proper value exchange and employees expect incentivisation - not just to say nice things about you but to say anything at all.

Let's get real about the fact that we are talking about your employees' time and also their personal brand reputation because in representing you actively they are publicly aligning with your values. You go down, so do they. How long do we really expect employees to just do this for the love, especially when their influence is becoming ever more valuable. How long before this advocacy is regulated and transparent like brand advocacy? #ad

'2020 will be the year that employee influencership 'professionalises'

Anyway, while we are still in the wild west of employee ambassadorship, here are some proposed ways that you can incentivise without being nauseating. Recruit enthusiasts transparently - make influencership covetable with a clear value exchange and clear responsibilities - ie employee ambassadors will get opportunities to speak at conferences globally, have access to a Linkedin premium account and represent the employer brand at key events. In return they might be asked to create a number of social posts regularly within guidelines but with broad freedoms on how and what they say and will have a percentage of their time allocated to 'brand activities' which is free from performance management criteria.

Furthermore, if we are thinking about employees as influencers then we should also be treating them as creative collaborators. Influencers build a following by using their own creative lens and authentic voice so think about how you can partner with them and build the content together vs expecting them to be part of the distribution only. An easy way to do this is to provide an open creative brief to your most engaged employees and invite participation internally - this makes your role more that of a curator vs creator.

'Make influencership covetable with a clear value exchange and clear responsibilities'

Now we've established how to engage your employee influencers, here is a note on some basics to consider:

-Are your leaders role modelling? If your CEO isn't even active on LinkedIn how can you expect your employees to be?

-Can your employees actually find your content to share it? Are you sharing links to content internally somewhere visible and are you signposting the channels where the content is live for resharing?

-Are you thinking about your external channels as employee engagement channels also? Your current employees will help to drive engagement levels, content and conversations on your social channels - but only if they actively follow you. Think about these channels as a dialogue between your internal and external community. Encourage your employees to @ the brand and then ensure you re-share and hero the content they create on your official channels.

'You are entering a grey zone - you want employees to be the voice of your brand, but only if they have nice things to say'

On a final note, know that you are entering a grey zone where you want employees to be the voice of your brand, but only if they have nice things to say. That's not how it works. If you open it up to the floor you are going to get heckled as much as you get applauded. Asking someone to write you a review on TripAdvisor is all very well but you don't control what they write. Similarly asking your employees to post will likely create a realistic representation, warts and all, of your employee experience played out in the world. Get comfortable with this.

As the walls between internal and external become ever more eroded you might as well accept that a new hire that will last the course will already have seen the full spectrum of possible experiences and weighed the odds of being happy at your company accordingly.

It's not the worst thing in the world to be real.