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How can retailers make better use of employee advocacy?

Written by Guest contributor
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from MarketingCharts, a Watershed Publishing publication providing up-to-the-minute data and research to marketers. Employee advocacy — the promotion of a firm's brand by its employees — is one of the fastest growing social business programs, per a report last year from the Altimeter Group. A new study from Altimeter delves further into social media employee advocacy. Among the 164 respondents to the study, each of whom are from companies with more than 250 employees, the top drivers cited for investing in an employee advocacy program were:
  • Increasing the reach of messages in social networks (awareness) - 54 percent;
  • Driving increased understanding and brand health of the organization - 47 percent;
  • Engaging employees more deeply in the company mission and their work - 43 percent;
  • Providing customers a better experience with the brand - 43 percent.
Still, despite the goal of increasing social reach and awareness, a separate survey of more than 2,000 consumers found just eight percent shared employee-generated content. Moreover, while 55 percent of employees surveyed report having posted information about work on their own or as part of a company endorsed program, only 15 percent of consumers say that anyone they're connected to on social sites has posted content about work. The analysts believe "this indicates friends' posts about work are largely seen as a natural part of their life, and not brand messages." For their part, the top motivations employees gave for sharing information about their employer on social media accounts were:
  • Believing in their employer's mission and wanting to promote what they do (57 percent);
  • Believing in their company's products and wanting to share the employee's experience (46 percent);
  • Helping recruit new employees (42 percent);
  • Wanting their friends to understand them better (42 percent).
The top-cited challenge faced by employers involves content — as in, sharing the inappropriate kind (53 percent). That's followed by keeping employees motivated (49 percent), low adoption rates (47 percent) and leadership commitment and alignment (44 percent). Keeping professional and personal life separate (33 percent) was the most common reason why employees decided not to share employer content even after being asked.

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