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Employee AdvocacyMarketing

Why More Marketers are Choosing Employee Advocacy

By Lewis Gray13/10/2022No Comments
Why Employee Advocacy Has Become a Marketing Essential

At this point…

Employee advocacy needs no introduction.

It’s the preferred marketing strategy of some of the world’s biggest organizations.

And its impact is unrivalled for the cost:

The average CPC from employees (using DSMN8) is $0.76 – significantly lower than the $7-15 you’ll pay for LinkedIn ads.

Brand messages shared by employees can reach up to 561% further than the same messages shared by the company.

On average, content shared by employees generates 8x more engagement.

So, why has employee advocacy gone from a “nice-to-have” to an “absolute essential”?

And why is Gartner predicting that 90% of B2B marketing strategies will include employee advocacy programs by 2023?

And is this why we uncovered a link between Unicorn startups and how active their employees are on social media? 🤔

To understand all of this, let’s take a little history lesson.

Then we’ll get to why more marketers are choosing employee advocacy!

Jump to:

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The History of Employee Advocacy

If we strip it back to its literal definition, employee advocacy has been going on for as long as companies have hired people!

Without encouragement, employees have been advocating for their organizations in some form, whether by word of mouth or sharing company news with their peers.

However, the concept of employee advocacy as a marketing strategy and the development of employee advocacy platforms that allow companies to encourage employee advocacy came about in the late 00s 🗓

Many would argue that this was too early to try to leverage employee advocacy. After all, sites like Facebook were in their infancy, and LinkedIn was used primarily to host CVs. Most of the sharing done through employee advocacy platforms today is shared to LinkedIn, and LinkedIn has only, over the past five years, become the professional social networking site that we know it to be today.

People simply weren’t interested in growing their professional brand online as they are today, and that’s primarily because the opportunity just wasn’t there 🤷‍♂️

In reality, employees were looking to receive information from their employers back then. Employee advocacy programs allowed them to do this, but sharing it within their networks was not a priority for employees.

As a result, many of the companies offering tools that launched around 2009 pivoted their strategy to be employee engagement/internal communications platforms.

This is something we discussed in a recent episode of The Employee Advocacy & Influence Podcast (skip to 00:46!) 👇

Fast forward to 2016/2017, when people started to utilize sites like LinkedIn to advance their careers and develop their personal brands, and the employee advocacy trend (as we know it today) exploded 🔥

Then, the pandemic hit in 2020, and the whole world woke up to the potential of employee advocacy at a time when marketing and communications budgets were being slashed.

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Why More Marketers Are Choosing Employee Advocacy

Okay, history lesson over…

That was then; this is now 👇

Why has employee advocacy become so important?

As mentioned, the emergence of personal branding opportunities brought about by LinkedIn’s changes got everyone thinking, but the catalyst for the employee advocacy boom was the COVID-19 pandemic.

When countries began locking down in early 2020, the markets started to panic, and the ensuing domino-effect caused companies to make cutbacks and marketers were forced to identify the most cost-effective and impactful marketing methods 💰

Consumer demands changed, and people craved authenticity from brands above all else. Little has changed, Consumer demands have remained the same, and just two years later, we find ourselves in more financial uncertainty.

Step in employee advocacy 💪

Let’s revisit the stats that I mentioned earlier on – 90% of B2B marketing strategies will include employee advocacy programs by 2023 (Gartner).

Employee advocacy is no longer just a “nice-to-have” to boost your employer brand; it’s become a “must-have or get left behind” situation!

Remember, brand messages shared by employees have been proven to reach up to 561% further than the same messages shared by the brand itself.

Meaning if 90% of your competitors are set to launch employee advocacy programs within the year, they’ll be able to reach 5x as many people as you by leveraging their employee networks 😱

Plus, the average CPC from an employee advocacy program with DSMN8 is $0.76, compared to LinkedIn’s $5.26 (which is from 2020 when advertising on the site was cheap!). Can you afford to ignore that?

People want to hear from people, and as an organization, you’re sitting on a large and untapped marketing resource that comes readily equipped with an audience of its own – YOUR people.

Side note: Social media is today’s billboard, and it’s where the bulk of advertising budgets are spent. Yet, few consider that algorithms and social media sites are also reacting to consumer demands.

Shocker – LinkedIn’s algorithm does not prioritize company pages 🙅‍♂️

The best way to reach your audiences on the site is through the people LinkedIn is trying to elevate on the platform – real people (and your employees!)

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How to Launch an Employee Advocacy Program

Like any new initiative, getting started can feel daunting. It probably feels like a massive project that will require time that you simply don’t have ⏰

With DSMN8, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Getting up and running with our team can be a walk in the park, and most programs see ROI within the first month!

That said, there’s a good amount of work that will need to be done if you want to set this thing up for success.

The best place to start? Grab yourself a set-up guide!

Our comprehensive guide covers everything from the pre-checks you need to make to the launch process and beyond!

Head over to our Resource Hub too to get your hands on some employee advocacy essentials such as:

Even though getting started can be a breeze…

It doesn’t hurt to have a killer tried and tested game plan 🙌

After all, you don’t just want results…

You want to max this thing out! 👏

Ready to get started with employee advocacy?

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

Take our short quiz to see if you have the foundations in place!

Prefer to cut to the chase and speak with a member of our team?

Roger that!

Book Your Demo.

People Also Ask:

Why is Employee Advocacy Focused on LinkedIn?

Employee advocacy programs are predominantly focused on LinkedIn because it is a professional network. While we’ve seen great results from people using sites like Instagram and Facebook as part of their strategy, the results seen from LinkedIn are astounding. Furthermore, people are less likely to share company content to the networks that they deem to be for personal use.

What is an Example of Employee Advocacy?

Employee advocacy, in its purest sense, is the promotion of a business or the products/services it offers by said company’s employees. So, an example might be an employee sharing a piece of company news on LinkedIn. Another form of employee advocacy could be an employee promoting their company as a place to work by sharing some behind-the-scenes content with their network. Check out some examples of employee advocacy from our list of client success stories.

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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.