17 Nov Why Your Employees Are Your First (or Last) Advocates
The days are long gone in which employees might complain about their job to those closest to them. Now, in addition to privately complaining to their families and friends, your employees can broadcast their dismay from the rooftops of every social media channel. The landscape of employee advocacy has shifted and to no one’s surprise, it’s migrated to the Internet.
Social media has opened up many avenues for agitated employees to voice their complaints. But instead of blocking social media sites and disenfranchising your employees’ voices, do the opposite. Embrace social media as the solution, not the problem.
Blasphemy, you say? No, because the comments will still be there, whether or not you pay attention. As Jeff Bezos wrote, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Consider the power of entering the room and starting dialogues rather than having negativity spawn behind your digital back.
Goodbye to the Milton’s (Office Space, anyone?) of the world…
…and hello to the Leslie Knope’s!
You can empower your employees through the power of social media, and lead by example. I urge you, Mr. or Mrs. CEO, to tweet, share, favorite, tag, etc. your employees comments about your company. This will not only make them feel heard, but it’ll encourage them to pay it forward for the brand in the social space.
I can attest to that. Even though I work in social media, Ignite Social Media does an excellent job at investing in tools that make it easier for employees to endorse the company’s great work and culture. We started using Dynamic Signal this past summer as a platform for employees to syndicate messages from Ignite’s owned social channels.
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The results have been astounding. For 51 employees, we are averaging 1.3 shares per work day, which have generated over 2 Million Impressions for our agency. In laymen’s terms, more people are discovering our workplace every day and it’s coming from our own internal resources – Igniters.
Further, it’s industry-wide known that more people are engaged with a brand if they know the brand-behind-the-brand. According to the 2012 Edelman good purpose study, 92% of people want to do business with companies that share their beliefs.
Your employees play a key role in helping to show the world the brand behind your brand. Every positive social mention of your brand by an employee is a considerable amount of added awareness (re: value) for your brand. Be sure to fish in your own fishing hole, because your employees are already poised to be your brand’s biggest advocates: hook, line, and sinker.
