Are your employees or coworkers active on social media? For industrial companies, this activity might not seem too relevant. However, in-house promotion is a simple and effective way to support employee retention and boost your account’s reach on any platform.
This engagement can include anything from liking content on the company page to sharing a corporate post with your own followers.
But how exactly does employee advocacy generate value for the business – and for the employee themselves?
Demonstrating Mutual Support
For starters, low workforce engagement in and out of the office typically indicates lower commitment and higher turnover. When workers don’t think that their perspectives and contributions are recognized, they are less likely to feel like a member of the team – and thus less connected to the work in general.
In contrast, when your team knows that you value them and their voices, they are more likely to invest in the company in return. Sprout Social reiterates this, reporting that companies with higher rates of employee engagement are statistically more productive and retain more long-term employees. Mutual encouragement can foster a healthier, more positive work climate of support and involvement. After all, passion begets buy-in, which elevates performance.
Inviting your team to engage with your brand on social media is just one way to make them feel valued and proud of the work they do. Those who voluntarily choose to represent the company or engage with the brand are also demonstrating this buy-in, this mutual support. Journyz emphasizes that trusting someone to represent the brand positively can act as an immense motivator in itself. And in turn, whether your company account interacts with an employee’s social activity or vice versa, this online behavior portrays a positive image of your employer-employee relationship. Per Journyz, representing this dynamic – even with something as small as a “like” – can be extremely attractive to new talent, and fosters the loyalty of your current employees.
Expanding Social Reach
Along with boosting team morale, encouraging employee advocacy online can strengthen your company’s reach. Employees are some of the best spokespeople for your organization, especially because outside individuals are more likely to be interested in a brand or piece of content if a close friend recommends it. And as we touched on in a retreat session about influencer marketing, online users trust mutual connections over pop-up ads.
The analysts at Everyone Social confirm this phenomenon, with data revealing that employees can have 5x more reach than corporate accounts, and social followers of your employees are 7x more likely to convert. So not only does this form of engagement heighten your business’ visibility, it delivers more meaningful leads and web traffic. And with more than 500 million user profiles on LinkedIn alone, social media is a powerful marketing and HR tool for businesses of all sizes and industries.
Guiding Employees Through the Process
Before encouraging employees to get involved as brand ambassadors, however, ensure that you have a clear and accessible social media policy. This might include any of the recommendations/guidelines laid out below:
- Clearly describe the goals and value of this engagement for the brand and the employee
- List appropriate topics
- List appropriate logos/brand images
- List potential hashtags to use in posts
- Highlight the value of an updated social profile
- Spell out guidelines for liking, sharing, commenting and posting
- List any inappropriate content, such as disrespectful speech, confidential materials, etc.
Supporting Sustainable Engagement
By standardizing your social media policy, employees who wish to advocate for your brand will have an easy road map to appropriate engagement. It’s also helpful to provide examples of post captions, comments or posts to show your team how simple the process is.
Keeping this voluntary spokesperson role as user-friendly and flexible as possible will only invite further interactions and interest. And in highlighting just how valuable this engagement is for the brand and the employee, you can reiterate that this is a mutually beneficial relationship. After all, if you value your team’s voices, you want it to show!
For help on establishing your brand’s social media strategy, feel free to contact us.