Employees are your greatest asset. They keep your business running smoothly, but they can also dramatically help with your marketing efforts.
Your employees are the people that know your business inside out and have the ability to use their social media followings to transform your digital strategy. Because, let’s face it, everyone has at least hundreds of followers on social media these days!
Engaged employees are willing to share with their networks company-related content such as pictures they have taken during team-building activities and events hosted by the company.
Businesses can encourage those activities through employee advocacy. Indeed, when you add up the followers of every employee, you have a hefty pool of people at your fingertips.
So, while some companies are limiting the amount of time their employees can spend on social media, others are nurturing their staff’s online presence - and for good reasons.
Here’s why you should help your employees grow their personal brand online:
1. Your Employees Can Drive Traffic to Your Website
Every business wants more eyeballs on their website, and implementing social media employee advocacy can help you boost traffic.
Every time an employee shares an anecdote about your business, it reaches an audience of new potential website visitors. Nearly 40% of people spend 1- 5 hours per week on business-related social media activities. Think about the possibilities if employees regularly posted about your brand! But to get great results, you need to support your employees’ personal branding efforts by training them and helping them find relevant and informative content.
2. Personal Branding is The Key to Success for Sales Professionals
The ultimate goal of every business is to increase revenue, and guess what? Your salesforce can help you smash that goal with social selling tactics.
65% of salespeople who use social selling tactics fill their pipeline compared to 47% of sales reps who don't use those tactics. On top of that, more than 10% of sales staff close in average 5 or more deals due to being active in social media. Social selling helps salespeople hitting both individual and team meeting goals:
You can launch an employee advocacy program to help your sales representatives: 87.2% of employees enrolled in an employee advocacy program consider that this tactic helps them expanding their professional networks and for 76% of them, it helps them keeping up with the latest industry trends.
Related: Leonard Kim on Empowering Employees on Social Media
3. Employees Build Trust and Authority
Consumers are actively seeking out businesses they can trust. They want a deeper connection with the brands they buy from and they look for companies that want to build a relationship with them rather than ones that are just looking for a quick sell.
Building trust isn’t easy, though; it has to be earned. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer report, your employees are the most credible voices you have. Think of it like word-of-mouth marketing. Back in the day, this used to refer to telling your friends and family about a great product you’d bought. Today, with the shiny new digital landscape, word-of-mouth marketing is carried out through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
4. Employees Can Increase Your Reach
One post shared by an employee generates about 4 clicks on Facebook on average. Think about the audience you can reach if employees with a strong personal brand on social media share news and updates related to your brand! The reach of all your employees combined often goes far beyond what your own social channels can.
Add to that the fact that your employees may be micro-influencers on platforms your brand doesn’t actively use! For example, you might just be focusing on Facebook and Twitter, while your employees are building serious followings on Reddit, Instagram, or Tumblr.
5. You Keep Your Employees Engaged and Motivated!
As well as all the extra reach, the boost in traffic, and a surge in sales, employee advocacy has other, less tangible benefits, like making your employees feel great about their job. Think about it: when you encourage your employees to nurture their social followings and build their brand on social media, you’re showing them that you’re invested in their personal and professional growth.
In fact, research has shown that 86% of employees that are involved in a social media advocacy program say that it has had a positive impact on their career.
The Power of Social Media Employee Advocacy in a Nutshell
In this day and age, it’s difficult to find an employee that doesn’t have any social media channels. And, because most people log into their social accounts at least once a day, it makes sense to tap into that trend and make it work for your business.
Helping your employees build their footprints on social media will increase your web traffic, boost leads and sales, and ensure your staff are much happier in their daily work environment - it’s a win-win situation!
Feel free to download our ebook below to get additional tips to support employee’s personal branding efforts!
