Enter The Employee Advocacy In Social Media Movement It all started when social media began to become a mainstream communications channel used by nearly 90% of American companies with more than 100 employees:
People aren’t using social media to be marketed to, and social media as a communications channel is inherently two-way. In parallel with more departments utilizing social media to help them meet varying objectives, more and more of the general public are becoming social media users themselves. This includes your employees.
A more recent survey indicates that number might be as high as 97%. That outward-facing communication, however, has consequences in social media. People aren't using social media to be marketed to, and social media as a communications channel is inherently twoway. As brands begin to market to people, people begin to engage back, for better or for worse. It is now common for many consumer-facing brands, to have a dedicated customer service channel for social media for this reason. On the other hand, recruiters can gain visibility into potential candidates through social media, and that same visibility can also be leveraged by the sales department; thus, the birth of social recruiting and social selling initiatives. Slowly every corporate department is becoming a stakeholder in a company's social media program. 14
Social media marketers have now realized this huge potential: In addition to owned, earned, and paid media, the potential for your employees to share your messaging has seen the emergence of a new fourth type of media called Employed Media. Considering that there is surprisingly little overlap between the social networks of employees and those of the brand, as well as data that supports the view that employees are trusted more than CEOs, you can see the huge potential that an employee advocacy program can have in spreading a brand's message in social media. This is why I like to think of employee advocacy as being the final frontier for social media marketing. How does a company actually create an employee advocacy program? Technology has kept pace with the evolution of social business, and now a number of software platforms have emerged to support enterprise-wise employee advocacy efforts. Finally, through the advent of social media becoming mainstream and the potential inherent in an employee advocacy program, every employee really can be a salesperson now.
The Problem There's a big problem, though: Just like any other company-wide initiative, the true success of employee advocacy programs
Building Your Business From The Brand Up