An institution, business, or organization cannot function without its employees. The growth of a business also depends on, among other factors, how satisfied or dissatisfied its employees are. They form the core pillar of any organization and even in this age of AI, the importance of employees cannot be cancelled. Human beings bring with them a certain warmth of emotions, which artificial intelligence, no matter how advanced it gets, cannot match. Therefore, employees cannot be redundant, as discussed largely in many debates today.
In times like these, where world is quite driven by technology and human need is questioned in more ways than one in organizations, when employee exploitation is not uncommon and the unending rat race is only moving in circular motion, it is imperative that employees feel safe and secure in their workplaces.
It not just becomes the duty of the businesses and organizations to do just that but also the moral responsibility to make sure that the employees feel they belong. This can only happen when there are ways and measures which take care of the fact that there are no untoward activities happening against the employees.
If a company wants its employees to work not just as an employee, but to give more to it than what the offer letter requires them to do, it must build a relationship of trust and gratitude with the employees in order to foster the team morale. Only then will any employee be internally motivated to go out of their way and do what they are required to do.
This is where employee advocacy comes in. In the era of internet, social media marketing and digital marketing, it is not a big task to brand and sell a product these days. But what changes the ball game is when the employees step in to market a product or service, which can foster a boost in the sales of the concerned product or service.
What is Employee Advocacy?
Employee advocacy, in simple terms, means promoting or creating awareness about a company’s product or services by using the social network of its employees. This not only boosts the awareness regarding the product or service but also enhances the chances of boosting the sales by exposing the relevant information regarding the product or service in question to a fairly large audience.
Earlier, employee advocacy was quite an informal practice and it wasn’t being used in a strategic way by companies. Employees would randomly share information, either through their social media or spread information by word of mouth. But over the years, since companies have recognized the relevance of harnessing the power of network of their employees, many organizations have come up with targeted strategies to augment the awareness about their products through employee advocacy.
The main aim of employee advocacy is to enhance the credibility and reliability of the company. Employees advocacy can be done in a number of ways: –
- Social media marketing: The employees can use their social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc. in order to target a larger audience. They can write posts, share product reviews, update regarding the revamp of an existing product etc. through their networking platforms.
- Testimonials: When employees advocate for something that they are offering and provide valuable feedback, it automatically builds a trust amongst people and they are more inclined to buy that. A personal testimonial makes a lot of difference and makes people believe in the authenticity of the product or service.
- Ambassadorship: In order to successfully harness the benefits of employee advocacy, companies can segregate and divide the products or services amongst employees that they need to advocate. How this will work is that by aiming for a specific product, the employees will be able to function in a more specialized way and will serve as ambassadors who will advocate the product both online and offline.
Organizations with a forward-thinking mindset are aiming and using employee advocacy in an extremely strategic manner, incentivizing the whole process, in order to get maximum results, which are not just beneficial for them but also for the employees.
Optimizing the use of technology
As everything that is going through cosmetic changes these days, employee advocacy platforms don’t remain far from this process as well. A trend which is gaining traction quickly is integrating technology effectively in employee advocacy platforms. A number of employee advocacy platforms these days are using sophisticated AI tools and machine learning tools in order to make the process of advocacy easier by filtering relevant information and understanding the preferences of the employee. AI can analyze and filter out employee preferences and help in optimizing the impact of the shared content.
Use of Audio-visual content
In an age where attention spans are on constant decline, reading articles and blogs are proving to a hassle for most people since they require a lot of undivided attention. Although, when it comes to audio-visual content, it has proven to be much more engaging and less attention seeking. Audio-visual content reduces the time it takes for the targeted audience to grab the relevant information and at the same time also holds their attention for those few minutes. Therefore, employee advocacy platforms these days are making the most use of videos to enhance authenticity of their content and to reach out to a larger audience.
Incentives
Employee advocacy platforms can amp up employee participation by introducing certain incentives and making the whole process into more of a game rather than reducing it to a chore. By introducing rewards and making leaderboards, companies can foster teamwork and feeling of camaraderie among the employees, who will only be eager to participate when there is an added incentive, be it monetary or otherwise.
Expanding business models
Employee advocacy platforms are being constructively used by companies these days in order to expand their reach and grow at exponential rate. While social media engagement is necessary, ground level profits are what companies are aiming at by using more business centric methods.
Thus, employee advocacy platforms are ever changing and evolving with the need of the hour and making themselves relevant more than ever.