This Forbes article highlights the key factors for employee advocacy success including:
- Consider The 'Why'
- Empower Your Employees By Removing Hurdles
- Curate — And Create — The Right Content
- Develop A Culture That Gets Jazzed About Sharing
One key point that stands out for me is the quote from Roope Heinilä about employee generated content.
Advocacy needs to be authentic. It needs to be real. It cannot be a staged amplification engine where employees feed content to their channels. Employees need to contribute and even write content.
Companies that aren't encouraging a varied voice on their blogs are losing an opportunity. Using platforms like Passle (this one) allows your employees to create quick commentary around articles and posts. They can share their insights within minutes.
For me, it's about putting your employee experts out there. Showcasing the great talent you have working in your business and doing that in a way that benefits the employee and brand at the same time.
So marketers, what are you waiting for? It's time to get behind your most authentic and cost effective content engine you will ever have access to...your employees!
There’s undoubtedly an increased risk when you encourage employees to generate their own content, but Smarp insists that the engagement numbers speak for themselves. “The most successful programs we have seen are the ones with the highest amount of employee generated content,” said Smarp Co-Founder and CEO Roope Heinilä. “The engagement rates are usually about twice as high in the programs where employees contribute over 30% of the content compared to the ones mainly driven by top-down communications.”
