Mutiny, LASSO, Clari, Scribe. HockeyStack.
Know what’s common in all five tools?
I learned about them through their employees on LinkedIn — sharing not only their personal work experiences but also what they’re working on and how.
Which gives me a good scoop into what the company they work at does 🎯
Now for a second there:
👉 Think of all the SaaS tools you’ve discovered this way
👉 Next, think of all the tools the people in your network may have found via company employees
Quite a lot, isn't it?
From a business’s lens, it’s all organic discovery — without a single squeeze of salesy.
Not to mention, LinkedIn posting is a win for employees too since it gives them the opportunity to build their personal brands 🙌
Your job then?
Setting a strong foundation for your employee advocacy program according to Adrienne Sheares, owner of ViviMae Labs, a social PR consultancy.
Adrienne provides coaching and corporate training services including employee advocacy training which is exactly why I invited her to talk about this in-vogue content trend.
Now to set the foundation for your employee advocacy program, tackle the following:
With the basics out of the way, let’s look at how our guest answers the questions we ask all experts:
A mistake Adrienne made when helping launch employee advocacy programs
An actionable tip to encourage your team/executives to start sharing content online
And a secret tip to running a successful employee advocacy program
Lezz dig in:
👉 Learn from Adrienne’s mistake: Not realizing whether an organization is a good fit for employee advocacy.
“I was hired to help a company revitalize its social media presence and help establish thought leadership. After completing my audit, I uncovered that content shared on their brand account featuring their employees far surpassed any other type of content.
So I wanted to test out if employee advocacy could work. The company wanted to expand its thought leadership, so I figured this would be a great tie-in,” Adrienne shares.
But: “It failed miserably.”
“The only person who participated was the person who hired me. None of the leadership team bothered to share anything. Their employees quickly assessed this program wasn’t prioritized and didn’t participate.”
“Companies need to know upfront what type of effort employee advocacy takes. If there is no desire or capacity, don’t go further.”
In order to start yourself, you need a “commitment from leadership; they set the tone.”
👉 Do this today: “Show, don’t tell.”
“Many companies will tell their employees what not to post but don’t show examples of what to post. Showing relevant examples helps teams understand and even get excited about sharing content.”
As “For leadership, I like to leverage FOMO (fear of missing out). Executives tend to be very competitive. Show them what their peers are doing and how it's being received online.”
👉 The secret tip to building a results-driving employee advocacy program: “Make it optional.”
“Heavy-handed companies that require [employees to be active online] — those advocacy programs tend to fizzle out.”
“There are some people who will never share company content on social, and that’s okay.
“People in more customer-facing roles like sales and community tend to be more receptive to employee advocacy because they see the direct benefits and already like connecting with people.
“Others like what being a thought leader can do for their career, so the thought of leveraging their company to amplify their own expertise is appealing.”
Related reading: How to use employee advocacy to distribute content
So today’s takeaway:
Evaluate whether your organization is a good fit for employee advocacy (doing so mostly boils down to your company culture and employees’ motivation).
Set a strong foundation for the program — complete with documentation around examples of what to post, what-not-to post, and what to do in case a crisis arises.
Get commitment from leadership because executives set the tone.
That’s all for today fellas 🎉
Catch your next week,
Masooma