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Teamwork doesn’t just make the dream work; it is the dream. 

If we handed you a bundle of toothpicks and asked you to snap them all in two, all at once, you’d probably give it a try for a minute or two before setting them down on the table and making up some excuse to go sit on the other side of the room. Why? No, not because it’s pointless – because it’s not possible. 

You don’t need Popeye strength to snap a single toothpick, but add 10 or 20 more and no amount of spinach will help. There’s strength in numbers and togetherness and in being able to signal that togetherness through projects like advocacy on social media. 

All businesses need to be built on that philosophy – one of unity and solidarity. Whether it’s a small café on the corner or a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, breaks are going to be a common feature if that sense of solidarity is lacking. We need to find in, and give strength to, others and ensure we’re all tapped into that same wavelength.

A strong workplace culture filters down to customers. We’re all no doubt familiar with the person-centric, ‘Default to Open’ employee philosophy at Google. It’s a similar story over at Zoom HQ; the company was voted a Best Place to Work in 2021 by Glassdoor, and enjoys a strong reputation among its users. You don’t need us to convince you that positioning yourself as an employee-centric company pays dividends…just look at what two of the biggest names in tech are doing!

But instilling that culture within your workforce is only half the battle. The other half is conveying that to your customers and prospects – making sure the work you’re doing internally is having a big impact externally. 

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How does employee advocacy help? 

In two key ways. First of all, it helps your customers see what kind of a business you are – that you’re not just a by-the-book brand, but that you have something genuinely positive and worthwhile to offer. These days, customers want brands that care about something more than the bottom line, and what deserves more care than the people who keep you going? 

Second of all, it helps your workforce to see (and experience) what kind of a business you are. On the day-to-day, you want your employees to be happy, engaged, and enthusiastic; when it comes to expanding, you’ll want to ‘put your money where your mouth is’ as you look to attract top talent. Social hiring is a big part of running a successful business in 2023, and diversifying your impact on social media through employee advocacy is a powerful way to stand out from the crowd. 

Your Customers/Leads

Here’s why your ability to engage and impress existing customers and promising new leads grows exponentially as you hone your employee advocacy strategy. There are plenty of promising employee advocacy statistics to prove it. 

Social media Advocacy Boosts Your Efforts at Thought Leadership

When it comes to B2B social media marketing, thought leadership is right there at the top of the pyramid – and so are the brands that can master it. It’s all about building your image as a knowledgeable, industry-leading, insightful, and genuinely helpful resource online, creating a culture of learning and personal growth within your audiences, and attracting qualified leads who already trust and respect your brand. 

How can employee advocacy help? What you publish to your own channels is essential to thought leadership. That’s the core. But, if you want to continue expanding on that reputation, having your employees publish a range of quality content to their own channels (from employee boards) means that your name pops up more frequently, but always alongside truly insightful resources and information. 

Content publishing Through Employee Advocacy Diversifies Your Reach and Impact

Social posting to your own channels is imperative. You need to do it regularly, and you need to do it to a consistently high standard in order to gain and maintain interest from your new and existing followers. 

But a content publishing strategy that solely focuses on your own social channels is inherently limited. For every ten people who come across your page and learn of your brand that way, there will always be one or two who don’t. Widening your reach and publishing quality content to other channels – say, through B2B influencer marketing and employee advocacy – means that you can engage wider and more diverse (but still relevant) audiences.

How can employee advocacy help? By making those efforts to reach beyond your own channels consistent and scalable. B2B influencer marketing is powerful, but it can rarely be done at the same scale as a quality employee advocacy program.  

Employee Advocacy Builds Trust

Breaking news: we trust brands that care about their employees. Who knew?!

Glassdoor found that an increase of 1-star to a company’s rating translated to a 2.05-point increase in customer satisfaction. Why? Because positive emotions are contagious, and emotionally engaged employees rub off on customers. All those good feelings valued employees feel at work don’t just dissipate when the clock reaches 5pm; they continue doing good work for your business by encouraging customers to see you in a strong, happy light. 

We trust brands that can keep their workforce happy because, well, why wouldn’t we? 

How can employee advocacy help? Because it’s the most definitive way to show your customers and prospects that yours is a business worth working for (and with). True, you can post your own company updates that show a happy and united workforce, but that’s small fry compared with a workforce that consistently posts their own updates and insights.  Provided you’ve laid out the social media best practices for employees and implemented an approval system for content, that trust can be steadily built over time.

Your Workforce

Your brand’s success is in the hands of your employees, and a campaign for employee advocacy can give them new strength. 

An Employee Advocacy Program Acknowledges and Celebrates Their Value

Have you ever had a job that you diligently set your alarm for, dressed for, punched into then punched out of again seven hours later and driven home before doing it all again the next day? Nothing special, nothing fancy, just work-as-usual.

Employee disinterest is a major problem for businesses these days. It can cost thousands (per employee), exacerbate your churn rate and, in extreme cases, cause the business to stagnate or backslide. Crucial relationships between the workforce and between your business and clients struggle to develop as employees come and go. Investment in training creeps up as new workers are introduced regularly. Work completed by employees may only be ‘enough’ – a comfortable standard, but one that falls far short of ideal. What causes employee disinterest? Lots of things, but they often stem back to one key bug in the system: the value the business attributes to them and their work. 

In fact, this is the top cause of unhappiness among employees, and it can derail the business. 

How can employee advocacy help? By signposting the fact that you recognize the value every single one of your employees contributes to the organization. Encouraging employee advocacy means that you consider them an intrinsic part of the team and workplace culture – someone you would be proud to have represent the company on platforms as public as social media. 

It Shines a Spotlight on Operational and Non-Customer Facing Teams

In any business, some roles are inevitably more prominent than others. Sales has historically been the star of the show, while other parts of the business – accounting, say, or back-end development – don’t have the same measurable goals and quantifiable impact. When it comes to company bulletins, smashed sales targets and new customer acquisitions practically write themselves, whereas continuity and ongoing business support are more easily overlooked. 

There are plenty of solutions to this common problem, from simply expressing gratitude and sharing positive feedback more often to revisiting compensation and development opportunities, but it all hinges on a shift in the company’s culture.  

How can employee advocacy help? By being that shift in culture. Employee advocacy isn’t just another thing to add to the To Do list; it’s a brand new venture that the entire workforce can contribute to in a meaningful way. A diverse range of voices from across the company – not just the most prominent, customer-facing roles – is the difference between a good employee advocacy strategy, and a great one. 

It Enables Employees to Cultivate a Stronger Professional Reputation Among Relevant Audiences

More than any other advocate platform, LinkedIn plays a pivotal role in B2B employee advocacy. Its unique position among professional audiences – and particularly B2B decision-makers – means that individuals, as well as businesses, stand to benefit enormously from consistently publishing quality content.

B2B micro influencers emerge across all industries and niches. They gain ground thanks to their insight, wisdom, expertise, and passion for the role they’ve assumed in their industry – and the business they work for. 

How can employee advocacy help? By ensuring that your advocates have access to a catalog of top-notch content relevant to their growing audience’s interests and questions, they can consistently work towards growing their own reputation on advocate marketing platforms like LinkedIn. 

Whoever has access to your social media management platform has access to this content, and can choose and schedule a pre-approved content strategy for employee advocacy platforms that advocates not just for your business, but for the person posting it, to go live whenever they want.