One of the best ways of brand publicity for any business is to create employee advocates. This is because employees are inherently part of your business. Hence, they provide better brand advocates than anyone else.
Considering the fact that external brand advocacy takes a lot of time and resources to cultivate, we can say that the best option is to build employee advocacy. Here are ways to create a team of employee advocates by tapping into your employees’ rich networks to boost your brand.
Encourage brand sharing on social media
Building employee advocates begin with encouraging your employees to become the brand ambassadors everywhere including social media. Encourage your employees to engage with the brand on both their personal social networks and on professional networks. From as little as liking the company’s daily posts to sharing the content with friends and associates, employees can put in efforts that generate benefits for the business.
Go into community services
As a means of building even stronger employee advocates, seek ideas on how to get your business engaged with your host community. Your brand would gather potentials to spread by allowing your employees to participate in events at your host community, especially in charity auctions, charity walks, and other humanitarian services. Your business can also donate your services or goods to the community to boost friendship.
Employees should contribute to your blog
When employees write blog posts for the business, they write with an insider’s experience. This level of experience and advocacy they bring to the post can do a lot in publicizing the business brand. Having your employees contribute to the company blog post is a win for both the employees and the business. The employees get their names on the post which could strengthen their portfolio, and the company could benefit from the vast range of topics covered.
Include your team in the marketing planning
Generating marketing or business promotion ideas should not be reserved for particular employees. Let everyone get involved in the monthly brainstorming session. This involvement helps the business to generate more creative ideas; it’s also a good way to create employee advocates. From the session, the employees get a better understanding of the products/services and hence become better advocates for the business.
Employees should be part of your social media
Seeing your employees as your brand ambassadors is a key point for securing employee advocates. As your ambassadors, have them featured on your social platforms from time to time. When necessary, create an employee spotlight series, where you have your stand-out employee for the month posted. This will gladden your employees, and encourage them to share the post among friends and also increase your brand’s visibility.
Create periodic fireside chats
You are bound to have increased activity as your business expands. At that point, having direct information about the activity all the employees are engaged with, becomes slightly difficult. To ensure everyone is still on the same page, there would be a need to allot time for everyone to chat once in a while. During these time slots, educate everyone about the recent updates in the company and hence equip them with something to share as your brand grows.