Empower Your Employees to Be Brand Advocates
Why your organization should prioritize employee advocacy
“I love my job. Everyone is willing to help. And I feel like what we do actually matters. I’m really proud to be working here.” As an employer, wouldn’t you be thrilled to hear your employee say good things about your organization? That's employee advocacy—your employee is willingly and freely advocating for your brand.
Why is it important to engage your employees?
Your employees can be your greatest asset for advocacy. In fact, according to Cision and PRWeek’s 2020 Comms Report, employees are the third most influential group on consumer behavior—more than celebrities and just above one’s own family and friends.
An employee advocate can:
Improve your company's brand awareness.
Help your organization extend its marketing efforts.
Reach new customers.
Attract top talent.
Increase employee engagement.
Improve employee communication and productivity.
Boost retention.
Improve company culture.
How an employee advocates for your company or nonprofit—anywhere from social media to in-person interactions—has the power to impact your organization positively and negatively. Getting employee advocacy right should be top of mind, no matter how costly or time-consuming it is.
Equipping employees through advocacy
Employees are your organization's brand ambassadors, representing your mission with customers, donors, partners and the general public. However, many employees don't feel equipped with the knowledge needed to be a brand advocate. The need to equip employees by disseminating and aligning brand tools and strategic messaging across departments has never been greater.
Leveraging employee advocacy tools
With the mass adoption of social media and cellphones, every employee now has a public platform. Make sure these are used for good—as an advocacy platform for your organization. LinkedIn, for example, offers ways to encourage your employees to share content about your company.
By improving internal communication, you strengthen your organization from the inside out, lessening confusion internally and externally.
In the pandemic-induced era of digital meetings, tools like Microsoft Teams offer easy and popular methods of employee communication, complete with visual gimmicks. Recently, Microsoft created a new feature giving the illusion of a news broadcast. Through the Reporter feature, users can position a visual aid above their shoulder, giving the impression that employees are trained spokespeople.
Improving employee advocacy through internal communications
Clearly communicating organizational vision, values, goals and feedback channels help ensure each employee is empowered to act as the positive advocate you need and minimize the chance of publicly aired grievances. A thoughtful internal communications and employee advocacy strategy, alongside ambassador training, might very well be the investment that propels your organization to the next level. Guardian offers specialized knowledge to help your organization every step of the way.