The Biggest Trends in Employee Advocacy in the next three years
Employee advocacy has become a buzzword over the last few years, and for good reason. With businesses taking to social media to market directly to their target audience, customers as a response have become warier of brands and how they operate online.
In today’s interconnected professional world, employees are becoming corporate influencers. And influencer marketing is on the rise. With an estimated 63% of companies looking to increase their influencer marketing budget over the next 12 months, employee ambassadors offer a lower-cost solution – and one that has the potential to be even more influential than paying for the hottest voice on Instagram.
But, as we all know, technology and social trends are changing as fast as we can write about them. We’re all looking to buck the trend and hop aboard the next big thing, but how do you know what that next big thing is?
Well, that’s what we’re going to be talking about today.
Social Advocacy on Instagram
If you have a younger workforce, there’s a good chance that your employees will already be creating Instagram content at work. Whether they’re snapping a picture of their lunch, taking a sneaky bathroom selfie, or sharing pictures from a recent corporate event, they’re already talking about their work online.
While brands have already started paying attention to how they drive engagement on Instagram, there are a few brands that are changing the game in how they present their employee advocates. Companies like Starbucks, Reebok, and Adobe are changing the game, and we think we’ll see a lot more companies follow in their footsteps.
The biggest problem that employee advocates are going to face in the next three years is the rise of AI-powered “virtual influencers”. While these technologies are in their infancy now, the next few years will see the machine learning behind these artificial influencers improve to the point where customers begin to distrust whether the brand advocate they’re watching is real.
With this in mind, here’s how we’re expecting employee advocacy Instagram trends to change over the next three years.
Photo by Daniel Korpai on Unsplash
Employee Ambassador Takeovers
Over the next few years, we’re expecting to see more brands doing employee takeovers on Instagram Stories show what life is like within the company. It allows your employees to share what they love about the company, their favorite products, or answer questions that customers commonly ask.
With many employees currently working remotely due to COVID-19, this presents a great opportunity for employee ambassadors to take over a brand’s Instagram Stories, particularly if they would normally work in an office that handles a lot of controlled information.
Employee Interviews on Instagram Live
Instagram’s Live feature is one that is often underutilized by businesses but offers a great opportunity for brand advocacy. The next few years will see companies put this feature to good use by interviewing employee advocates during their working day. This is a fantastic opportunity for companies to show what life is like “behind the curtain” and to help their customers understand what goes into making their favorite products.
It’s also a great way for brands to build trust with their customers. With evidence that suggests that customers referred by employee advocates spend an average of 37% more with the brand, it just goes to show that building a human connection between employees and customers can boost engagement and sales.
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Hashtags for Brand Advocacy
Custom hashtags for employees will be used more often in the next three years. Some of the largest companies on the market – think Reebok and Microsoft – have already seen success with employee hashtags, as it’s estimated that engagement on these posts is roughly 8x higher than a branded post.
The truth is that people trust recommendations from people that they know, but don’t trust recommendations from brands in the same way. So, when employees use their accounts to post about their work life, it can lead to better lead generation for your business and improve customer trust in your brand. Having a recognizable employee hashtag also leads to better brand awareness, and can show off the dedication and lifestyles of your employee influencers.
Personal vs Branded Accounts and the Instagram Algorithm
In recent years, Instagram has changed its algorithm so that posts from individuals are pushed further up on the timeline than those from branded accounts. While this can be great for users, for businesses it means the traditional way of delivering consistent content isn’t enough to be seen nowadays.
Asking your employee advocates to post to their accounts can help you bypass this problem, and in conjunction with employee hashtags, can even improve brand recognition amongst your target audience.
Internal Brand Advocacy Incentives
Trust works both ways, so it’s vital for your business that your employee advocates feel valued. After all, you don’t want a PR nightmare on your hands when one of your employee advocates quits on Instagram Live – or worse!
While some brands have been rewarding employees for their social advocacy for years, others are slow to catch up and have treated access to personal social media at work as reward enough.
However, as the older generations retire and Millennials/Gen Z take their place in the office, employers will need to adapt to this generational shift if they want to foster a force of engaged employee advocates. Research shows that Millennials are 22 times more likely to stay with an employer that cultivates an environment of trust, and the best way to do this for employee advocates is to recognize and reward brand advocacy.
Photo by Ekaterina Shevchenko on Unsplash
Rewarding Employee Advocacy
Employees deserve to receive recognition for all of their hard work and dedication to social advocacy, so within the next few years, we expect that brands will start offering rewards internally to keep their brand advocates motivated. Some of our favorite ideas include:
- Entering employee advocates into a monthly prize draw,
- Rewarding top-performing advocates with vouchers, free meals, or choosing the location of the next team building day,
- Holding a monthly awards ceremony for advocates who get the most shares, engagement, followers, etc. with small prizes.
Changing Job Titles
Employee advocacy can be a job in and of itself, so why not add it to your employee’s job title?
We all know that employees aren’t going to stick with one company forever, so this simple change to their job title can also show them that you care about their prospects. In the next three years, we’re expecting to see more brand advocates listing themselves as such on LinkedIn, and this can only help increase employee engagement in employee advocacy programs.
Training Employee Ambassadors
Another great incentive is offering employee advocates training in the areas of social media and content creation that inspire them the most. The next three years will see companies starting to take advantage of the creative talents of employee advocates by giving them the ability to create professional podcasts, YouTube videos, blog posts, and more.
Companies like Dell are already offering to train employees in social media guidelines and specific platforms. With a brand this large understanding the importance of employee knowledge in social media and content creation, we’re expecting more companies to get on board.
Enhanced Internal Networking
This one is the most likely to go unseen by your customers, but in the next three years, it’s going to become one of the most important ways that companies will keep their employee advocates engaged.
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While employee ambassadors can help your company to network externally, a solid employee advocacy program can help you to keep your employees motivated, foster a sense of community, and even improve your external messaging.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
Brand Advocacy Internal Events
We’re expecting to see a rise in glamorous, trendy events being held internally to create content for employee ambassadors to use. As customer trends are moving to favor brands that align with a customer’s lifestyle and morals, businesses that seem more human are going to see more engagement.
While employees are working remotely due to COVID-19, brands will start sharing screenshots and clips of internal networking video calls. These are likely to be informal events like pub quizzes, trivia nights, and online game sessions, as these types of calls are more likely to garner engagement on social media.
In the years to come, physical events like employee advocate lunches, office meets, and after-work socials are going to become more common. These will have branded hashtags and will be used both to reward employee advocates and share more content about the company’s internal culture and lifestyle.
Employee Advocacy In The Next Three Years – A Summary
In the next three years, we’re expecting to see brands hosting more physical and virtual events to show off the lifestyle and personality of the company. Brands will start to train their employee ambassadors in their chosen social media or content specialty and will give them more control over the content they create. There will be a greater emphasis on recognizing brand advocates, both internally and externally.
If you’re looking to get on board with these new trends before they become par for the course, DrumUp’s employee advocacy platform can help. Our platform makes it easy to share employee content internally and externally and ensures employee advocates always receive the latest company news. Plus, our in-built gamification settings help to keep your employee ambassadors engaged, allowing them to earn points for posting, sharing, and engaging with content.
Image Source: Unsplash
