An effective employee advocacy program is guaranteed to bring you success, at least in the marketing and brand awareness departments. The thing is, even if you have a destined-to-be-successful employee advocacy plan on your hands, it won’t materialize without the support of your CXOs and folks in the management.
Securing management buy-in is arguably the most important step in the employee advocacy process. And it is no easy feat.
Even though most business leaders know the value of employee advocacy, they are not always open to allocating resources and time for a new program, that too a social media-related one. Social media carries the risk of accidentally leaking classified information, the repercussions if an unwanted post goes viral, and other such uncertainties.
But the stats speak for themselves: formal advocacy programs led to 79% of brands reporting increased visibility, and 65% reporting better brand recognition.
To get the ignition on for your employee advocacy program, you must power through these obstacles. In this post, we’ll tell you exactly how to do that and how you can get your management and leadership on board.
The Importance of Leadership Support
When senior leadership is supportive and directly involved in employee advocacy, it encourages and inspires participation across the company. With leadership support, the program is even made a part of company values and it motivates employees in the entire organizational ladder. Let’s look at the monumental role leadership plays:
- Encourages cultural integration
Employee advocacy programs thrive when they are made a part of company culture. Leadership must lead by example; a top-down approach means your employees will view advocacy as a natural part of their roles.
- Aids in resource allocation
Effective advocacy requires time, tools, and a budget. And it is important for leaders to allocate these resources. Leaders who believe in the idea of employee advocacy would be willing to invest in training programs, social media tools, and content creation resources.
- Drives employee engagement
Leaders who participate in advocacy programs witness higher levels of employee engagement. When employees see their leaders champion the program, they feel valued, engaged and driven to commit to company goals.
- Ensures alignment of goals
It is usually leadership and management who are tasked with aligning the advocacy program with the company’s strategic goals. They usually establish the objectives and the key performance indicators (KPIs) for the program.
Lauren Durfy from PostBeyond captures the need for leadership involvement in the employee advocacy process:
Employee advocacy programs that are fully supported by executive leadership (most notably CEOs and presidents) are far more successful than those where leadership is not fully onboard. Leaders who embrace this opportunity provide their organization with a way to come out ahead and secure a real, sustainable, competitive advantage.
Steps to Get Management Buy-In for Your Advocacy Program
First, you need to have a robust plan that elaborates how much employee advocacy will benefit the company’s bottom line. Once you have that in place, you can move forward:
Step 1: Educate the leaders on your program
Explain what employee advocacy actually is, and how it benefits the organizations. Use data and statistics to solidify your statements. Show them case studies of rival organizations that reaped the benefits of such programs by increasing revenue, reach, etc.
Your job in this step is to clearly convey the pros and cons of the advocacy program. You outline how employees can market your brand and act as ambassadors, and explain why your organization needs such a program.
Be clear about the requirements as well, be it financial, or in terms of employee engagement. Basically, the leadership should be educated thoroughly on the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’ of your advocacy program.
Pro tip: Put yourself in the shoes of the leadership, and make a convincing case for implementing advocacy programs. Be transparent about any possible downsides and potential pitfalls and prepare counterarguments in advance.
Step 2: Set achievable, measurable goals
Next, you need to define your goals clearly with methods to both track and document progress. Try relying on SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) goals.
Ask yourself: what is the end result I want from this program for my company? Is it greater brand awareness, increased website traffic, higher social media engagement, or maybe all of these?
Start from here, and set aside some measurable, generalized goals to launch the program internally in your company. It’s always a good idea to start from smaller goals and gradually move upwards.
Step 3: Revisit your social media policy
Before launching the advocacy program, you need to revisit, update and recirculate your social media policy. Doing so keeps your employees and company data safe from infringement issues, legal scuttles, and other such disputes.
This is also necessary to mitigate risks; when your executives and employees are guided properly, they will stay away from potential issues such as accidentally exposing sensitive data. This also habituates them to follow best practices while sharing on social platforms.
Step 4: Prepare an execution plan
The proof is in the pudding. After the revision of your social media policy, it’s time to put a training program in place to get the employee advocacy program going.
Keep in mind that not everyone in your company will have the same social media skills. Your task is to map out a plan to simultaneously train employees and generate support for your advocacy program.
You are bound to witness higher adoption rates when you teach your employees how their social media usage will help not only the organization but also their professional goals.
Alternatively, launch a pilot program to ensure a smooth, full-scale rollout, the results of which would be directly reported to leadership. Around 30% of your employees might already be acting as brand ambassadors. Leverage their enthusiasm in your program.
Pro tip: Running an employee advocacy program is no joke. However, the process becomes notably simpler with a tool like Highperformr. Highperformr is a comprehensive social media management platform, with a fully featured employee advocacy module built in.
Highperformr streamlines the process of creating and sharing brand content on social media– it enhances content distribution and visibility, amplifies brand reach, and even repurposes posts for different teams.
Step 5: Formally report the findings
After you’ve taken care of the groundwork, the final step is to make your advocacy program more concrete and prepare it for formal launch.
In this step, you need to lay out your social media strategy in front of executives and provide results from the internal testing conducted to support your strategy. Your strategy document must outline all the necessary rules, instructions, and internal codes, and highlight compliance with the law as well.
Finally, present software solutions like Highperformr to kickstart your employee advocacy program. The platform that you choose to present must be easy to adopt in your organization, intuitive to use, and should satisfy the needs of social media users. Highperformr fulfils all of these criteria and provides a capable, collaborative employee advocacy platform.
When you follow these steps without cutting corners, getting approval from leadership becomes significantly easier. With a convincing case and a focus on the profit it brings into your organization, you are bound to secure the initial buy-in and also ongoing support.
Put Your Employee Advocacy Plan Into Action Today
Well, now you know how to get your management and leadership to initiate your advocacy program. To reiterate, most of it boils how you present your advocacy program and forecast potential organizational growth owing to company-wide advocacy efforts.
Employee advocacy doesn't need to be difficult. Highperformr brings you a complete employee advocacy suite and provides your employees with the tools they need to become brand ambassadors without any ad spend. Highperformr also aids in content ideation, creation and publishing, basically taking care of your entire advocacy workflow.
Tap into the power of employee advocacy with Highperformr today.
