Are you tired of pouring money into marketing campaigns that never seem to get the results you hoped for? What if we told you that the key to boosting your brand's reach and impact was staring you in the face all along —your employees!
Harnessing employee advocacy benefits can help you turn your workforce into a team of brand ambassadors who promote your business with passion and authenticity. Tapping into this network can help you amplify your brand messaging, drive traffic to your website, and grow your business.
If you're ready to supercharge your marketing efforts and keep employees engaged at the same time, there’s no better solution than an employee advocacy tool. Keep reading to discover the seven main employee advocacy benefits and answer the question: why is employee advocacy important?
What Is Employee Advocacy?
Employee advocacy is the active promotion of a business by its employees. It encourages and enables employees to share their positive experiences and opinions of the company on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter and also in their conversations with family and friends.
Employee advocacy aims to increase brand awareness, establish thought leadership, and build trust with potential customers through the authentic and relatable voices of your employees.
What Are the Benefits of Employee Advocacy?
Employee advocacy benefits employers and employees alike. Let’s take a closer look at the seven benefits of implementing such a program. We also have some incredible employee advocacy statistics that are sure to leave you inspired.
1. Increasing Employee Engagement
When your employees are engaged and passionate about their roles, they’re more likely to feel invested in their company’s success. But what is an engaged employee? According to Gallup, an engaged employee is highly involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace.
Employee advocacy programs help improve employee engagement by giving employees a sense of ownership and pride in the company they work for. Sharing company news, promoting company events, and showcasing their work and achievements make employees invested in their company’s success.
Employee advocacy has been known to help increase employee engagement by getting them more active on social media, too. It gives employees a sense of being 'in the know' while helping them play an integral part in your marketing strategy. In fact:
- 72% of employees would post about their company if the content was written for them.
- 57% of employees say training on social media engagement would significantly impact employees at their company.
- 41% of employees say that social media is important and a big incentive for employees to become brand advocates.
2. Improving Your Company’s Reputation
Employee advocacy programs can be a powerful tool for improving your company's reputation. These programs encourage and empower employees to act as brand ambassadors, sharing content about your organization through their personal networks.
One of the key employee advocacy benefits is that it helps humanize your brand. When employees share their experiences and positive messages about your company, it helps build trust and credibility among potential customers. People are more likely to trust the opinions of their friends and colleagues than they are to trust marketing messages from a company.
According to Nielsen’s 2021 Trust in Advertising study, 88% of consumers around the world say they trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising. Only half the respondents trust recommendations from other channels, including mobile, SEO, and banner ads.
If you’re trying to build consumer trust in your brand and improve your reputation, getting your employees to promote your offerings in their networks can be far more effective than spending on digital marketing efforts.
3. Boosting Brand Awareness
Employee advocacy programs can go a long way in amplifying your brand’s reach. While only 3% of employees share content about their company, those shares are responsible for driving a 30% increase in the total engagement a company sees.
Your employee networks can be much more extensive than your company’s follower base — up to 10x larger according to LinkedIn’s Guide to Employee Advocacy. Beyond the increased reach, posts shared by employees also tend to get more engagement than content on the company’s official pages. When employees share content online, they typically see a click-through rate that is twice as high than when a company shares the same content.
4. Promoting Employee Development
If you search “employee advocacy social media,” you’ll see the advantages of employee advocacy go beyond the company and have a tremendous impact on employees themselves. Almost 86% of participants in a formal employee advocacy program said their involvement in social media positively impacted their careers. Using social media for professional purposes helps individuals stand out from their peers, develop in-demand skills, and find more job opportunities.
If you need a little inspiration, do a search and you’ll find lots of companies featuring employees on social media examples. Here’s a great one on LinkedIn:
Source: Edrington UK
Source: E2 Consulting Engineers
5. Driving Sales and Revenue
It shows when employees are engaged and passionate about their company. Spreading that enthusiasm through their personal networks can have a powerful impact on the company’s bottom line. Companies with high engagement levels have reported 18% higher productivity in sales and 23% more profitability than those with low employee engagement.
Companies can tap into their workforce’s network through employee advocacy tools and expand their reach exponentially. Leveraging the power of social media often means companies can reach a wider audience and generate new leads.
But it's not just about the quantity of reach; it's also about the quality. When employees share company-related content and messages, it can come across as more authentic and trustworthy than traditional advertising or marketing. This helps build stronger relationships with potential customers and ultimately drives more sales.
6. Attracting Top Talent
The labor market continues to be volatile despite strong employment figures. According to the International Labour Organization, the global jobs gap was 473 million in 2022.
If you’re struggling to hire quality talent, an employee advocacy program may be the answer to your worries. When employees are encouraged and empowered to share their positive experiences working for your organization, it can have a significant impact on how the company is perceived by potential job candidates.
By showcasing the business’s values and goals genuinely and compellingly, employee advocacy programs can help build trust and credibility with potential hires. After all, who can provide more authentic insight into the company culture than someone who works there?
But that's not all! Employee advocacy tools and programs can also help you attract candidates who fit your company culture. When employees share their own experiences, they will resonate with like-minded individuals who are more likely to thrive in that environment.
7. Reducing Employee Turnover
Just 21% of employees worldwide report being engaged at work. Moreover, only 33% of employees say they are thriving in their overall well-being, while most would say they don't find their work meaningful.
These statistics on employee engagement and well-being are concerning as they suggest a large percentage of employees worldwide are not satisfied with their work, making them more likely to look for new roles. Employee advocacy programs are an effective way to address this issue.
When employees are part of an advocacy program, they feel part of something larger than themselves. Employee advocacy programs do this by fostering a sense of community and collaboration among employees.
By working together to promote the company and its products, employees are more likely to form strong relationships with one another and feel a sense of camaraderie and teamwork, making them less likely to leave the organization.
8. Builds the Employee's Personal Brand
At one point in time, employers were afraid of having their employees active on social media for fear they would be poached by a competitor; today's modern marketers recognize this is a benefit, not a deterrent, to the company.
People buy from people, not brands. When you shine the light on your employees, it highlights their abilities as a go-to source for authority on your company, niche, and role. It puts a face to the subject-matter expertise, which helps leverage their personal brands. It's a big win-win for both employers and employees.
Reap the Benefits of Employee Advocacy With GaggleAMP
Despite all the amazing benefits they offer, only 17% of businesses have implemented a formal employer advocacy program. If you’re part of the 83% who don’t have an employee advocacy strategy, you’re missing out on a host of benefits. But it’s not too late to get started!
GaggleAMP is a quick and effective way to get your employees active on social media. Our easy-to-use employee advocacy program comes with powerful features that allow them to share content and engage with posts on their personal social media accounts. This helps extend your content’s reach, increase social selling, and strengthen business relationships. You also get access to in-depth analytics to measure clicks, shares, and engagements, and track your performance against your KPIs.
Start a free trial to AMPlify your social media reach today!
