New content marketing trends are constantly emerging, often too many to keep up with all at once. As such, marketers may feel overwhelmed by their content marketing strategy and desperate for resources that will help them inject new life into their content.
Luckily, one emerging social media trend promises to be useful yet manageable. Called employee advocacy, this new movement provides a way for businesses to boost their content marketing strategy by using resources they already have at their fingertips. Indeed, employee advocacy campaigns are sprouting up all over social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and all it takes to create one is, well, your employees and a little bit of motivation.
Here’s the skinny: Employee advocacy campaigns leverage the personal or professional social media accounts of a company’s workers. The success of this strategy depends on employees’ engagement and their willingness to express their support and dedication to the brand they work for on social media, so marketing departments must ensure that their teams are highly engaged and enthusiastic about the business.
When executed correctly, businesses find that consumers are highly responsive to social posts written by a brand’s actual employees. In fact, a recent survey conducted by Altimeter revealed that 21 percent of consumers report “liking” employee-posted content, a far higher engagement rate than the average social media advertisement.
The Altimeter survey also revealed other key drivers of employee advocacy program growth, such as:
- Increasing the reach of messages in social networks (awareness)–54%
- Driving increased understanding and health of the brand–47%
- Engaging employees more deeply in the company mission and their work–43%
- Providing customers a better experience with the brand–43%
According to these survey findings, it is evident that employee advocacy programs affect more than one area of a company’s overall health. For starters, employees become more invested in their work. The more engaged they feel with the brand they work for, the more they are likely to talk about it on social media. As well, employee advocacy programs provide transparency about a brand’s culture—a major bonus among today’s consumers.
But how do you create an employee advocacy campaign that garners optimal results? Here a few tips to get started:
- Give your employees something to share: If your employees are at a loss for words when it comes to posting about your company, give them something share-worthy to post. For example, if your company publishes blogs regularly (which it should!), encourage your employees, across all departments, to share the post on their Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Not only will this garner more engagement on social media, it will also drive more traffic to your blog.
- Encourage employees to brag about your “awesome” culture: Today’s consumers want to know absolutely everything about the brands they love. Social media is the perfect place to show outsiders what it’s like to work at XYZ, Inc. Encourage your employees to share photos of company outings or professional development meetings. Anything that will help your consumers feel like they are gaining a sneak peek behind the scenes at your company will likely garner additional engagement.
Employee advocacy programs are a great way to maximize your internal resources and add a little pizzazz to your content marketing strategy. Need help with different types of content marketing needs? Simply reach out to a third-party content strategist to help you with the legwork!
