What is employee advocacy?

Employee advocacy is a hot topic for marketeers and recruiters. Why? Because employee advocacy is one of the most authentic ways to increase your online reach. This means finding more leads and job applicants than when you’re using a more traditional approach. In this blog post, you’ll learn what employee advocacy is and why it’s so important for your company’s growth strategy.

Employee advocacy: definition

Employee advocacy is about promoting your company through your own employees. In other words, your employees become your brand ambassadors. Using their personal social media channels, they share relevant content about your organization.

Here are some examples of what they may share:

• Personal expertise
• Company milestones and updates
• New vacancies
• Team activities and company culture
• Content by your organization

Having your employees as brand ambassadors is a great way to improve your organization’s organic reach on social media. That’s because posts shared on personal accounts reach 8 times more people compared to content shared on your corporate profiles.

Why is employee advocacy so important?

Employee advocacy contributes directly to your company’s reputation and brand awareness. This impacts your organization’s growth as well. Here are 3 reasons to start working with employee advocacy in your organization.

1. Increase your visibility
   Imagine employees from all levels in your organization sharing relevant posts with their own networks. This will result in a huge reach! That’s because your employees’ social media accounts average 750 connections each. With 600 extra views for each post and each employee, you’ll experience an enormous boost in reach and visibility. Another benefit? Research shows that 52% of consumers trust personal posts more than corporate content.
2. Motivate your employees
   ‍Your employees are more involved with your organization if they actively use social media and if you share relevant projects and news with them. That’s because it makes them feel like they’re really contributing to your company’s success. Imagine someone from your administration team bringing in a new client through a former colleague - because that former colleague follows your organization’s updates through social media. This is a great example of how employee advocacy directly contributes to your organization’s growth.
3. Improve your sales and recruitment
   Did you know that leads that were acquired through personal accounts are seven times (!) more likely to convert to prospects or customers? The same goes for potential job candidates. In other words, conversion is much higher when people enter your organization through your current employees.

How to start with employee advocacy

When implementing employee advocacy, you’re only focused on engaging your employees. However, they aren’t the only type of stakeholder in your organization. Imagine what happens when your other stakeholders become brand ambassadors as well! Social Reach Optimization (SRO) increases your organic reach on social media by involving multiple types of brand ambassadors.

Download our white paper and learn how to effectively use SRO to gain maximum visibility!