Information in this blog post was obtained from the Content Marketing Institute, Social Media Examiner, and Sprout Social.
You’re new to the company. You’ve just been hired as a recent college graduate with a suitcase full of the most up-to-date marketing practices. As you navigate the unknown of a new company, you may not know if your boss understands the importance of marketing practices that are trending in your target market or industry. As a high-performing individual wanting to make an impact on your organization, you want to propose a new marketing strategy, but you don’t know where to start… after all, you might overwhelm the boss with too many new ideas. If you don’t know where to start, begin with you and your new colleagues!
It Starts With You - Proposal to Leadership
When implementing a new program, regardless of whether it is marketing, organizational development, practical, or otherwise, you must seek executive buy-in, according to the Content Marketing Institute. Seeking executive buy-in will begin with having a plan of action for the employee advocacy program you desire to implement. Your plan will create the success that your employee advocacy program has the potential to become.
Your plan of action will include the following:
Who will participate in the (employee advocacy) program?
How will you track the progress and development of those participants?
What goals must the participants reach?
When you begin the executive proposal, remember that your executives may not have the proper training in marketing as you do, so create a high-level proposal that presents the facts. Your high-level overview will ensure the executives do not turn you down, pushing your idea away. Lastly, ensure that the information you include in your proposal is relevant to the data you want to present. The goal of your proposal is to show the data that proves your initiative will benefit the company as a whole but ultimately benefit the bottom line; revenue. With revenue in mind, explain the benefits the employee advocacy program will bring to their roles. If your executives can see themselves as an active part of the employee advocacy initiative, they may be more invested in supporting you and your goals.
Once you have proposed your employee advocacy program to the leadership team of the company, you will then create a proposal to present to your colleagues. Ensure your proposal includes positive feedback from the leadership team and outlines the goals, responsibilities, and rewards associated with employee participation in the employee advocacy program. It is now time to present your proposal to the employees of your organization!
The Employee Proposal
The effectiveness of your proposal can either make or break an effective employee advocacy program. The first reminder to your employees is, “Businesses are powered by people, not numbers“ (Social Media Examiner). Your employees expect you to tell them what benefits they may reap from your social media employee advocacy program, so build your proposal with that in mind. Your people are the reason your company thrives!
When creating the employee proposal, provide examples of how your employees can participate actively in the employee advocacy program. If your company has a website (it should), encourage your employees to share information from your website, as this will drive traffic to your goods and services. For example, the Social Media Examiner goes into great detail regarding how Zappos uses social media through an employee advocacy program. Zappos promotes its company culture, which, in turn, attracts top talent while increasing revenue. Sharing your internal and external success, similar to Zappos, will increase brand awareness for your organization. Multiple categories exist to choose from when sharing your internal successes, but most importantly, highlight your employees. If employees recently obtained a certification, received a promotion, or obtained a service milestone, use these opportunities to highlight your staff members. One form of employee advocacy could be one employee sharing the success of another employee. Another form of employee advocacy could be the company sharing about an employee's success, then all the employees sharing the native content created by the company. Both are other forms of employee advocacy that could impact the success of a program centered around employee advocacy via social media.
When creating the guidelines and proposal to present to your employees, the Content Marketing Institute has provided several guidelines of reference, listed below.
Decide on a timeframe in which your employees must try the new employee advocacy program via social media.
Set guidelines for expected posting times.
Explain how to engage with the individuals that interact with your employees' posts.
Explain the importance of your employees promoting the company content.
Furthermore, provide your employees examples of items and topics they can explore when posting to their social media pages. There are several options, but a few include your company's services and goods, behind-the-scenes tasks, their routine (day in the life), tips and tricks, and so much more. My colleague, Manny, provides a detailed overview of tips and tricks that will assist your employees in becoming their own social media marketers. These tools help to ensure your employees have support in ways they can contribute to your employee advocacy program via social media. Providing tools to your employees will assist in making your employee advocacy an investment that offers much return.
Sprout Social provides a detailed outline of a successful content strategy that will assist you and your team deliver content topics for an employee advocacy program. These six content pillars will help you develop content for the company and provide your employees with an example of the content they could create. Specifically, encouraging your employees to post educational resources will ensure that your employees understand the importance of a company culture of learning. Sprout Social provides a list of educational resources recommended to post on social media through an employee advocacy program; blog posts, videos, data reports, templates and tools, and case studies.
Once you have set the expectations and provided examples of content creation, spend time explaining to your employees how the employee advocacy implementation will benefit them as team members; drive their motivation to participate.
Marketing Motivation – Your Employees
Your proposal has been approved by your company's leadership and has been proposed to the company's employees via the abovementioned proposal. You are now tasked with providing an extensive training program that allows your employees to invest time and resources into your new employee advocacy program. The Content Marketing Institute notes that employees may still be hesitant about your idea in the initial stages of the employee advocacy program implementation. The Content Marketing Institute further explains that it is wise to encourage your employees to participate voluntarily. Forced participation may decrease engagement, thus, decreasing results.
Motivating your employees will be a task that starts with implementation and continues throughout the entirety of your employee advocacy program. The Social Media Examiner’s research shows, "When employees are included in your social efforts (employee advocacy), they become important brand advocates.” Employees may find satisfaction in being ‘brand advocates,’ allowing them to buy in to the company's goals. Including your employees in social efforts will increase employee morale and customer satisfaction.
Sprout Social states that sharing employee testimonies will enhance traffic while encouraging current employees to create a positive social media presence that contributes to the organization. An employee advocacy program would allow employees to share their positive experiences within the organization, as opposed to executives posting about the positives of their company. Usually, recruits and customers find employee testimonials more credible when they are created by mid to lower-level employees. Lastly, supporting your employees voluntarily agreeing to participate in the employee advocacy program is essential. The Social Media Examiner provides several recommendations on how to continually support your employees throughout your employee advocacy program, increasing the program's longevity. The Social Media Examiner recommends continually sending employees updates on how to better serve as an advocate for the company. The constant motivation of your employees should be at the top of your mind as you will not want to ‘drop the ball’ on your sole participants.
Now that you understand the importance of motivation and how to motivate your employees continuously, it is essential to review your employee advocacy program. Reviewing your employee advocacy program will allow for continuous improvement. Lastly, in your review process, seek feedback from your employees on how they believe the program to be going. Sprout Social has listed three questions to ask your employees to guide you in your initial feedback-seeking process.
Three questions to ask during the feedback process:
How would you rate our employee advocacy program?
Has our employee advocacy program helped you expand your personal brand on social media?
What do you need help with to maximize your use of our advocacy solution?
In conclusion, implementing an employee advocacy program starts with you. You must take the time to research and vet the implementation of such a program, beginning with the right proposal methods. Receiving executive buy-in will assist in encouraging your employees to find value in creating social media content that will contribute to your new employee advocacy program. Once you have received approval and proposed the idea to your employees, ensure that you have the human and physical capital capacity to support your employees in your new initiative. Supporting your employees will make a difference in the impact of your employee advocacy program – don’t let the time and effort detract from the value and reward that will come from a successful program!
Resources
Brady, L. (2022). How to Create a LinkedIn Employee Advocacy Program to Drive Results https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/linkedin-employee-advocacy-program
Azyan, L. (2015) How to Turn Employees Into Social Media Advocates: Case Studies
Smith, A. (2022) The Complete Guide to Create Your Employee Advocate Content Strategy
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