When it comes to sharing the mission and purpose of your business, your employees should be your greatest ally. After all, they are a reflection of your company culture and therefore should also be your biggest fans!
Employees = Brand Advocates
When taking your marketing online it’s important to build “Social Advocates” - fans who, by their regular interaction, help to promote your message.
Turn your employees into Social Advocates by inviting them to like, interact and engage with your social platforms. This will help boost your social influence. The more interaction happening with your posts the higher your reach will be.
Here’s a tip: social engagement on behalf of their company may not be top of mind with your employees, so be sure to actually ask them to interact.
“Your employees are your greatest brand advocates” ~Jay Baer
What’s reach?
Oh, glad you asked… “Reach” is the amount of influence of a Facebook post. A post may only show 10 fans have interacted with it, however, its reach may extend into the several hundred range.
How? Once a fan engages with a story, Facebook posts their interaction into their personal newsfeed, exposing your message to some of their family and friends - potentially, a whole new fan base for your company.
As it snowballs, you can get likes from likes, likes from shares, et cetera, et cetera. See where I’m going with this? And all of this can start with a simple share from one of your employees.
Beyond Facebook
Twitter and LinkedIn are also a great place to start conversations and have discussions. Depending on who your employees are connected with, as well as your Buyer Personas, you may find even greater exposure on these platforms than on Facebook.
Think about it for a moment: Twitter and LinkedIn are built to be conversational and its highly likely your employees will have unique business connections across these two platforms. As they engage with those followers, they’re also retweeting, favoriting, and interacting with your content and opening up your company’s exposure to an entirely new audience.
“In social media, people - not brands - are the channel” ~Chris Boudreaux & Susan Emerick
Is your Business Pinteresting?
Have you thought about adding Pinterest into your social mix? Give your employees permission to contribute to your boards. Contributor boards are a fantastic way to reach new audiences.
For example, invite them to like your “Resources” board and ask them to repin items they find useful or tools they use in their daily workflow.
A blog is worth a thousand fans
Inbound Marketing relies heavily on new blog articles being published by your company on a regular basis. Why not create an employee blog feature once a month and ask your team members to submit articles to be included? This will both build employee morale (since they feel useful and appreciated) and also make them more likely to share your articles - especially the ones they authored.
In the end, all of these efforts are ultimately designed to boost engagement and drive up your social exposure.
Once your employees start engaging online you are essentially creating your own personal marketing army. They are the eyes, ears and voice for the business. Having them advocate on behalf of you and your business not only will help boost your reach and social insights, but it will also help to showcase your company culture.
Take some time and choose your employee advocates thoughtfully. Target those employees who are team players, who have knowledge of how social media platforms work and those who truly have a passion for their job and the business. Your fans and followers will be able to recognize if messaging and comments aren’t genuine, so having advocates who truly are passionate about their job will be detrimental to the success of brand advocates. Be sure you are choosing advocates who will be a positive reflection of your company. Let your “army” lead the charge!
“…advocacy will take your business to the next level” ~Joe Tripodi, CMO, The Coca-Cola Company
Comments