Unleashing Employee Advocacy: Digital Marketing Strategies for Revenue Success
Invest in Employee Advocacy:
Encourage and empower your company’s employees to become advocates for your brand on digital platforms. This involves helping them establish and build their personal brands within their areas of expertise. When employees share valuable insights, industry knowledge, and engage with your company’s content, it can lead to increased brand visibility, trust, and ultimately drive more business.
Here’s how to implement this strategy:
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- Training and Resources: Provide your employees with training and resources on personal branding, content creation, and social media best practices. This can be in the form of workshops, webinars, or written guidelines.
- Content Collaboration: Foster collaboration between your marketing team and employees. Encourage employees to contribute to your company’s blog, podcast, or video series. This not only diversifies your content but also brings in fresh perspectives.
- Amplify Reach: When employees share company content or their own insights, encourage them to tag the company’s official accounts and use relevant hashtags. This helps extend the reach of your content to their networks.
- Recognition and Incentives: Recognize and reward employees who actively engage in employee advocacy. This could be through shoutouts in company communications, awards, or even small incentives.
- Consistency and Authenticity: Ensure that employee advocacy efforts are genuine and aligned with both the company’s values and the employee’s personal brand. Authenticity is key to building trust.
- Training and Resources: Provide your employees with training and resources on personal branding, content creation, and social media best practices. This can be in the form of workshops, webinars, or written guidelines.
By harnessing the power of your employees’ personal brands, you can create a multiplier effect on your digital marketing efforts. Employee advocacy not only enhances your company’s online presence but also fosters a sense of ownership and pride among employees, contributing to a more engaged workforce. So how do you do it?
Here are some specific examples of how CMOs can implement the strategy of employee advocacy and personal branding to enhance digital marketing and drive revenue:
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- Expert Guest Posts: Encourage employees to write guest blog posts on relevant industry websites. This establishes them as thought leaders and promotes your company indirectly. For instance, a software company’s engineers could write about coding best practices on tech blogs.
- LinkedIn Thought Leadership: Have employees share industry insights, trends, and success stories on their LinkedIn profiles. This can attract attention from potential clients and partners. For example, a marketing executive could post about the latest digital marketing strategies.
- Live Webinars or Q&A Sessions: Host live webinars or Q&A sessions featuring knowledgeable employees discussing industry topics. Invite clients, prospects, and the wider public to participate. This can generate leads and showcase your company’s expertise.
- Employee Takeovers: Allow employees to take over your company’s social media accounts for a day, sharing their workday experiences and insights. This provides a behind-the-scenes look and humanizes your brand.
- Video Content: Create short videos where employees share quick tips, explain complex concepts, or discuss trends. These videos can be shared on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, depending on your target audience.
- Podcasts or Interviews: Start a podcast series where employees interview industry experts or discuss relevant topics. This can attract a niche audience interested in your field.
- Personalized Email Signatures: Encourage employees to include links to their social media profiles or recent articles in their email signatures. This can subtly promote their personal brand and your company.
- Internal Training Sessions: Conduct internal workshops or training sessions where employees learn how to effectively use social media for professional networking and knowledge sharing. This empowers them to become effective advocates.
- Employee Spotlight Blog Series: Regularly feature employee spotlights on your company blog or social media. Highlight their accomplishments, passions, and insights. This humanizes your brand and fosters employee pride.
- Collaborative Content Creation: Have employees collaborate on creating in-depth guides, e-books, or whitepapers that showcase their expertise. This high-value content can be used for lead generation and brand building.
- Participation in Online Communities: Encourage employees to actively participate in relevant online forums, groups, or communities. Their insightful contributions can lead to increased visibility for your company.
- Social Media Challenges: Create fun and engaging challenges related to your industry. Encourage employees to participate and showcase their creativity. This can help in building a sense of community around your brand.
- Expert Guest Posts: Encourage employees to write guest blog posts on relevant industry websites. This establishes them as thought leaders and promotes your company indirectly. For instance, a software company’s engineers could write about coding best practices on tech blogs.
As in anything you do, one must put into place KPIs to gauge success. KPIs include:
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- Pipeline and revenue Impact:
- Attributed Pipeline and Revenue: Track the opportunities and revenue generated from leads or deals that can be directly attributed to the employee advocacy program
- Attributed Pipeline and Revenue: Track the opportunities and revenue generated from leads or deals that can be directly attributed to the employee advocacy program
- Engagement Metrics:
- Likes, Shares, Comments: Monitor the engagement levels (likes, shares, and comments) on posts and content shared by employees. Higher engagement indicates that the content is resonating with the audience.
- Likes, Shares, Comments: Monitor the engagement levels (likes, shares, and comments) on posts and content shared by employees. Higher engagement indicates that the content is resonating with the audience.
- Reach and Visibility:
- Reach and Impressions: Track the total number of people who see the content shared by employees (reach) and the total number of times the content is displayed (impressions).
- Reach and Impressions: Track the total number of people who see the content shared by employees (reach) and the total number of times the content is displayed (impressions).
- Website Traffic and Conversion:
- Referral Traffic: Measure the amount of website traffic driven from employee-shared content. Use tools like Google Analytics to track this data.
- Lead Generation: Monitor the number of leads generated from employee-shared content, such as sign-ups for webinars or gated content.
- Referral Traffic: Measure the amount of website traffic driven from employee-shared content. Use tools like Google Analytics to track this data.
- Follower Growth:
- Social Media Followers: Track the growth in your company’s social media followers and the individual followers of employees who actively share content.
- Social Media Followers: Track the growth in your company’s social media followers and the individual followers of employees who actively share content.
- Content Performance:
- Click-Through Rates (CTR): Measure the percentage of people who click on links shared by employees compared to the total number of people who see the content.
- Conversion Rates: Calculate the conversion rate for landing pages linked in employee-shared content. This could be downloads of resources, form submissions, or purchases.
- Click-Through Rates (CTR): Measure the percentage of people who click on links shared by employees compared to the total number of people who see the content.
- Thought Leadership Recognition:
- Speaking Engagements: If employees are invited to speak at industry events or conferences as a result of their personal branding efforts, it’s a sign of thought leadership recognition.
- Media Mentions: Keep track of instances where employees are mentioned or quoted in industry publications or news outlets.
- Speaking Engagements: If employees are invited to speak at industry events or conferences as a result of their personal branding efforts, it’s a sign of thought leadership recognition.
- Employee Participation:
- Number of Contributors: Measure the number of employees actively participating in the advocacy program.
- Consistency: Track the frequency of employee content sharing. Regular and consistent sharing indicates program health.
- Number of Contributors: Measure the number of employees actively participating in the advocacy program.
- Brand Perception:
- Sentiment Analysis: Monitor sentiment around your company and its employees on social media and online forums. Positive sentiment indicates successful branding efforts.
- Sentiment Analysis: Monitor sentiment around your company and its employees on social media and online forums. Positive sentiment indicates successful branding efforts.
- Influence and Network Growth:
- Engagement with Influencers: Measure the interactions and engagements your employees have with industry influencers and other thought leaders.
- Engagement with Influencers: Measure the interactions and engagements your employees have with industry influencers and other thought leaders.
- Pipeline and revenue Impact:
Remember that success metrics may vary based on your specific goals and industry. It’s important to set clear objectives at the outset and regularly analyze the data to refine your strategy.