.svg){kind=icon}
Did you know that having an employee advocacy program can increase the total social engagement for a brand by at least 25% to 40%?
Navigating the waters of LinkedIn, with its immense user base of 1 billion, can prove to be quite challenging. It's akin to being a small fish in a vast ocean.
Nevertheless, there is hope yet.
To advance toward your goals, you should improve interaction and garner attention on LinkedIn.
In this guide, we will thoroughly clarify the intricate details of LinkedIn Employee Advocacy, providing detailed suggestions for successfully implementing it on this tricky platform.
Let's dive right in!
What Is Employee Advocacy?
Employee Advocacy is a practice within a company that involves employees promoting, sharing, and discussing their company’s brand by creating content around it.
Nonetheless, while the definition may be simple, implementing Employee Advocacy is an entirely different story.
It becomes even more complex when you factor in LinkedIn's unique way of operating.
As LinkedIn features connecting with people and following others, a multitude of metrics determine the quality of your presence on the platform.
However, we will share some useful tips and tricks to assist you in planning LinkedIn Employee Advocacy from the ground up.
Why Should You Employ Employee Advocacy on LinkedIn?
If you are still unsure whether you want to embark on employee advocacy on LinkedIn, we advise you to take a look at the benefits:
Expand Brand Reach 🚀
When employees actively share your brand on their profiles, it can significantly boost brand awareness.
For example, in a survey of various companies, 79% reported experiencing greater online visibility following the establishment of a formal employee advocacy program.
Additionally, 65% noted an increase in brand recognition as a direct result of this initiative.
Increase Sales 🚀
Employee advocacy, regardless of your offering, plays a crucial role in building trust, and this trust can directly lead to increased sales.
IBM highlights that leads generated through social selling or employee advocacy are 7 times more likely to result in successful closures compared to other lead generation tactics.
Furthermore, sales representatives who incorporate social media into their sales strategies outperform 78% of their peers in terms of sales performance.
Attract Talents 🚀
Advocacy campaigns have the potential to draw high-quality individuals to your company. Statistical data indicates that businesses with effective employee advocacy programs are 58% more likely to attract top talent and also have a 20% higher likelihood of retaining such top-notch professionals.
Increase Organic Traffic 🚀
Natural engagement holds immense value as it brings about numerous advantages.
One significant benefit is that brand messages are shared a remarkable 24 times more frequently when they are distributed by employees through employee advocacy, compared to when the brand shares them directly.
Employees Become Thought Leaders 🚀
Advocacy has the potential to empower your team members, enabling them to advance and assume leadership roles within the organization.
After all, the utilization of social software by employees can lead to a notable productivity increase of 20-25%.
Additionally, employees who are more informed tend to outperform their peers by an impressive margin of 77%.
8 Tips to Maximize LinkedIn Employee Advocacy Campaign
Let’s take a closer look at how LinkedIn Employee Advocacy functions.
1. Create a Clear Goals for Your Strategy
Before you and your team embark on a campaign, it's best to have a well-crafted strategy and goals set.
Defining strategy and setting clear goals helps you keep your program on track and to know what to expect from the strategy.
Initially, you need to identify the target audience and main objectives.
Here is an example that can help you outline the basics of your audience and goals.
Your marketing team's goals might be building demand, reach, brand awareness, etc.
On the other hand, for your recruiting team, the goals will be to reduce the time to get candidates and hire new people, increase applications and quality of candidates, and so on.
It will all depend on the department in which you want to implement the Employee Advocacy Program.
You can further expand this in numerous directions, but these are some key topics you should consider when initiating your campaign.
2. Identify Your Key Players in Advocacy
To put it plainly, this involves discovering people in companies who are interested in advocacy and willing to jump into the process.
The first crucial step is to find individuals ready to take on the initial challenges, as with any new endeavor.
Here are some distinctive skills to seek in potential employees:
✅Proficient in Language
You need someone highly skilled in language, as your employees play a direct role in the success of your campaign.
They must present the company to the audience in a genuine and authentic manner.
Given that a significant portion of your content will be in written form, you need individuals capable of crafting concise and engaging sentences.
✅Experts in Related Professions
We're not suggesting that you exclusively need marketing experts to become your brand advocates.
Diversity is always beneficial for your campaign.
What we're emphasizing is that, initially, you need individuals who can adeptly represent themselves and their work.
This, in turn, can contribute to building greater brand trust.
✅Social Media Habits
An individual who is active and well-versed in social media will seamlessly initiate a campaign.
LinkedIn, being atypical, requires time to understand its algorithmic nuances.
Additionally, posts on the profiles of active users are more likely to reach a broader audience compared to posts on new and empty profiles.
Consider your employees, maybe a name jumps out at you.
3. Provide Your Employees With Content and Tools
If you want to achieve your LinkedIn Employee Advocacy goals, ensure your employees have the necessary tools and content.
Anything that aligns with your strategy can be beneficial.
For example, consider offering social media training to educate employees on algorithm functionality, optimal posting times, and the type of content to produce.
You can also show them some best practices on how to write their first post, what to have in mind, what to avoid, etc.
The more value you put on the table, the more benefit you’ll all have.
However, managing LinkedIn is often more efficient and effective with some support. Fortunately, numerous tools are available online today, such as AuthoredUp.
💡Pro Tip
If you need a tool to help you create unique content on LinkedIn, then AuthoredUp might be useful to you and your team.
As it seamlessly integrates with LinkedIn, there's no need to waste time switching between tabs. One noteworthy feature is the Drafts feature, allowing you to write and store drafts within the tool until you're ready to publish.
You can easily search and filter drafts by name for efficient management.
If you experience a burst of creativity, this is the ideal place to jot it all down.
4. Encourage Employee Participation
Why would your employees work full-time with additional tasks on their plate?
If this question seems unanswerable to you, then it is probably a lack of proper motivation.
So how do you prevent that and motivate your employees to participate?
The first step is to integrate all employee advocacy responsibilities within working hours. However, even the most capable employees may hesitate if they fear the unknown.
Here are some ways you can consider to encourage them:
- Monthly bonuses.
- Incentives such as gift cards or promotions for trips.
- Recognition in various forms.
Certainly, you want them to engage in advocacy authentically.
In your training, include knowledge about the specific benefits of advocacy for them, such as:
- Fostering the development of their professional reputation.
- Developing leadership skills.
- Increasing job satisfaction.
- Boosting employee engagement.
Presenting your plan in this manner can build an entire team dedicated to the employee advocacy plan in the near future.
5. Decide Which Metrics You’ll Monitor
Did you know that employee advocacy increases brand awareness by 24% on LinkedIn?
You need to track several LinkedIn metrics to understand what is working and what's not, so you can adjust your plan according to the results.
However, you should be aware of all your metrics before you begin to ensure precision and monitor progress over time.
For example:
- Engagement rates
- Number of followers and connections
- Website Traffic
While significant results may not be immediate, diligently tracking your numbers will reveal how soon the LinkedIn algorithm starts working in your favor.
💡Pro Tip
AuthoredUp comes equipped with an Analytics feature that tallies metrics as you effortlessly scroll through your posts.
It provides comparative analytics, allowing you to quickly discern in numbers and understand which of your posts generate the best results and why with just a few clicks.
6. Prepare Your LinkedIn Profile for Effective Advocacy
Employee advocacy and LinkedIn go hand in hand.
The amount of followers and connections you have is significant, and it also influences whose feed you appear in.
Still, making the most of advocacy activities requires an understanding of the algorithm.
Businesses may increase exposure and engagement by carefully customizing content and recognizing what performs in their case.
Furthermore, organizations have the capacity to flourish and adapt from such knowledge.
✅Warm Up
To establish your presence on LinkedIn efficiently, initiate engagement by reposting and commenting on others' posts before your team starts posting.
Warming up the algorithm in this manner is effective.
✅Optimize Your Profile
Building trust requires a complete profile encompassing a profile picture, cover photo, a comprehensive description, and relevant experiences.
You can take a look at the example attached to see what a complete profile looks like.
✅Comment On Posts
Broadening your audience and expanding your profile visibility involves connecting with others. Share your insights by commenting on others' posts with inspiring and authentic replies.
This boosts the level of engagement while additionally pointing viewers to your profile.
7. Craft Good Content Strategy
The core of the LinkedIn employee advocacy strategy revolves around posting content.
It's best to prepare content in bulk before launching your initial campaign.
If your team includes marketers or someone skilled in content creation, we recommend you focus on posting more carousels and videos, as LinkedIn currently favors this content type.
The team should decide on the type of post and when to publish for a diverse content strategy. Sharing content in various forms, especially articles, can help you expand your audience.
Keep in mind that not every type of content resonates with everyone, so be careful when choosing the type of content.
💡Pro Tip
AuthoredUp’s scheduling feature can be highly beneficial for your content strategy.
How?
Instead of posting each piece individually, you can prepare and schedule multiple posts in advance while eliminating the need to worry about them later.
Simply write your post, click on the Clock icon, and choose your preferred time and date.
8. Stay Consistent and Adapt Your Strategy Over Time
Consistency holds the key on LinkedIn.
To grab people's attention and make your brand known, you need to frequently appear in their feeds.
Compelling content will prompt them to check your profile for new posts.
Keep in mind to regularly monitor performance to identify areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments.
As you determine the right rhythm for your team, having enough brand advocates can result in posting new content almost every working day or perhaps even twice a day.
Wrapping Up
This journey has indeed been quite something, hasn't it?
Overall, LinkedIn employee advocacy involves focusing on small yet well-prepared actions.
To kickstart the process, you need a team that is in focus and shares common goals. Achievement hinges on thorough preparation and a carefully crafted strategy, enabling you to make adjustments as the process unfolds.
What if conducting employee advocacy could be more straightforward?
Meet AuthoredUp!
Why Is AuthoredUp Convenient for Employee Advocacy?
AuthoredUp is not just tailored for copywriters—it's a platform designed for everyone.
Whether you're an employee advocate or a content creator, AuthoredUp eliminates any apprehension and streamlines the content creation process right within LinkedIn.
With a wealth of tools at your disposal, including:
🖥️ Preview Your Post - Ensure seamless presentation by checking how your content will appear on various devices when posted.
📝 Enhanced Text Editing - Infuse creativity into your posts with advanced formatting options such as bold, italics, and bullet points, enhancing the visual appeal of your content.
🎣 Hooks & CTA Library - Discover a collection of over 200 hooks and 100 CTA templates in English, Dutch, and German to infuse uniqueness and allure into your LinkedIn posts.
🔖 Snippet Vault - Effortlessly store and apply hashtags and signatures at the end of your posts with a simple click, eliminating the need to write them every single time.
📖 Readability Score - Evaluate the readability of your content to guarantee it is engaging and easily comprehensible for your audience.
Furthermore, AuthoredUp facilitates result tracking and strategy refinement for all users, offering team analytics to help you gauge the impact of your advocacy efforts and make data-driven improvements.
It's a convenient and user-friendly solution that comes as both a Chrome Extension and a regular app.
This enables you to use all features from one location so you don't have to waste time switching between tabs.
Sounds intriguing?
Sign up today and revolutionize the way you shape your employee advocacy strategy forever!
.svg){kind=icon}
.svg){kind=icon}
