Employee advocacy is becoming increasingly important for managers — and for good reason. With employee advocacy, an organization can partner with its employees to promote its brand and initiatives via social media and other digital channels. That way, employee advocacy can help an organization extend its reach, gain a competitive advantage, and increase the likelihood of attracting top talent.
Managers play key roles in employee advocacy. Do your part to help your organization develop and launch an employee advocacy program. You can make it easy for your workers to become advocates for your organization now and in the future.
Here are seven tips to help your organization implement a successful employee advocacy program.
1. Take a Top-Down Approach to Employee Advocacy
Encourage C-suite leaders and other high-ranking personnel to promote your brand and initiatives. This lays the foundation for employee advocacy, as employees can follow the example set by prominent leaders across their organization.
2. Offer Incentives
Don’t force workers to participate in an employee advocacy program. Instead, offer incentives and show employees how they can benefit from the program. For example, you can highlight how your employee advocacy program can help workers build their personal brand. You can also offer prizes and rewards based on how often employees share details about your brand and initiatives.
3. Make Your Program Voluntary
Maintain flexibility with your employee advocacy program. Rather than require workers to become advocates for your organization, make the program voluntary, and ensure workers can participate in the program, however and whenever they choose.
4. Provide Shareable Content to Your Employees
Produce quality content that employees want to share. For instance, you can share a new blog post or other digital content with your employees to publish via their personal social media accounts. Furthermore, you can allow workers to contribute digital content to your company to let them share as soon as you publish it.
5. Offer a Wide Range of Content
Ensure your digital content consists of images, infographics, videos, and other media. If possible, establish a content schedule, so you can publish content at regular intervals. You should also distribute content that promotes various topics, so employees across myriad departments can share this content with the appropriate audience.
6. Get Employee Feedback
Engage employees in your digital marketing efforts and find out what they expect from your organization in terms of content. If employees offer insights into different types of content, you can use these insights to produce content that hits the mark with the right audience, at the right time, every time. Plus, you can increase the likelihood that employees will consistently want to share your digital content.
7. Track the Results of Your Employee Advocacy Program
Check the pulse of your employee advocacy program regularly. Conduct employee surveys and evaluate worker engagement to learn about your program’s strengths and weaknesses. You can then use these insights to transform any employee advocacy program weaknesses into strengths.
Add Workers Who Can Advocate for Your Organization
At Accurate Staffing, we help employers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia hire quality professionals, build successful employee advocacy programs, and more. To find out how we can help your organization attract and retain top talent, please contact us today.