Your business is working hard on a successful marketing strategy that includes many social media tactics.
If using brand advocates is not included in this strategy, you are missing out.
Why should you pursue brand advocates and look to your staff to fill that role?
- Team members can spread your marketing message even further through their own social media channels
- More eyes and ears to look and listen for customer service issues
- Employees want to participate – give them that chance
Employee Advocates Make a Big Impact on Social Media for Businesses
Word-of-mouth messages (which is what social media is) from friends and family are valued higher than blanket social media updates from corporate accounts.
Content shared by employees gets 8x more engagement than content shared by brand channels. It is also reshared 25 times more frequently.
When employees share the messages of your business, your social media reach is expanded!
How to Turn Your Staff Into Brand Advocates
- Create a Plan
Who can help and how can they do it? These are the important first questions to ask. Once you have identified staff members in your offices and branches, outline your goals and guidelines.
Example: Everyone re-share a blog post once a week on LinkedIn. Tweet out or post on Facebook a message from a curated list of approved posts once a week. Use appropriate hashtags.
- Train
Once you have committed advocates in place and a compliant plan, ensure everyone is trained on social media best practices and what’s acceptable for your business and industry. Be sure and set up a line of communication for staff members to get their questions answered.
Note: Make sure that it’s clear these team members are amplifying your approved messages and not creating their own or presenting themselves on social media as a representative of your company.
Engaging the staff of your business can spread your message further and with a greater impact. Brand messages reached 561% further when shared by employees than by the brand itself.
Creating brand advocates takes time, but it’s worth the extra effort!
Extra:
Check out Bambu by Sprout Social. It’s an employee advocacy software that lets marketing departments curate content for their employees to share.