Employee advocacy: how to create an effective programme

Employee advocacy is much more than just a trendy marketing tool. It has become a strategic lever for companies wishing to develop their e-reputation, strengthen their employer brand and multiply the points of authentic contact with their audiences. Consumers give less and less credence to traditional institutional communications. The voice of employees therefore becomes a precious resource for reinforcing the credibility and humanity of brands. But only under certain conditions. So how do you create an effective employee advocacy programme? Frédéric Foschiani outlines the key steps to follow.

Why has employee advocacy become essential?

Getting started: setting clear objectives

Selecting ambassadors

Training, leading and supporting ambassadors

Relevant content and ambassadors' autonomy

Tools to facilitate the programme

Evaluating the impact of your programme

Rewarding the commitment of ambassadors: rewarding involvement

Why has employee advocacy become essential?

The weight of recommendations in decisions

Social proof is an essential psychological mechanism in marketing, encouraging consumers to rely on the opinions of their peers, customers or employees to guide their decisions. In the face of mistrust of traditional advertising, this perceived authenticity is becoming a crucial lever for building trust and preserving the e-reputation of brands.

An opportunity for companies of all sizes

Large companies use employee advocacy programmes to mobilise their employees as relays of influence, but this strategy is also accessible to SMEs. Even on a small scale, it can raise the profile of a local brand and build customer loyalty.

Employees as vectors of trust

Social networks give employees a powerful voice, making their personal and authentic posts particularly engaging. These shares humanise the brand and establish a more direct link with audiences.

Getting started: setting clear objectives

Employee advocacy is based on a subtle balance: giving employees a voice while structuring their communication within a framework aligned with the company's values and objectives.

Companies that take the time to define a clear strategy and support their employees in this process give themselves the means to differentiate themselves in the long term.

How do you define these objectives?

Selecting ambassadors

Choosing the employees who will carry the company's colours on social networks is a crucial stage in setting up an employee advocacy programme.

It's not simply a question of identifying the most active profiles on LinkedIn or the social networks, but of putting in place an inclusive and relevant strategy, in line with the company's objectives.

Well-defined selection criteria

Here are a few things to bear in mind:

Personal motivation To create real momentum, recruit volunteers through clear internal communication about the objectives and benefits of the programme. A pilot group can then be used to test the strategy, identify good practice and prepare for wider employee involvement.

Diversity of profiles To reflect the richness of the organisation and gain credibility, include employees from different departments, hierarchical levels and geographical locations.

Ability to communicate Even if they don't have to be communication experts, ambassadors need to be comfortable sharing clear, coherent messages.

Exemplary management Involve leaders or managers, as their commitment sends out a strong signal and encourages other employees to get involved.

Ensuring renewal

Include new participants on a regular basis to avoid running out of steam.

Training, leading and supporting ambassadors

Training and supporting employees means providing them with the tools and knowledge they need to express themselves with impact, while preserving their authenticity.

Raising awareness of best practice

Social networks are evolving rapidly and not all employees have the same skills in using them. So set up a Charter for the use of social networks.

This charter defines precautions and recommendations to ensure consistency with the company's values. It includes ethical rules, recommendations or guidelines on sharing content, managing online comments, and precautions linked to data protection or specific regulatory constraints.

Animation and support

Regular support helps to maintain momentum and adapt to changes in platforms and marketing strategies:

• Understanding platforms Initial training: this helps to reduce the disparities between employees and helps them to master the specific features of each social network.
• Communication techniques :storytelling enables ambassadors to convey authentic, impactful messages by sharing personal anecdotes or professional experiences. The aim is to create publications that reflect their vision and commitment, rather than repeating pre-formatted messages.
• Coaching sessions workshops: offer individual or group workshops to answer questions, analyse publications and share best practice.
• Webinars Show them the latest social media trends and tools.
• Exchange groups Create a space (virtual or physical) where ambassadors can share their successes, difficulties and ideas.

Solid training and structured support enable ambassadors to become authentic and confident spokespeople, strengthening the company's communication. These efforts, seen as a strategic investment, encourage more human and engaging communication.

Relevant content and ambassadors' autonomy

Content is crucial to an employee advocacy programme. Without resonant, aligned and relevant messages, even the most motivated ambassadors will struggle to capture the attention of their audience. However, creating content is not just a question of volume or frequency, it is above all a question of quality and relevance.

Understanding the needs of the target audience

For a message to resonate, it must address the expectations and concerns of the audience. This requires a prior analysis of the needs, issues and aspirations of the people you are trying to reach.

Avoiding the "parrot effect

To make things easier for ambassadors, some companies offer prepared, adaptable and modular content. This content can include visuals, infographics, articles or even templates for writing posts. This approach avoids the "parrot effect", guarantees the authenticity of the messages, and reinforces the impact by promoting employees as actors rather than simply relays of corporate communications.

Encouraging the creation of unique content

Although prepared content is useful, the most impactful publications come directly from employees. By sharing personal anecdotes or professional experiences, they bring an authenticity that captures attention, while reinforcing their reputation and the company's objectives.

Aligning content and strategy

The content shared by ambassadors must be aligned with the company's overall strategy, while remaining authentic and diverse.

Diversifying formats and themes

Encourage your ambassadors to exploit the various formats offered by social networks: photos, carousels, short videos, polls and quizzes, to capture attention and stimulate engagement.

A reminder of the importance of interaction

Ambassadors need to do more than simply share content by actively animating their network. Encourage them to react to interactions on their publications.

Examples of 3 typical posts

Tools to facilitate the programme

The management of an employee advocacy programme can be facilitated by dedicated tools that simplify the organisation, distribution and monitoring of content. Although not essential, these solutions are useful in large companies to optimise coordination and improve the effectiveness of the programme.

Examples of professional platforms

Sociabble, Sprinklr, Limber, Hootsuite, Amplify

These platforms allow you not only to make content available to your ambassadors, but also to measure the impact and engagement generated.

Benefits

These tools offer features for measuring the impact of the programme via precise performance indicators (KPIs): number of publications shared, engagement generated (likes, comments, shares), web traffic redirected.

Limits

Cost Some solutions can represent a significant investment, which can be an obstacle for small organisations.

Risk of excessive automation Automation: while these tools make for greater efficiency, they should not replace the human aspect of the messages shared. Too much automation, by distributing content via ambassador profiles without any input from them, runs the risk of dehumanising publications and losing the authenticity we're looking for.

The tools are ways of simplifying and optimising the management of an employee advocacy programme.

Evaluating the impact of your programme

An employee advocacy programme can only improve if it is analysed and adjusted on an ongoing basis. Measuring the impact makes it possible to check whether the initial objectives have been achieved, to optimise strategies and to maintain the commitment of ambassadors over the long term.

Define KPIs tailored to objectives

Analysing performance with dedicated tools

Professional employee advocacy tools include analysis modules that allow you to monitor the impact of ambassadors' publications. In the absence of a professional solution, KPI analysis should be limited to a few indicators to reduce the workload. Involve the ambassadors in collecting the results of their own activity.

Involving ambassadors

To reinforce their commitment to the programme, it is a good idea to share the results achieved with the ambassadors themselves. For example, regular meetings or internal newsletters can include key statistics and case studies illustrating the success of certain initiatives. This enhances their efforts and motivates them to continue their involvement.

Adjust strategies according to results

Performance analysis must be followed by strategic adjustments.

For example:

Going beyond the numbers: measuring quality

While quantitative KPIs are useful, they are not sufficient to reflect the real impact of the programme. The quality of interactions is an important indicator:

• Do the comments reveal a genuine interest in the company or its products?
• Do the ambassadors' publications generate enriching discussions or positive feedback?

Create a continuous feedback loop

Establish an ongoing feedback process between the various programme stakeholders (managers, ambassadors, communications teams, etc.), in order to resolve any problems identified and respond to emerging needs.

Rewarding the commitment of ambassadors: rewarding involvement

The sustainability of an employee advocacy programme depends largely on the motivation of its ambassadors. It is therefore essential to reward their involvement on a regular basis. Rewards, whether formal or informal, not only help to retain participants, but also to maintain a high level of commitment. However, this recognition needs to be carefully measured to avoid abuses or misunderstandings.

Formal or informal recognition

There are several ways of thanking ambassadors for their involvement. The forms of recognition can be adapted to the company's culture and employees' expectations:

• Informal recognition A simple thank you at a team meeting or a personal message praising their efforts can be enough to boost commitment.
• Formal recognition This can include certificates, badges, mentions in newsletters or on internal communication channels.

Avoiding the excesses of pay programmes

Employee advocacy is based on voluntarism and personal conviction, not on material rewards. An incentive-based approach distorts the results by favouring quantity over quality, and participation disappears as soon as the rewards stop.

Gamification as a motivational tool?

Some tools incorporate gamification features, such as rankings or competitions, to stimulate the commitment of ambassadors. However, by focusing on quantitative criteria, these initiatives run the risk of favouring those who are most active to the detriment of those who focus on quality, which can demotivate some of the participants.

Maintaining balance

Valuing individual efforts while organising collective rewards, such as internal events celebrating the programme's successes, strengthens both team cohesion and the sense of belonging.

A well-structured employee advocacy programme represents a strategic opportunity for companies of all sizes. By promoting the authentic voice of your employees, you strengthen your brand's credibility, increase your visibility and forge stronger links with your audiences. However, the key to success lies in rigorous preparation: setting clear objectives, appropriate training, ongoing support and measuring results. Training Employee advocacy: the essentials for turning employees into ambassadorscan help you to be well prepared.

Participants speak out:

"Very interesting input on approaches that can be implemented in all types of organisation. A constructive exchange of ideas with the other participants. The trainer had a good grasp of his subject and ran the course smoothly.

"The trainer was a great facilitator. It's also nice to be able to talk to the other participants about their problems and fears when setting up a programme. The trainer kept things moving at a good pace, so there was never a dull moment.

"A very good speaker on the subject, and good dialogue on everyone's experiences. The fact that we were in small groups also enabled us to explore each of our situations in detail. The trainer mastered his subject and listened to our expectations and feedback."