Are Your Employees the Best Brand Ambassadors?

Your company’s brand image depends mainly on client satisfaction. However, we often forget how important employees are in creating and reinforcing the employer brand. They can become an excellent tool for building your reputation with a wide audience. The best way to go about it? An employee advocacy policy based on rewarding your employees and helping them feel fulfilled at work, turning them into the best ambassadors for your brand.

Ensure Employee Satisfaction Every Day

Every good employer should have a good brand ambassador! You should adopt this slogan if you want to run a successful employee advocacy programme. An employee who is happy at work and respects the company they work for will send out a positive image of their employer to their friends and followers. And it’s well known that word-of-mouth establishes a good reputation faster and more efficiently than targeted advertising.

It’s up to you to take advantage of the notoriety that your employees bring you by providing them with a fulfilling work experience at your company. Your challenge is to ensure their loyalty by meeting their needs, just as you do with your clients. Provide them with a quality employee experience, including access to a variety of career paths. By helping them advance in their careers, you reward them with both skills and self-confidence.

Work environment and conditions are also a tool you can use to motivate your employees and make them happy. Besides a welcoming, equipped office space, you can add relaxation zones with foosball, a ping-pong table or game consoles, for example. Keep morale up with creative workshops, workouts, happy hour or company trips that bring employees closer together and reinforce team spirit. You can help them find a good work-life balance with flexible hours and scheduling that adapts to their obligations. Adjusted hours or home office days are easy to put in place and encourage employee satisfaction. Add to this flexibility a benefits system that is fully invested in your employees’ needs and you will have created some excellent brand ambassadors! Between social benefits, low-cost services and discounts on everyday products, you will definitely make them want to brag about what makes your company special.

Surround Yourself with a Team of Motivated Influencers

Did you know that an employee advocacy initiative can improve your brand visibility fourteen-fold, according to Sociallymap? This fact should encourage any employees not aware of this marketing advantage to adopt it as a strategy. All it takes is a few easy tips to transform your employees into brand ambassadors.

a) Select the Most Active Employees
First, analyse your human resources and pick out the employees that have the most influence on social media. How many followers, likes and posts they have are an easy way to identify their audience potential and how likely they are to diffuse your e-reputation on the Web.

b) Choose Multiple Channels
You can improve your employer brand’s aura by varying means of communication. Social media like LinkedIn and Twitter provide real visibility through employees’ personal accounts. But you can also create your own blog or company page on Facebook where employees can share their comments and react to your publications. Some employers set an editorial line for influencers, focusing on company news and innovations in the field. The goal is not to overdo the comments, keeping employee contributions authentic.

c) Motivate Your Micro-Influencers
Your brand ambassadors will be more likely to promote your company if you motivate them to get involved. Encourage them to contribute on social media or your website with online games or seminars. Swisscom, for example, rewards its most active influencers with points that they can trade in for vouchers or gifts.