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Proven Employee Advocacy Secrets from Fortune Global 2000 Social Media Directors

22

Proven Employee Advocacy Secrets from the Fortune Global 2000

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Nicole Alvino

Co-founder & Chief

Strategy Officer at

SocialChorus

@Nalvino

Ryon Harms

President at Manifest

Social, previously Social

Media Director at Farmer’s

Insurance

@RyonHarms

Sonia Fiorenza

Executive Director at

Manifest Social, previously

Sr. Director, Digital Comms

at Gap Inc.

@Sonia_Firorenza

33

Organic Reach on Social Media is Diminishing

• Brands’ posts on social networks reach only 3% of fans — at best — without paid

advertising — Forrester

• 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth-marketing over brand messaging — Nielsen

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Brand-shared content reach

Employee-shared content reach

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Employee Advocacy: Your Employees are Your Brand

Engaged employees are responsible for 80% of customer

satisfaction — David Macleod & Nita Clarke

90% of an employee’s social audience is new to the brand — Dell Study

Employee-shared content receives 7x the engagement of

brand-shared content — Based on SocialChorus Implementations

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80%

90%

7x

55

What is the Top Challenge to Launching an Employee

Advocacy Program at Your Organization?

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Other

Creating & providing enough content

Restrictive social media policy

Achieving internal buy-in

Training employees on social media

66

Gap’s 4 Steps to Launching an

Employee Advocacy Program

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Step 1: Achieve Internal Buy-in

Start with your strategy: What do

you hope to achieve with an

employee advocacy program?

• Social selling

• Recruiting / employer brand

• Corporate / brand reputation

• Employee engagement

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Step 2: Recruit a Social-Savvy Test Group

Recruited social-savvy employees who

showed an interest in joining the test

group

• Included interested parties at all levels of

the company

• Provided in-person training & content to

share

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Step 3: Select the Right Platform & Partner

Gap needed 5 things to increase adoption and engagement:

1. Recruit more employees to increase engagement

2. Digital training to increase adoption and social media expertise

3. Mobile app to reach employees anytime, anywhere

4. One-stop shop for employees to access content (no more email!)

5. Measure employee advocacy metrics in one place

SocialChorus provided the solution and Gap launched the program,

opening it up to all employees

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Step 4: Motivate & Recognize Employees

• Include everyone: Employees in functions that are not normally on

the front lines are thrilled to do something to help the company

• Offer social media training: Shows employees you’re investing in their

own development and skills

• Give access to exclusive news: Sneak peeks and behind the scenes

– employees love being in the know

• Thank & recognize: Spotlight top-sharers by re-sharing employee

content on brand channels or through public recognition

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Farmers Insurance’s Employee

Advocacy Best Practices

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1212

What if?

Your marketing efforts focused more on the

people who deliver your product and less

on the product itself.

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1313

How to Get Employees Excited About Employee Advocacy

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• Provide high visibility: Farmers Insurance leveraged popular employee

news channels (such as Simalcast) to announce the program

• Make it easy: Employee advocacy software should make it easy and

rewarding for employees to consume and share content

• Hold contests: At the start of Farmers Insurance’s employee program,

contests with giveaways were held to drive initial engagement

1414

What if?

Instead of marketing the features and benefits of

your products, you focused on why your

company exists? (aka your people)

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1515

Get the Right Content to the Right Employees

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• Deliver relevant content: Empower employees to share content that’s

relevant to their roles, passions and communities

• Enable content creation: Provide employees with software and guidelines to

customize social shares in their own voice and submit content

• Develop their personal brand: Encourage employees to also share about

their personal interests – personality is an integral part of personal branding

1616

What if?

Employee advocacy could help you

scale the reach of your marketing by 100,

1,000, or 10,000 fold.

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1717

What Makes a Successful Employee Advocacy Program

• Move towards a human-centric brand message

• Find the answers inside the people at the edges of your

organization

• Open up the lines of communication

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Employee Advocacy: Key Takeaways

• Don’t give up on using social media to generate revenue,

employee advocacy generates clear ROI

• Do reach out to your stakeholders, especially out in the field

• Don’t be afraid of your own people, let them show you the

way

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1919

What Do You Need to Get Leadership Onboard for

Your Employee Advocacy Program?

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

Other

Successful pilot to show results

Case studies from similar brands

Compliance with legal, IT & HR

2020

Employee Advocacy: Benefits Company-wide

• Social Media Marketing: Increase awareness

• Human Resources: Attract top talent

• Sales Professionals: Drive leads

• Communications: Engage employees

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How Target Employees Made Their Company News Go Viral on Social Media

The leaders in corporate communications at Target no longer spend hours hounding employees

over email to share company news on social media.

Instead, Target’s corporate communications team uses the SocialChorus

platform to give their employees the opportunity to easily consume and

share whenever and wherever they are.

• Over 5K+ employees joined in less than 4 months

• Company news went viral & started trending on Twitter

• Thousands trained to speak on behalf of the brand on social

• Employees feel more engaged with brand

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2222

The Device of Our Lives

People love their phones

• 83% of people say their smartphones “never leave

their side” – USA Today

• 89% of time spent on mobile is spent using mobile

apps – Nielsen

Where is your app?

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#TargetScoop

2323

You Should Have a Place on Your Employees’ Home Screen

Our employee

advocacy app earns you the right

to be on their

home screen.#AdvocateU

#TargetScoop

2424#AdvocateU

Interested in Learning More?

For more information on employee

advocacy, download our ebook:

How to Train Employee Advocates

A 7 Step Guide to Activating 100 Employee

Advocates in 30 Days

http://bit.ly/trainingemployeeadvocates

2525

Thank You!

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