Many companies invest a lot of resources into creating and curating content for their social media channels. However, they often overlook one valuable resource right in front of them: their own employees.
Businesses can significantly increase their social media reach by empowering employees to share company news, updates, and valuable insights. And no, it doesn't require much effort from either side.
In this article, we will explore low-effort tips to increase your reach on social media by leveraging your employees' influence.
The power of LinkedIn employee advocacy
A staggering 84% of B2B buyers start their purchasing journey through referrals.
Additionally, peer recommendations hold significant sway over more than 90% of all B2B buying decisions.
This data shows that people are more likely to trust recommendations from people they know rather than faceless corporate accounts.
By encouraging employees to become advocates for your brand on platforms like LinkedIn, you tap into their professional networks and gain access to a new audience.
Not only is this beneficial for your company, but it also establishes your employees as thought leaders in their industry.
Join 5,000 marketing professionals and teams who already save multiple hours every week on creating and distributing social media content. Create a free account and start publishing today. 🙌
6 steps to master employee advocacy on LinkedIn
Boosting your brand's social media reach through employee advocacy doesn't have to be difficult, nor does it require a major strategy.
We have compiled 5 tips that will make it easy for you and your employees to share content consistently, without feeling overwhelmed.
The most common objections we hear from employees are:
- Not knowing what content to post.
- Not having time to post.
- Having a small follower base.
But with these tips, those concerns will be a thing of the past.
1. What’s in it for them?
Firstly, it's essential to help your employees understand the "why" behind sharing company content. Don’t just ask them to promote company content, for the company’s benefit.
It will feel forced and insincere, leading to them giving up sooner than later.
Instead, highlight the importance of employee advocacy by emphasizing the benefits it brings to both the company and the individuals involved.
Your company can achieve greater brand awareness on platforms like LinkedIn, attracting more leads.
For employees, posting frequently builds their personal brand.
2. Engage on company page posts
Encourage employees to share company updates, achievements, and milestones. When employees share positive news about the company, it not only boosts the company's online presence but also enhances its credibility.
There are several ways in which employees can engage on company posts:
- Engage with the posts by liking them.
- Comment on the post.
- Re-share the posts on your personal profile.
3. Use an employee advocacy tool
Employee advocacy tools streamline the process, making it effortless for employees to distribute company content and updates. This ensures that they consistently communicate the right message and adhere to brand guidelines.
One of StoryChief's standout features is its employee advocacy functionality for LinkedIn and other channels. With just a few clicks, you schedule content across employees’ social networks, as well as personalize the message for each employee.
Additionally, StoryChief offers a company feed where your team members can access pre-approved, ready-to-post content. This is essentially a hub where employees can easily access and share company-approved content on their social media platforms.
4. Provide a good content mix
To encourage employees to share your content, make sure it is engaging, informative, and relevant to their networks. Create a mix of content types such as blog posts, infographics, videos, and case studies to cater to different preferences.
5. Personalize the message
When re-sharing the content, encourage employees to add their unique perspectives. Personalized captions or comments make the content more authentic and relatable.
When content sounds too promotional or multiple employees post identical captions and content, it becomes obvious to people. That strategy will do more harm than good. Gone, credibility.
5. Measure, report and readjust
Employees can also track the performance of their shared content, providing valuable insights into how their employee advocacy efforts are contributing to the brand's organic reach and engagement.
Here are some content metrics that can be tracked to gauge gauge the effectiveness of your employee advocacy program.
- Reach: Monitor the increase in the number of people your content reaches through employee advocacy.
- Engagement: Track likes, comments, shares, and click-through rates to measure the level of audience engagement.
- Audience growth: Monitor how your audience grows over time.
- Impressions: Gauge whether or not impressions have increased since implementing employee advocacy.
- Top content: Identify which types of content resonate most with the audience and adjust your content strategy accordingly.
- Employee participation: Keep an eye on how many employees participate in the advocacy program.
Monitor these metrics regularly and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Executing your Employee Advocacy Strategy with StoryChief
It would be ideal to have a tool that automates this process, centralizes pre-approved content, facilitates content sharing with the click of a button, and provides aggregated content analytics.
This is where StoryChief comes into play.
StoryChief is more than just a content management platform. It enables you to create, optimize, publish, and analyze content all from one location. Additionally, it offers lesser-known features like employee advocacy.
In the following section, we will guide you through the process of how StoryChief's Employee Advocacy feature functions, from creation to measurement.
“I chose StoryChief because it offers a wide range of functions that save me both time and money. With StoryChief, I no longer need to access my website or use other tools separately for social media tasks. Additionally, I discovered useful features like the ambassador and advocacy feature, which allows me to connect with influencers and share my stories with them simultaneously.”
Step 1: Let employees connect their channels
StoryChief allows you to connect various social media channels and publishing platforms.
Once the channels are linked, it becomes easy to share company content on employee profiles, without them having to copy-paste anything.
Step 2: Create the content
Start by crafting your content within StoryChief.
Whether it's a blog post, social media update, or any other type of content, StoryChief provides an intuitive platform for content creation and collaboration.
Your team can work together seamlessly to create engaging and shareable content.
Step 3: Notify employees and ambassadors of new content
Once you have finished preparing your content, it’s time to distribute it among your employees.
StoryChief simplifies this process by allowing you to create multiple lists of ambassadors, including employee lists, press lists, and external stakeholders.
Under the‘referral marketing’ channel, you’ll see your personal lists.
When publishing the content, simply select the ambassador or press list you want to share it with, as shown in this example.
Each recipient in that list will receive an email notification about the new content, along with buttons that enable them to easily share it on social media platforms.
Step 4: Personalize the caption
Ambassadors can either share the content as is, or personalize the caption, and add personal insights.
They can either personalize the caption in StoryChief itself, before scheduling. Pro tip: You can even get help from our AI assistant to help you write an engaging social post!
By clicking the share button in the employee advocacy email, you get redirected to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest, where you can personalize the content as well.
Step 5 (Alternative): Social Feed
As an alternative to the employee advocacy email, StoryChief provides a user-friendly social feed with pre-approved and ready-to-post content.
This allows employees to easily find and select the content they wish to share without worrying about generating original ideas or dedicating time for content creation.
The desired content is readily available at their fingertips.
Step 6: One-click publish
Your employees can share content with a single click, saving time and effort while amplifying your brand's message.
Step 7: Measure
Measuring the impact of your employee advocacy program is crucial. StoryChief offers analytics and reporting tools that allow you to track engagement, reach, and other key metrics. This data helps you refine your strategy and understand what's working best.
Grow your brand with a LinkedIn employee advocacy tool
By leveraging employee advocacy effectively, you can unlock new opportunities for growth while building a strong online presence for your brand. With StoryChief, your team members become authentic advocates, humanizing your brand and fostering brand trust and engagement with your audience.
Start harnessing the power of employee advocacy and watch your social media reach soar!
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