proven employee advocacy secrets from fortune global 2000 social media directors
TRANSCRIPT
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Proven Employee Advocacy Secrets from Fortune Global 2000 Social Media Directors
22
Proven Employee Advocacy Secrets from the Fortune Global 2000
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Nicole Alvino
Co-founder & Chief
Strategy Officer at
SocialChorus
@Nalvino
Ryon Harms
President at Manifest
Social, previously Social
Media Director at Farmer’s
Insurance
@RyonHarms
Sonia Fiorenza
Executive Director at
Manifest Social, previously
Sr. Director, Digital Comms
at Gap Inc.
@Sonia_Firorenza
33
Organic Reach on Social Media is Diminishing
• Brands’ posts on social networks reach only 3% of fans — at best — without paid
advertising — Forrester
• 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth-marketing over brand messaging — Nielsen
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Brand-shared content reach
Employee-shared content reach
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Employee Advocacy: Your Employees are Your Brand
Engaged employees are responsible for 80% of customer
satisfaction — David Macleod & Nita Clarke
90% of an employee’s social audience is new to the brand — Dell Study
Employee-shared content receives 7x the engagement of
brand-shared content — Based on SocialChorus Implementations
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80%
90%
7x
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What is the Top Challenge to Launching an Employee
Advocacy Program at Your Organization?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Other
Creating & providing enough content
Restrictive social media policy
Achieving internal buy-in
Training employees on social media
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Gap’s 4 Steps to Launching an
Employee Advocacy Program
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Step 1: Achieve Internal Buy-in
Start with your strategy: What do
you hope to achieve with an
employee advocacy program?
• Social selling
• Recruiting / employer brand
• Corporate / brand reputation
• Employee engagement
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Step 2: Recruit a Social-Savvy Test Group
Recruited social-savvy employees who
showed an interest in joining the test
group
• Included interested parties at all levels of
the company
• Provided in-person training & content to
share
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Step 3: Select the Right Platform & Partner
Gap needed 5 things to increase adoption and engagement:
1. Recruit more employees to increase engagement
2. Digital training to increase adoption and social media expertise
3. Mobile app to reach employees anytime, anywhere
4. One-stop shop for employees to access content (no more email!)
5. Measure employee advocacy metrics in one place
SocialChorus provided the solution and Gap launched the program,
opening it up to all employees
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Step 4: Motivate & Recognize Employees
• Include everyone: Employees in functions that are not normally on
the front lines are thrilled to do something to help the company
• Offer social media training: Shows employees you’re investing in their
own development and skills
• Give access to exclusive news: Sneak peeks and behind the scenes
– employees love being in the know
• Thank & recognize: Spotlight top-sharers by re-sharing employee
content on brand channels or through public recognition
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Farmers Insurance’s Employee
Advocacy Best Practices
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What if?
Your marketing efforts focused more on the
people who deliver your product and less
on the product itself.
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How to Get Employees Excited About Employee Advocacy
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• Provide high visibility: Farmers Insurance leveraged popular employee
news channels (such as Simalcast) to announce the program
• Make it easy: Employee advocacy software should make it easy and
rewarding for employees to consume and share content
• Hold contests: At the start of Farmers Insurance’s employee program,
contests with giveaways were held to drive initial engagement
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What if?
Instead of marketing the features and benefits of
your products, you focused on why your
company exists? (aka your people)
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Get the Right Content to the Right Employees
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• Deliver relevant content: Empower employees to share content that’s
relevant to their roles, passions and communities
• Enable content creation: Provide employees with software and guidelines to
customize social shares in their own voice and submit content
• Develop their personal brand: Encourage employees to also share about
their personal interests – personality is an integral part of personal branding
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What if?
Employee advocacy could help you
scale the reach of your marketing by 100,
1,000, or 10,000 fold.
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What Makes a Successful Employee Advocacy Program
• Move towards a human-centric brand message
• Find the answers inside the people at the edges of your
organization
• Open up the lines of communication
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Employee Advocacy: Key Takeaways
• Don’t give up on using social media to generate revenue,
employee advocacy generates clear ROI
• Do reach out to your stakeholders, especially out in the field
• Don’t be afraid of your own people, let them show you the
way
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What Do You Need to Get Leadership Onboard for
Your Employee Advocacy Program?
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Other
Successful pilot to show results
Case studies from similar brands
Compliance with legal, IT & HR
2020
Employee Advocacy: Benefits Company-wide
• Social Media Marketing: Increase awareness
• Human Resources: Attract top talent
• Sales Professionals: Drive leads
• Communications: Engage employees
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How Target Employees Made Their Company News Go Viral on Social Media
The leaders in corporate communications at Target no longer spend hours hounding employees
over email to share company news on social media.
Instead, Target’s corporate communications team uses the SocialChorus
platform to give their employees the opportunity to easily consume and
share whenever and wherever they are.
• Over 5K+ employees joined in less than 4 months
• Company news went viral & started trending on Twitter
• Thousands trained to speak on behalf of the brand on social
• Employees feel more engaged with brand
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The Device of Our Lives
People love their phones
• 83% of people say their smartphones “never leave
their side” – USA Today
• 89% of time spent on mobile is spent using mobile
apps – Nielsen
Where is your app?
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#TargetScoop
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You Should Have a Place on Your Employees’ Home Screen
Our employee
advocacy app earns you the right
to be on their
home screen.#AdvocateU
#TargetScoop
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Interested in Learning More?
For more information on employee
advocacy, download our ebook:
How to Train Employee Advocates
A 7 Step Guide to Activating 100 Employee
Advocates in 30 Days
http://bit.ly/trainingemployeeadvocates
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Thank You!
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