Employee advocacy
What is employee advocacy?
Employee advocacy refers to the process where employees promote their organization, usually through social media, personal networks, or even word of mouth. It happens when employees willingly share positive news, content, and successes of the company. This helps build the employer's brand and reputation. It can involve posting about company culture, sharing job openings, or highlighting achievements.
What are the benefits of employee advocacy?
Enhances brand visibility
When employees "like" or share a post about the company, its achievements, or recently published work, the brand gets far more visibility than it would through traditional company channels. This increases exposure and strengthens the presence of the brand online.
Builds trust and authenticity
People trust content shared by real employees more than sponsored messages. Employee voices create a feeling of authenticity about the company that produces positive impressions with the public.
Boosts employee engagement
Involving employees in advocacy programs makes them feel valued and connected to the organization’s mission. This increases motivation, loyalty, and overall job satisfaction.
Improves recruitment and employer branding
Positive employee posts give potential candidates an insider view of the company’s culture and values. This helps attract high-quality talent who align with the organization’s work environment and ethos.
Drives business growth and sales
Employees who promote company products or services indirectly contribute to brand awareness and customer trust, which can lead to higher sales conversions.
Strengthens company culture
Advocacy fosters pride and a shared sense of belonging among employees, encouraging collaboration and positive workplace relationships.
What are the different types of employee advocacy?
There are several ways to promote an organization through employee advocacy. Below are the most common ways:
Social media advocacy
Employees often post organization-related posts, such as blog posts, event alerts, webinar alerts, and more on their personal profile. Social media advocacy is one of the most common types of employee advocacy.
Company gear
Offering high-quality items with the organization's logo is a tangible way to encourage employee advocacy. This type of employee advocacy promotes the brand on a daily basis.
Referral advocacy
Employees act as evangelists to potential customers or job candidates by sharing their personal experience with the organization, its products, or its services.
Events and conference
When an employee represents an organization by participating in events or interviews, they increase brand visibility and credibility in the market.
Internal advocacy
Internal advocacy involves employees promoting their organization from within the organization itself (i.e., by sharing the oganzization's vision, culture, and initiatives).
Tips to build a successful employee advocacy program
- Set clear expectations. Ask, "Why are we doing this?" Is it for brand awareness, visibility, employee engagement, customers, job applicants, or something else?
- Choose the right platform for posts. Educate employees on what to share and what not to share.
- Prioritize engaging content that relates to your organization and customers.
- Awknowledge employees for promoting the organization, and encourage other employees to do the same.
- Encourage authenticity by having employees share their personal experiences with the organization, product, or service.
- Monitor and analyze the engagement rate, KPIs, employee feedback, and more to measure the effectiveness of the advocacy program.
How to measure an organization's employee advocacy plan?
- Track the number of likes, shares, and comments on employee posts.
- Monitor the content's reach and impression.
- Track the number of employees participating in the advocacy program.
- Measure the website traffic from social media to identify surges.
Should employee advocacy be mandatory or voluntary?
Employee advocacy should be voluntary, not mandatory. When employees share company content freely, their posts are much more authentic and engaging. A mandatory program gives the impression that the messages are fake and can lead to negativity towards the program. Voluntary sharing builds trust, raw excitement, and ultimately better content. HR and organizational leaders should empower, enable, and acknowledge employees who participate rather than making it a requirement.