Employee advocacy is the promotion and advertisement of a certain brand, company or organization by its employees. It works when the employees become the advocates of the company and use their personal online resources to give their company recognition.
Most of the time, employee advocacy is achieved through social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, with employees posting to followers and friends about the organization and its “awesome” products. Other means through which employee advocacy can be accomplished include email, discussion boards and chats as well as forums-online or otherwise.
Benefits of employee advocacy
Employee advocacy is quickly gaining popularity as an advertising and promotional method. In 2012 or 2010, the idea of employee advocacy seemed absurd and doomed to fail and many companies didn’t buy into it. Those who did are reaping the rewards with a huge online presence helping them grow.
It is still in its early stages and when this type of promotion finally comes through, the companies who invested early will reap the long-term profits.
Some of the benefits of employee advocacy include:
Helps an organization to increase its social reach
When a company’s organic reach dwindles down, the firm tends to allocate more resources to ads in social media and to boosting posts for a bigger reach. Employee advertising can achieve even more reach and with considerably fewer resources. When a company posts an ad, only its fans will see it. If they got each of their employees to post the same ad, then the reach increases dramatically.
Studies have also shown that people trust posts by other people more than posts by brands. An employee’s post will usually generate more engagement than a post by a brand; even 8 times more engagement.
Helps a company increase its bottom line
In addition to being a morale booster in the office, employee advocacy has been shown to increase an organization’s bottom line. Businesses with instituted employee advocacy programs attribute up to 50% of new businesses and new sources of revenue to employee advocacy.
Function of an employee carrying out advocacy
As the company’s advocate, an employee will be required to:
Create affirmative exposure while raising cognizance for the company and its products
Recommend a brand’s services and products to family, friends and friends of friends
Aid in building the company’s employee ownership
Familiarize with the product so as to act as a credible spokesman on behalf of the organization.