Employee advocacy: what is it?

Employee advocacy is the new phenomenon affecting corporate online reputation. The phenomenon is emerging and now spreading at breakneck speed in the United States. It goes by the name “employee advocacy.” In plain terms, these are awareness programs designed to mobilize and empower employees to defend their company and its brands across social media and Google My Business pages — in fact, to become genuine ambassadors of the company’s online reputation. Let’s take a journey into this new phenomenon!

For the past two years, companies like Oakley, Dell, IBM, and Intel have been encouraging their employees to support them through social media, thanks to automation programs that have given rise to a genuine technology. This is how employees use their own social media accounts (such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.) to support their company and its brands.

Employee advocacy: a societal phenomenon

Employee advocacy programs consist of encouraging employees to take part in communication efforts and prompting them to share their company’s value-added content on their own social networks. Lately, there has been a notable shift in companies’ attitudes toward their employees’ use of social media. They advocate for empowering conversations about the company and the brand on social media.

Employee advocacy is already set to become the next mega-trend in social media. Companies are now beginning to actively seek out employee advocacy platforms and service providers to help them manage this change intelligently.

Employee awareness programs known as “employee advocacy” have been shown to create value for the company in every situation (for example, during a crisis). By defending their company from their own “social media” accounts, employees help not only to enhance their company’s image, but also to defuse crises, reduce the time and cost of social recruiting, and change the perception of influencers, and more. It has been proven that turning employees into engaged and enthusiastic ambassadors and brand spokespeople boosts employee engagement, inspires collaboration, and improves the customer experience. In general, these employee automation programs foster a positive environment, influence the social climate, develop collaboration and transparency, eliminate abuses of hierarchy, and promote more efficient operations within the company.

The birth of a new industry

An ecosystem of employee advocacy programs is developing in the United States, with service and software providers now helping brands empower employees on social media on the brand’s behalf. Some focus on employee listening or employee monitoring, others on social collaboration (such as Jive, Chatter, Yammer, IBM Connections). Still others make it possible to create marketing content designed for social sites and to automatically push employees’ content to their own social media accounts. This infographic presents all the players in this new industry.

Brand trends

In addition to new entrants emphasizing employee advocacy, publishing and engagement platforms will multiply in 2014. Almost all brands that implement an employee advocacy program will integrate publishing and engagement platforms into their employee advocacy efforts. Ultimately, brands will need to integrate their employee advocacy functionality and process into their marketing plan, their social media strategy, and their social recruiting policy. When will we see these programs in France?

Sources:

1. Image source: Social Employe Advocacy Software Buying Guide