Having boomed over the last decade, influencer marketing now occupies the most important spots in the marketing strategies of brands and organizations. Recently, one of the most famous and influential advertising agencies – Ogilvy –has announced that in 2024, employee advocacy will be the most important among the top influencing trends. We can already see that more and more organizations choose to turn employees into influencers to strengthen their employer brand, while employee influencers have become an acknowledged term in scientific literature.
When does employee advocacy actually work?
In literature, employee advocacy is described as voluntary verbal or nonverbal support of your organization. It often arises internally and results from the organization’s effort to create a solid internal culture. It’s an expression of employees’ love for their organization and its employer brand. It means that an employee feels good in the organization and wishes to share this feeling with others.
Each organization considering an employee advocacy program should first look for signs that employees appreciate their employer and are willing to support its brand. A good example of high organizational support can be a high eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score), a wish to represent the company by wearing its merchandise, communication about the employer with close acquaintances and on social media, and other signals. In these cases, empowering employees to strengthen their personal brands will be much easier, and the ambassadorship itself will be much more organic if the person feels good and is internally motivated.
What results in successful employee advocacy?
The authenticity of each employee should definitely be considered a successful element of influencing. Authenticity is usually shaped by individual experiences and situations in a person’s professional life. Often, this leads to trust from like-minded people and high engagement in the content that the ambassadors create. In addition, employees’ insider knowledge increases reliability even further in the eyes of the audience.
Successful employee advocacy also often depends on support from the organization’s leaders and their involvement in the program itself – this shows that the initiative is highly appreciated by the highest managers and is encouraged among employees of various levels. Strategic training for strengthening one’s own personal brand, external and internal training about representing one’s organization, practice sessions, and the existence of a person who is responsible for the initiative (as well as their support) also boost participants’ confidence.
A win-win situation
Successful and honest employee advocacy benefits both the organization and its employees. By empowering its employees to strengthen their personal brands, the organization contributes to their professional growth, strengthening their thought leadership and expert image, increased visibility, self-confidence, creative writing skills, and network.
As a result, all these factors positively influence marketing, sales, and HR results of the organization – the employer brand of the organization becomes stronger and more reliable, the visibility increases, and so does transparency and sales, and talents that are more culturally appropriate are attracted. Employee advocacy is a mutually beneficial and sustainable initiative that, if developed consistently, helps the organization to achieve its strategic goals.
It’s obvious that today, influencing by empowering employees’ personal brands has become a must-have tool for achieving commercial results and a strong employer brand. Employees-ambassadors using personal brands shouldn’t be taken for granted or considered a free marketing channel.
As employees seek out knowledge in strengthening their personal brand and revealing their authenticity while representing an organization, a place for growth and becoming thought leaders is created, while the organization has a chance to reach a niche audience that will trust in the message spread by the person and, as a result, will increase organizations’ results. Likely, employee advocacy won’t be a trend that comes and goes – employees have always been and will always remain at the epicenter of each organization and its brand.
You may find this article in the Lithuanian language here. This article was published on Delfi M360 website.