Parrot on the Menu for Thanksgiving? Rethinking Employee Advocacy

— November 18, 2016

The world of content has changed dramatically. According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer for 2016 , 2 of the top 3 most-used sources of news and information are peer-influenced media.


Brands are responding to this shift by launching employee advocacy (aka employee amplification, social employee, social selling) programs to extend their content marketing strategies.


In fact, 90% of brands are implementing or planning an employee advocacy program.


The problem is that most social media programs fail. Advocacy programs that focus on corporate content fail to create value for employees, instead they create:



  • Parrots – employees that robotically post corporate content quickly erode any personal brand equity in their networks.
  • Echo chambers – when your key customers or prospects are connected to a few of your employees, the same corporate content shows up over and over again, undermining the employee and corporate brand!

Employee advocacy solutions ignore the value to the employee but leaders in the space are trying to change that.



Cheryl Burgess, author of the Social Employee advocates a win-win solution for employees that will


“generate buy-in among both executives and employees.”



Sarah Goodall recommends Employee-First Advocacy by


“helping them to build their professional brand around their area of expertise under the umbrella of your company brand”



Ted Rubin suggests you provide content – yours and theirs


“publish (or curate) content that helps your employees build their own personal brand, such as travel, entertainment, parenting, education—the kinds of things their peers find valuable.”


 


Grapevine6


The experts recognize that authentic, relevant content that builds employee brand is key to a successful employee advocacy program. But how do you scale relevance to hundreds or thousands of employees? The Grapevine6 app provides employees with an insight into their personal brands, the controls to shape their brand and the content to engage their networks. Marketers can then add their own branded content in a seamless user experience.


Your employees are unique and their content should be too.


“Wouldn’t you rather they be peacocks and not parrots?”

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