The Content You Need For Employee Advocacy Success

Content, Content, Content.

You know you need it, and lots of it.

Especially if you’re running an employee advocacy program.

It can be daunting. 😫

Your employees need content to share with their audiences on social media.

Otherwise, employee advocacy simply won’t work.

But here’s the big question we get asked all the time: what kind of content? 🤔

Get this right, and both your company and your employee’s personal brands will skyrocket on social.

We’ve written about 3 content must-haves for employee advocacy, so feel free to give that a read first, but today we’re going to really hone in on the types of employee advocacy content that work!

Employer branding.

It’s become a bit of a buzzword over the past few years, especially since the pandemic drastically increased remote working.

How do you create and promote a positive company culture when your employees are spread across the world?

Meet employer branding.

Employer branding content is any content that influences how people perceive what working at your company is like.

Behind-the-scenes content, employee interviews, employer branded hashtags like #LifeAtGoogle. You get what I mean.

Content that shows your workplace culture. Your diversity. Company perks. How your employees follow your company values. How you give back to your local community. The human side of business. 🥰

Think about how much employer branding content will help your recruitment process, it’s a no-brainer!

Employer Branding Content Ideas:

• Welcoming new hires.
• Employee stories / spotlights.
• Pics of work social events.
• Personal achievements of your employees, e.g. running a marathon or raising money for charity.
• Behind-the-scenes of employees at work.
• Diversity and inclusion content, e.g. Pride events.
• Professional development events, e.g. conferences or courses.
• Ask your remote workers to share pics of their work-from-home offices!

So, you want your employees to build a following on social media?

Well, if they only share company and employer branding content… they probably won’t get very far. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Aside from personal connections like previous colleagues and friends, why would someone follow your employees on LinkedIn if they only talk about their company?

Here’s where you need to get into the mindset of your ideal audience. 🧠

What content would they want to see?

It comes down to value.

Does your content actually provide value? 👀

Is your blog post answering a question, and providing expertise?

Content needs to serve a purpose, and education is a great one.

Did you know that 62% of LinkedIn users engage with informative and inspiring content?

Got a computer scientist in your company who really knows her stuff? Ask her to share some of her knowledge and write an article about your industry! 👩🏻‍💻

This doesn’t have to be a 5000-word paper. It could even be a 2 minute TikTok video. Encourage employees to share their expertise and they could become the next big employee influencer or thought leader.

Creating great educational employee advocacy content can take a bit more work than the other options, but it’s absolutely worth it. 💪

Your followers (and your employee’s followers) are more likely to read and engage with educational content than company news. 

It adds to your credibility, and shows that your social media presence isn’t all about selling stuff.

Educational content doesn’t all have to be directly related to your business or industry.

Why not ask your c-suite execs to share their top productivity tips? Or give advice to university graduates just starting their careers?

This kind of content is very popular on LinkedIn, and can be super inspiring to your junior employees and interns. A win-win! 🏆

Before overwhelming your marketing team with all these new content requirements, remember that employee-generated content is a huge part of advocacy.

People trust people way more than brands. 🤝

With employee advocacy, authentic content from your employees is fundamental.

Rather than simply sharing an article, an employee who adds their own insights will demonstrate their expertise and build a strong personal brand.

Employee-generated content will boost your employer branding content by a long way.

Say you’ve had a team-building event or a workshop. You take pictures and post them on the company Instagram page. Great! What’s even better? Your employees sharing their own photos on their personal pages, using your hashtag. This demonstrates that employees really are engaged and enjoy working at your company. It feels more genuine!

Potential recruits will absolutely have a look at your company on social media. In fact, Glassdoor reports that 79% of job applicants use social media while job searching. 🔍

These potential recruits won’t just look at your official pages, but company hashtags and mentions too. If they can see a bunch of positive content from current employees, they’re much more likely to consider applying to work for you.

Don’t just tell your employees to ‘create content’. 🤦🏽‍♂️

Give them examples of what you’re looking for. Need some inspiration? We’ve shared some of our favorite employee advocacy content examples.

Ask marketing to give everyone some content creation tips. ✏️

Make sure your social media training is up to scratch. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Don’t worry, we’ve already created an employee advocacy training plan for you. Oh, and we’ve got a free social media policy template as well!

Most importantly, remember that you can’t force advocacy. Some employees won’t want to participate and that’s okay. 

Consider who your ideal employee advocates are. A 100% user adoption rate should never be the goal. DSMN8 CEO Bradley Keenan covered this recently in a podcast about why you should limit employee advocacy, make sure to give that a listen.

Definitely try to add third-party content to your advocacy platform where possible.

Whenever your company or product is featured in the media, get your employees to share the content.

Why? Surely I just want to get clicks to our company website?

No! ❌

Employee advocacy is about raising your overall social presence, improving your company image, and enabling employees to build personal brands.

Third-party recommendations and reviews provide the social proof you need. ✅

If your company is new or doesn’t have many media features yet, don’t despair.

Here’s another way you can use third-party content for your employee advocacy program:

What are the biggest media outlets, blogs or YouTube channels in your industry?

For example, if you work in social media, Influencer Marketing Hub and Social Media Today are big names.

Find relevant content from them to share. Add your own insights if you want to take it to the next level. 💪

Your audience will see you (and your employees) as valuable resources. You’re knowledgeable about the latest industry news, and even adding value by providing additional insights.

Plus, if you haven’t built a big content library yet, this will help you out.

One of the biggest issues we see with failing employee advocacy programs is that there simply isn’t enough content for employees to share. 

If that’s the case, all of your employees will end up sharing the same piece of content, which doesn’t come across as authentic. 😫

Sharing third-party content, especially from established names in your industry, really helps with this problem. It takes a little bit of pressure off your marketing team too!

There are so many ways to create engaging content these days, from your traditional blog post articles to podcasts to TikTok videos!

If your content is feeling a bit stale, it’s time to switch it up.

Be visual with your storytelling. 📸

Make it interactive with polls and quizzes. 

Encourage engagement by asking questions in your posts, and reply to the comments.

Don’t be afraid to experiment and try something new.

If you haven’t made video content yet, why not dip your toes into it? Turn your written content into a YouTube video. Then cut them down into TikToks or Reels. 

Repurpose the content you’ve already created for different channels. 

Work smarter, not harder! 👏

Create content that your employees will want to share, and their followers will want to read.

Yes, your company content is important.

BUT

Combining that with the other types of content we’ve just covered will take your employee advocacy to the next level. 🚀

Check your advocacy program analytics, what’s working well? Create more of that.

Is something not getting the engagement you hoped for?

Ask for employee feedback. Give them space to voice their opinions about your content.

💡 Top Tip: If you’ve not yet started your employee advocacy program, grab our free employee social media survey to get feedback about your social presence.

A final point to keep in mind is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. Have a look at what works for other brands, within your industry and generally.

Most of all, have fun with it!

Phew, that was a lot to take in. 😅

To help you plan your employee advocacy content, we’ve created a handy pdf checklist. Download it below!

Employee Advocacy Content Checklist PDF

Ready to get started with employee advocacy?

But not sure if you’re ready for an employee advocacy platform?

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• How To Improve Employee Advocacy
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• Failed With Employee Advocacy? Try This.