Brilliant.
You’ve had the idea.
You’ve read the research.
You’ve heard all the talk.
It’s time to get your employees using social media FOR work 💪
With employee advocacy becoming the go-to for marketing teams…
You don’t want to get left behind.
But where to start?
Do you send out an email?
Maybe do a PowerPoint?
Let everyone know about employee advocacy?
Do you update your social media policy?
People need to know it’s OK to post about the company 👌
Do you start looking at employee advocacy tools now?
You’re definitely going to need a tool for this.
The answer to all of the above could well be yes.
But the correct place to start?
With yourself.
Why?
You Have to Lead by Example
That’s right.
If you want your employees to start posting on social media.
Especially if you want to leverage employee influence/advocacy…
You need to start working on your own social media presence.
There are two main reasons for this.
Firstly…
You HAVE to lead by example.
It’s a no brainer.
Something you will have heard on any management course.
(And something anyone with children will be familiar with) 😉
If you want your employees to do something.
You have to be seen to be doing this yourself.
Nothing says:
“I want you to do this, but I don’t believe in it”
Like communicating the importance of having a social media presence…
…when you haven’t posted in 17 months yourself 🤦♂️
Secondly…
You can truly communicate the personal benefits if you have done it yourself.
Let’s say you started posting to LinkedIn today.
Maybe not daily to begin with.
Let’s say three times per week.
If you do this well.
And you do your homework on how to generate engagement and start conversations.
You’ll soon start seeing results of your own 🙌
Maybe you start a few conversations on LinkedIn with some of your posts?
Maybe one of them turned into a meeting?
Even if you get just 10+ likes and 500-1,000 impressions.
This is the type of thing you can relay to your teams.
You can be a case study for the case you’re trying to make!
It doesn’t get more authentic than that! 🤩
Most people make an assumption when attempting to start an employee advocacy program.
The assumption is that employees don’t want to share.
The reality is far from it.
Employees just need to know why they should.
Which leads me to my next point…
FOMO
Yup.
The worst thing about social media.
But a huge asset for you to light a spark and inspire your employees 🔥
It’s one thing for you to talk to your employees about the results you’ve seen from your posts.
But what could be more powerful than them seeing the posts themselves?
Managers and leaders will typically be connected with their employees on LinkedIn.
And if you start posting to LinkedIn there’s a fair chance that they’ll see it! 👀
Let’s say a salesperson sees you raking in 20-30 likes on most of your posts.
And starting a bunch of conversations…
They’re going to want a piece of the pie!
Any salesperson in 2022 knows the effectiveness of social selling.
It’s less about FOMO and more about inspiring your employees with your own efforts.
The idea is for them to see what YOU’RE doing…
…and to feel inspired to do the same themselves! 🏆
That way, when you come to introduce a more formal employee advocacy program.
They’ll already be on board.
They’ve already seen a pretty authentic case study, after all!
Final thought…
Get Your Senior Leaders Posting First
Yeah, it sounds tricky at first.
Because we all know how busy senior employees can be.
However, once you’ve started posting yourself.
And once you’ve decided to roll out an employee advocacy program.
The people you should start with should be as high up the ladder as possible.
Why? 🤔
Well, for the reasons I’ve outlined up until this point.
Who wields more influence over your workforce than your senior/team leaders?
They’ll be the ones to inspire the wider workforce and get their own teams involved.
Let’s use this example…
If your Head of Sales was using social media.
And posting thought leadership content to start conversations.
(generating leads and meetings)
Would any Account Executive be able to say no to doing the same? 🤷♂️
Influence comes from the top!
And it begins with you.
Ready to get started with employee advocacy?
Prefer to speak with us first?
No problem.
Schedule a call with one of the team.
Lewis Gray
Senior Marketing Manager and Employee Advocacy Program Manager at DSMN8. Lewis specialises in content strategy, growing brand visibility and generating inbound leads. His background in Sales lends itself well to demand generation in the B2B niche.
