Employee Advocacy: Strategies to boost employee participation

It is no secret that your employees are you most valuable asset, but do they know that? As the lines between professional and personal life become even blurrier with each passing day — thanks in large part to social media — it is crucial to your business’s success to harness the power and knowledge of your happy employees. Here are some ideas to get them more involved in the process.

1. Encourage your employees to own your company. Employees who feel like they are part of the success of a business are more likely to engage in positive social media interactions about that company. Position your employees as thought leaders within your business as well as the industry.

2. Trust your employees. When you use your employees to engage on social media platforms about your business, you are handing over a certain amount of trust to them. While that can be difficult to do — and, yes, sometimes it does backfire — because they are your employees, encouraging them to be advocates for your brand brings an increase in respectability as well as trust from those who are reading their postings.

3. Allow employees to have free reign. When people post about a company, it has a different feel than when the owners do so. There is a more intimate feeling involved when one of your employees posts to their friend’s timeline, for example, about how her employer — your business — offers the exact services he finds himself in need of. This casual and friendly interaction helps your business name and brand reach a larger audience, a methodology that has proven to increase sales and profits.