Information in this blog post was obtained from Social Media Today and Social Media Examiner.
The program that started with you is now being implemented by you! Now that you have proposed the employee advocacy program to the leadership team and it has been approved, it is time for you to implement the program! As the team lead on this implementation, it is essential for you to know the details about your employee advocacy program. As you prepare to implement the employee advocacy program through employee education and training, this blog post will assist you in implementing a successful program!
It is important to note that an employee advocacy program is not simply your company's social media presence. An employee advocacy program consists of your employees sharing about your brand on their own social media accounts. The goal of an employee advocacy program is to provide each employee's perspective so that your company is more attractive and marketable to both customers and potential employees. Your finance and human resource management departments will thank you for this!
Choose Employee Participants
Even though you have successfully received permission from the leadership team to implement the employee advocacy program, remember that you still have to convince your employees that this employee advocacy program will have an impact on the entire company. Often, employee advocacy programs are based on the engagement of each employee. Research shows that once your employees are actively participating in an employee advocacy program, you may begin to receive positive feedback, which will increase employee engagement. According to the Social Media Examiner, here are three questions to ask yourself when examining the engagement of your employees:
Are people happy to work there?
Do they find their work exciting, interesting, or newsworthy?
Do they take an interest in how the overall business is performing?
A significant step in implementing an employee advocacy program is identifying key employees that would contribute to making the employee advocacy program successful. Remember that not every employee in your organization will have the desire to participate in your new employee advocacy program. Through trial and error, identify those key employees that will assist in making your employee advocacy program successful while contributing to the overall marketability of the organization. Lastly, when choosing the employees who will participate in your employee advocacy program, ensure that they are pulled from every level of the hierarchy of your organization. It is essential that you do not just choose only lower-level employees or only executives. Of course, you may want to shy away from selecting individuals that are in your marketing department as well. Choosing employees from mixed positions and levels in the organizations will increase the diversity of content as well as increase engagement throughout the organization.
Now that you have chosen your key employees, you may want to reward them for their work or provide them with incentives that will encourage them to continue their employee advocacy efforts. Research shows that employees love extra time off, family and work department activities, and receiving company swag. Anything you can think of to reward your employees will assist in creating a successful employee advocacy program. The employees are who make the business what it is, so rewarding them for their efforts will, in turn, benefit the organization as a whole.
While employees appreciate rewards and incentives for the work they are doing, employees also gravitate towards initiatives or projects that they believe will boost their careers. According to Social Media Today, employees see employee advocacy programs as an initiative that supports their jobs and ultimately make their life easier. Social Media Today uses the example of a sales associate or executive that sees employee advocacy programs as a way to increase leads and gain sales which, in turn, increases job satisfaction for the sales executive.
Not only are employee advocacy programs beneficial for sales executives, but human resource management departments see employee advocacy programs as a vital recruitment tool when recruiting top talent. This goes to show that regardless of the department that your key employees are pulled from, their participation in the employee advocacy program could have an immense impact on their singular department.
Creating a Social Media Style Guide
Even though you may have chosen the key employee you think will be successful in your new employee advocacy program, it will serve you well to create and distribute a social media style guide. A social media style guide will ensure that you provide clarity to your employees on what they should be posting, how they should be posting content, and specific style guidelines that you want to uphold to continue marketing your company brand.
Before deciding what to include in your social media style guide, it may benefit your organization to sit down as a marketing and executive team to decide on several key factors that will influence your style guide. The company identity will be key in how your social media style guide is compiled and distributed. There are several items that you could include in your social media style guide, but the Social Media Examiner recommends the following:
Provide a list of recommended hashtags that your employees can use when posting via the employee advocacy method.
Provide company social media handles that your employees can tag when posting on their personal accounts.
Assuming you are the team lead for this project, ensure that you provide your contact information for employees if they were to have any issues or questions about your employee advocacy program.
If you have a specific amount of time per week that you would like your employees to spend on the employee advocacy program tasks, include that in the social media style guide. Ensure that you are transparent in the expected amount of time to be used working on this program as opposed to working on other work-related tasks.
Is Your Employee Advocacy Program Performing?
Perhaps your employee advocacy program has been running for quite some time, and you have seen your employees become more engaged while your customers have become more aware of organizational happenings. As with any marketing campaign, it will serve you well to compile and analyze your information as well as the success your employees feel they're having with the new program.
1. Employee Check-Ins:
Your employee advocates are your most influential piece of the new employee advocacy program. As the team lead for this new project, it is important for you to check in with your employee advocates to ensure that they are succeeding, have the tools to grow, and understand the continued support that they are receiving from you and perhaps your team. When employees begin a new project, they desire adequate tools and resources to be able to perform at the highest level possible. Your role includes providing them with the tools and support they need.
In addition to providing tools and support feedback during employee check-ins, ask your employee advocates a series of questions that tell you how engaged the employee is within the program. Ask your employees if they are overwhelmed with tasks related to the employee advocacy program or if they are happy with the feedback or recognition they are receiving from both the organization and their social media accounts.
During your employee check-ins, you will most likely receive feedback from your employee advocates. This feedback can be used to enhance your employee advocacy program while further developing the tools needed to onboard new employee advocates in the future. Use the feedback to enhance and create a stronger employee advocacy program for all future employees.
2. Social Media Results:
Not only does the Social Media Examiner recommend checking in on your employee advocates, but they also recommend collecting data using the hashtags listed in the social media style guide. You can also collect data from different software platforms or employee advocacy programs that allow you to check the desired data. When choosing whether or not you want to gather the data on your own or seek an outside platform, understand your goals for the data that you would like to receive. The data and reporting you received throughout your employee advocacy program will also help to enhance the program for future employees.
As we see social media marketing and general marketing practices evolve over time, the one thing that remains throughout our organizations is the employees. Employees are the greatest advocate for a company brand which allows a company culture to shine through all aspects of the advocacy program. As employees are chosen specifically for an employee advocacy program, they may become more engaged and invested in the organization as a whole. This increase in engagement could impact both the organization's revenue and the company environment, which is cultivated through such employees. Not only do active employees have an influence on the employee advocacy program, but measuring the results will prove whether or not the employee advocacy program is succeeding. Choosing key performance indicators in various metrics is critical to evaluating the analytics of the employee advocacy program. As the team leads for the employee advocacy program, you must evaluate and adjust your employee advocacy program throughout its longevity to ensure that it continues to be successful. Lastly, creating a social media style guide will ensure that your employees are consistent with the company brand and that your expectations are clear when training your new employee advocates.
Overall, an employee advocacy program will have a positive influence on the organization you are serving. Regardless of whether you are a large or small company, employee advocacy, if implemented correctly, can impact the bottom line of every organization.
Resources
Heinila, R. (2015) Why Employee Advocacy Should Be Employees First https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/why-employee-advocacy-should-be-employees-first/454401/
Keefe, C. (2022) Employee Advocacy 101: How to Get Started https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/employee-advocacy-101-how-to-get-started/
Keefe, C. (2019) How to Create a Social Media Style Guide for Your Business https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-create-social-media-style-guide-business/
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