Does employee advocacy work?
Professional social media influencers work better than employee advocacy.
That has been my opinion ever since I started working, but after reading Chapter 15, my perception of employee advocacy widened. Being on social media for many years now, influencers have changed my life. It's embarrassing to admit, but I trust influencers the majority of the time because millions of other users do. However, shouldn't we trust the people that actually work with the product itself?
Obviously, the people working directly with the product would be the right person to trust. They contain the knowledge that influencers don't receive when a brand asks them to promote. However, since they have millions of followers, the media feels obligated to trust them. That's why influencers work for brands.
Chapter 15 opened my eyes to understand the fact that most workers have social media. When an employee posts about their company they can reach hundreds of viewers on multiple platforms. If each employee insisted on posting quality content for the brand they work for, they could reach as much as an audience as influencers.
Part of the reason I never believed in employee advocacy is that I've worked at businesses that never received appreciation for their employee's posts. This may be because only a fraction of the employees would promote the business, but as for myself I never felt like my posts made a difference. Whenever I would advocate for the brand, I never received any feedback which to me indicated that the post never reached people. But they did! Social media users appreciate when others post about businesses people work for.
So yes, employee advocacy works. But it's hard to comprehend when employees with small following posts feel as if they arent reaching a wide audience. If everyone posts about their business they could spend less worry on finding the right influencer and focus on their own employees. Like I said before, a brand's workers could make a bigger impact than an influencer.
Before you think that your post may not make a huge impact, just promote your brand because you never know how many people will appreciate it!
Employee advocacy is an interesting prospect to me. I personally feel like an employee’s social media should be their own, not their employer’s. It is also important to make sure that employee’s only speak positively of their employer, since any potential benefits of relying on employees to talk up the company could be wiped out by an employee speaking poorly about the company.
ReplyDeleteI liked when you mentioned that you trust pretty much any influencer you see now because millions of other people do. I am the same way! Whenever I see an influencer promoting something I automatically trust them which probably isn't the best thing to do.
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