The Employee Advocacy Glossary

Algorithm

In computer programming, an algorithm is a set of step-by-step instructions to solve a specific problem. Common examples of algorithms include recipes, and how search engines show you the best results based on your question. The LinkedIn algorithm, for example, determines what posts are shown on a user’s feed.

Analytics

When a computer analyses data or statistics to find patterns, and the resulting information from this process. It’s super helpful for marketers to understand what content is popular, and what needs working on. Our employee advocacy platform includes a whole analytics suite to help advocacy program admins improve their results.

Benchmarking

Comparing your business practices and metrics with companies that are considered the best in your industry.

Brand Advocate

A person who promotes your brand or product through word-of-mouth marketing.

Brand Ambassador

Similar to brand advocates, a brand ambassador is engaged by the company to represent the brand, and showcase it in a positive light.

Brand Awareness

The familiarity of consumers with a brand or product.

Brand Monitoring

Tracking various channels to find out where your brand is mentioned, e.g. on social media platforms.

C-Suite

Executive-level managers within a company, e.g. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Channel

In social media, channels refer to places where content can be shared. This includes blogs, podcasts or social networks for example. It’s the medium used for brands to reach their target audience.

Click-Through Rate (CTA)

The number of clicks your ad (or social media post) receives, divided by the number of times it is shown. For example, if you had 50 clicks for 500 impressions, your CTA would be 10%.

Company Culture

How your company does things! Behaviors, shared values, systems, attitudes procedures… they all make up company culture. Also known as workplace culture. Find out how the biggest brands showcase company culture.

Content Curation

Gathering content relating to a topic, area of interest or industry. A content curator within an employee advocacy program would find relevant content for employees to share through their advocacy platform, with the intent of adding value.

Content Marketing

A form of marketing focused on creating and sharing online material, e.g. blog posts, podcasts or videos. This content doesn’t explicitly promote a brand or product, but rather intends to attract a specific target audience through adding value.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The idea that a company should contribute positively to their community, environment, society and consider the impact of their business decisions.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

The price paid for each click in a pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaign, e.g. Google Ads or LinkedIn Ads.

Cross-Posting

Sharing the same (or similar) content across multiple channels. For example, sharing the content from a blog post as a Twitter thread, or turning it into a YouTube video.

Crowdsourcing

Collecting ideas, content, or services from a group of people. Asking the public for opinions on your product to help improve it is an example of crowdsourcing. Reposting user-generated content (UGC) on social media is also crowdsourcing.

Culture Marketing

Using marketing to showcase company culture, e.g. during a recruitment campaign. Showing the human side of your business.

Earned Media

Any content written about your brand or product that you haven’t paid for or created yourself.

Earned Media Value (EMV)

A metric used to measure the value of earned media. For example, comparing the engagement and impressions of earned media on LinkedIn, with the comparative amount it would cost if you used paid advertising. Learn more about Earned Media Value.

Employee Advocacy

Employee Advocacy in a nutshell is promoting the company that you work at. Creating awareness of their brand, company culture, or products and services.

Employee Advocacy Platform

An employee advocacy platform allows employees to share company-approved content on social media with an easy-to-use app or website. It’s what we do!

Employee Advocacy Program

When an organization wants to encourage employee advocacy, they’ll often set up an employee advocacy program to encourage participation. This can be monitored with analytics and encouraged with gamification, via an advocacy platform like DSMN8.

Employee Advocate

An employee advocate is a person who promotes the company they work for, and/or acts as a spokesperson for the brand.

Employee Engagement

The level of commitment, enthusiasm and dedication an employee feels towards their job and company. Find out how employee engagement affects employee advocacy.

Employee-Generated Content (EGC)

Online content created by your employees, often used as part of an employee advocacy program. This can be photos, videos, blog posts, or social media posts.

Employee Influencer

An employee influencer is someone within your company that affects how audiences (whether internal or external) view your brand. They usually create content for a larger-than-average social media following, and may hold a senior position in the company.

Employee Referral Program

A recruiting strategy where employers encourage employees to refer qualified candidates, usually via rewards.

Employer Branding

A company’s messaging about who they are and what they do. Employer branding involves managing your reputation as an employer, which is important for recruitment and talent retention.

Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

The core benefits that your company offers employees. A part of Employer Branding, your EVP helps attract talent.

Evergreen Content

The kind of content that never goes out of style! Essentially, it’s content that isn’t time-sensitive, so it remains relevant to audiences for a long time.

Gamification

Encouraging participation through competition, points, or rewards. For example, DSMN8’s gamification feature allows employers to reward employee advocates.

Impressions

The number of times your content was displayed or seen. Also known as reach.

Influencer

A person with the ability to influence potential consumers through promoting products to their audience on social media. Influencers have a large number of followers online.

Internal Communications

How companies communicate with their employees, keeping them updated and connected. This helps foster company culture. Internal comms can be maintained through email, an intranet, or an internal communications platform.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

A measurable value that indicates progress towards an objective. They provide a focus for business to reach their goals, and targets for teams to achieve.

Micro-Influencer

A micro-influencer is an influencer, but with a smaller audience, often in a specific niche. Micro-influencer audiences are often more engaged than those of large influencers.

Microblogging

Microblogging is a short piece of written content shared online. Twitter is a popular microblogging platform.

Organic

On social media, organic refers to any free content shared online, e.g. it’s not a paid promotion.

Personal Branding

Creating a personal brand online is all about defining what you stand for as a person, and what you want to be known for. It’s about sharing your expertise with other people, and how you present yourself on a platform like LinkedIn.

Personal Development

The pursuit of personal growth through improving knowledge and skills. An employer who supports personal development encourages employees to learn new skills to further their careers.

Return on Investment (ROI)

A means to evaluate the efficiency of an investment, based on performance. Divide the net profit or loss from an investment by its cost.

Share of Voice (SOV)

Share of Voice is a way to compare brand awareness against competitors. The ‘share’ of the market your brand owns online includes paid advertising, but can also include social media followers and website keyword rankings.

Social Listening

Monitoring social media platforms for mentions of your brand or product, and analyzing them to gauge customer opinions. Can be used more broadly to analyze online conversation about your industry as a whole.

Social Recruitment

Using social media platforms like LinkedIn to reach potential candidates. This can be done through targeted advertising, organic social media posts, or people can be approached by recruiters individually.

Social Selling

Social Selling is using social media to reach prospects and build relationships with them as part of the sales process.

Social Selling Index (SSI)

The Social Selling Index (SSI) is a LinkedIn performance indicator that measures the impact of an individual’s social selling.

Talent Retention

Talent Retention or Employee Retention is the company goal to keep talented employees and reduce turnover. This is done by creating a positive company culture, and providing a better Employer Value Proposition than competitors.

Thought Leadership

A thought leader is someone who shares their knowledge and expertise with an audience, becoming a trusted person for industry insights.

Upskilling

Teaching your employees additional skills to expand their capabilities beyond their main job role. In employee advocacy, learning content creation and social media is an example of upskilling.

User-Generated Content (UGC)

UGC is any content (blog posts, podcasts, videos, images) created by people rather than brands. For example, product photos on Instagram posted by your customers. Employee-Generated Content is a form of UGC in an employee advocacy program.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing

A tactic to generate natural discussions about a company or product, online or offline. For example, if an employee talks about the great perks they get at their company, that’s a form of word-of-mouth marketing! Another example is when people recommend products they enjoy online, without any compensation for doing so.