We’ve witnessed the gap between employees and customers shrink in the advent of social media and greater online usage.There are so many ways to leverage the multi-directional nature of modern communication. When crafting your rock-solid marketing strategy,  consider how your employees can become your best advocates.

Make the most of your most avid supporters. Identify those employee social advocates and guide them through social media best practices. It's one of the best low-cost, high-return marketing strategies for your company.

92% of people trust people they know, but only 14% trust advertising.

This means that while traditional advertising avenues remain a worthy and effective component of your overall strategy, they shouldn't be the bread and butter. People sharing to other people, in other words "word of mouth marketing", can have an even greater impact upon a large audience.

It's time to figure out who these brand advocates are. Who are they?

Identify your employee brand advocates

“How likely are you to recommend our products or services to your friends and colleagues?”

This is a simple and direct question that will help you to identify your employee social brand advocates. They genuinely believe in your company’s values, missions and goals, while producing twice as much work than unengaged employees.

Depending on the size of your team, you can work with HR to create an internal survey or use social media monitoring tools to find out what your employees are already saying about your brand on social media. If their networks scream “I like you, I love you and I defend you”, you've found them.

Employee brand advocates approach their jobs as a long term commitment. They're loyal to the company. Money and external rewards are periphery motivations. Happiness and the sense of achievement and success are fuelling their passion and are helping the brand. 

Coca-Cola makes the most of its employee advocates on social media. They are always sharing favorable news on their personal social media accounts. This shows to their circle of influence that they genuinely like working there and they have a real passion for the brand. I would definitely trust my friend saying “Coca-Cola is good” over any paid actor on TV.

How do I manage my team of employee social media advocates?

Your average employee has over 250 followers on social media and spends over 7 hours a week on Facebook.

You might be wondering: How do I know they’re not just getting paid to talk with their friends on Facebook? Goal setting at the beginning is always best. Then, begin training them to master social brand sharing and they will multiply exposure and revenue growth.

• Knowledge is power

Educate your employees advocate on your company’s social media strategy. If you equip them with the most relevant content to share, they will better represent your brand online. For example, create a Tweet or LinkedIn update with the most relevant keywords and hashtags so they can share your content.

Provide them with early access to exclusive content — they’ll be excited to break the news even before the press!

• Make them feel special

Reaching out to individual employees with ideas for social media contributions will encourage active engagement with your company. 

For example, if an employee loves video content, let her create “how to” videos or whiteboard discussion videos on topics customers are talking about. Ask for their assistance in your social media marketing efforts. If someone asks about your competitor on Twitter, get your employees to answer the customer personally.

However, not all of your employee advocates are born with the knowledge and skills to be a social media master. Creating an employee advocacy program in your company will engage these individuals with the strategies for motivation, social media goals and performance, and best practices for sharing branded content.

IBM believes their employees are the biggest influencers for their brand, referring themselves as “IBMers”. Through the Redbooks Leadership Program, they take part in a one week social media residency with the commitment to blog for Redbooks in the future. This platform now has 2000+ blog posts from 500+ IBM thought leaders.

Report and incentivise your employee social advocacy

We all love to win and be recognised for it. Boost your employee performance by holding contests — who can get the more shares, who can close the most prospects from social or who can drive the most costumers into a marketing or sales funnel?

The rewards for “Social Media Advocate of the Month” can be anything from movie tickets and restaurant vouchers to a paid holiday on the employee’s birthday. Individual and best team rewards will promote positive competition and boost creativity.

For example, Cisco social media policy is based on “use your common sense, always be transparent and use the correct tone of voice”. Employees who actively contribute on social media are rewarded for it: they’re mentioned in the internal newsletter (big thing for such a huge company) and receive personal congratulations from the coordinating team.

Measure their performance, not their activity. Determine business outcomes and design your employee advocacy program to help achieve goals in their target audience. It's not the amount of work done or how much content they produce. Rather it's the audience they reach and engage with that matters.

Remember that 77% of customers are more likely to buy a product when is recommended by a trusted source.

Where to now?

Empowering employees to become brand advocates is one of the best ways to leverage the resources you have with the "word of mouth marketing" appraoch. To up your sales and brand advocate game, grab your free copy of the Ultimate Sales Playbook.