CASE STUDY

$100k Impact! How AkzoNobel Achieved Employee Advocacy Success.

Summary ๐Ÿ‘‡

Quadrupled the size of their audience on LinkedIn via their employees' networks. All with just 272 people using the DSMN8 platform.

Plus, over 35,000 website visits generated worth almost $100,000 in comparative media spend in just over a year.

All while building personal brands on social in a totally risk-free way by using the best tools to keep every employee "on brand".

This was all made possible when AkzoNobelโ€™s MPY business decided to leverage a previously untapped audience for the company - their employees' networks.

So, who are the people who made all of this happen?! Letโ€™s get to know the MPY business of AkzoNobel.

Client

AkzoNobel

Headquarters

Amsterdam

Company Size

27,000+ Employees

The People! ๐Ÿ‘‹

Get to know the marine, protective and yacht (MPY) business of AkzoNobel!

Honestly, you’re probably more aware of these guys than you might thinkโ€ฆ

As experts in the manufacture of paints and coatings, there’s a good chance youโ€™re only ever a few meters away from something coated with one of their products

The International brand of AkzoNobel is one of the global industry leaders and has very recently celebrated its 140th anniversary with a celebratory website here.

“Inventing the future for well over 100 years.”

โ˜๏ธ Having worked closely with the team for over a year, it’s hard to argue with this!

The challenge? ๐Ÿค”

While a good chunk of employees were already familiar with social media and the importance of having a social media presence, many employees were not.

Like most companies, a sizeable portion of them didn’t join the workforce using social media, and so they certainly hadn’t used it as a tool for work either.

AkzoNobel had already used an employee advocacy tool, but they were on the hunt for something bigger that would accommodate every users’ needs so that they could get more people involved ๐Ÿ“ˆ

The team quickly realized that to get more employees involved, they would need to get their less active employees up to speed and educated on the benefits of social media “for work” ๐Ÿ‘

But this would be only half of the challenge.

Once employees were educated on the importance of social media, it would then be a case of keeping employees on brand to ensure that sharing could be encouraged while being totally risk-free for the company ๐Ÿ™

How would they activate an otherwise underutilized asset for marketing – their employees – on social media to amplify their messaging, all while minimizing risk and keeping everyone on brand?

We realized early that getting in-active employees using social media would be just the beginning. Ensuring that this activity was consistent and kept in line with our brand messaging would be essential to the programโ€™s success. DSMN8โ€™s automation tool was a massive help!

Stephen FarrellSenior Digital Communications Specialist

The solution โ˜๏ธ

In order to get more of their employees active on social media, they realized that they would need a more time-effective and easy-to-use solution than what they previously had. They needed something with the potential to automate and regulate employees’ activity, too ๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿ’ป

And so, they began researching alternative employee advocacy platforms. After learning that another segment of the business was already using DSMN8, they did their own research and quickly realized that this would be the perfect solution to achieve their own goals too ๐Ÿ™Œ

From our first conversations with the team at AkzoNobel, we realized that getting those inactive employees using social media would be just the beginning. Ensuring that this activity was consistent and kept in line with the brand’s messaging would be essential to the program’s continued success. Step in DSMN8’s automation tool!

The automation tool allows posts to be automatically shared to users’ LinkedIn feeds without them having to lift a finger. Posts are pre-curated by the company’s admin users, and our innovative ‘Smart Scheduling’ technology ensures that each automated post goes out at a time when each employee is most likely to generate engagement ๐Ÿ‘‡

DSMN8's Automation Function

Plus, because each piece of content is pre-curated by AkzoNobel’s admin users (including captions for sharing to social), it guarantees that each employee’s post complies with the brand’s message and alleviates any risk of employees saying the wrong thing.

Time efficiency? Check โœ…

Risk-free sharing? Double-check โœ…

Facts: Typically, less than 2% of employees share company content on social media. Automation removes the need for staff to shift their focus from their key duties.

Of course though, the last thing they wanted was for more employees to start sharing company content only to appear spammy in the feeds of their key audiences. It had to be authentic.

DSMN8’s ‘Dynamic Display‘ had a key role to play here. When admin users curate content for their colleagues to share, they’re able to add multiple preview images, titles, and post captions.

This means that different employees can post the same content to social media but shown and said differently each time ๐Ÿคฉ

It all sounds like techy stuff, right? Not to worry, this is all handled by the DSMN8 platform and requires no additional editing from the employee ๐Ÿ‘

The use of the automation tool was encouraged but not essential. Many AkzoNobel employees shared simply because the company had done an exemplary job of communicating the benefits from the start. Around 55% of users use automation, but over 45% of users share because they care and understand the benefits.

These guys get it!

AkzoNobel Employees | DSMN8 Case Study

At the heart of AkzoNobelโ€™s goals was a desire to amplify their messaging by leveraging their employees’ networks. So, they needed to track the impact of their employees’ activity to measure the program’s success ๐Ÿ“Š

DSMN8’s analytics suite provides the organization with performance data such as reach, cost per click, clicks per share and comparative media spend ๐Ÿ’ฐ

This not only allowed them to measure the financial success of the initiative, but metrics like active users, shares, and audience size also allowed them to monitor and tweak their strategy based on their employees’ sharing habits.

Key fact: To date, the MPY business has been able to quadruple the size of their audience on LinkedIn via their employees’ networks.

The analytics suite allowed us to measure the financial success of the initiative, and also allowed us to monitor metrics like active users, shares, and audience size. Allowing us to tweak our strategy based on employeesโ€™ sharing habits.

Stephen FarrellSenior Digital Communications Specialist

The impact? ๐Ÿ‘Š

Since they launched their employee advocacy program, AkzoNobel MPY employees have generated over 35,000 website visits worth almost $100,000 in comparative media spend.

Not to mention a cost-per-click of just $1.35 and nearly tripling the return on investment in just over 12 months! ๐Ÿ‘

In this time, they have been able to quadruple the size of their audience on LinkedIn through their employees’ networks. DSMN8 offered their less social-savvy employees an opportunity to start using social media in a way that benefits both them and the organization in an authentic and risk-free way ๐Ÿ‘Œ

By using DSMN8, the company was also able to enhance their content by experimenting with the ‘Dynamic Display’ feature.

By using multiple images and preview titles for each post they uploaded for sharing, they were then able to analyze which types of content performed better and why. They were then able to use this to tweak their overall content output ๐Ÿ’ซ

DSMN8 turned out to be just the thing AkzoNobel has been searching for to level up their employee advocacy. Not only were they able to truly amplify their messaging via their employees’ networks, but with DSMN8, they were able to maximize this by making it accessible and intuitive for any and all employees to get involved ๐Ÿš€

Thatโ€™s what we call an employee advocacy masterclass!

Number of

Content clicks

The average number of clicks received on each employees’ posts.

2.2

$1.35

Comparative

Cost per click

The cost for each click generated by employees activity.

Total

Content Reach

The new audience size realised through employees’ networks.

6.7m

$100k+

In comparative

Media spend

How much all of this would have cost via traditional advertising.

Learn more

We help brands empower their employees to Curate, Create and Share on-brand content. Your employees will have access to both a desktop and mobile application where they can effortlessly share your content across social, messenger, email and SMS, boosting your organic reach while keeping them up to date with company news and industry trends.

Interested to see how you could turn your employees into motivated social influencers like Unit4 and super-charge your content efforts with DSMN8’s employee advocacy solution?

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