How to plan and execute a successful employee advocacy program

An employee advocacy program is one of the most powerful strategies in modern B2B marketing. Employees actively sharing branded content on their personal networks amplifies your company’s reach, engagement, and credibility. According to research, brand messages shared by employees generate 24x more reshares than those shared by the Brand itself.

For social media managers, building a successful employee advocacy program is both an exciting opportunity and a significant challenge. You must carefully plan several steps, from choosing the right advocates to curating shareable content. 

Follow this outline to develop an employee advocacy program that drives measurable results and energizes your team.

Choosing the right advocates to start the program

Building an impactful employee advocacy program starts with identifying the right participants. Selecting genuinely enthusiastic advocates for your brand can set the foundation for a successful program.

1. 1. Who makes an ideal advocate?
      

       Look for employees who are already active on social media and have strong personal brands. They should also have a passion for the company’s mission and excellent communication skills.

   2. Connect company social pages with potential Advocates
      Invite team members who are potential advocates to follow your company pages on social media and connect to them on social media.

   3. Start small to refine the program
      

      Begin with a pilot group of advocates from marketing, sales, and customer success departments. This diversity ensures multiple perspectives and allows you to adjust your strategy based on early feedback.

   4. Incentivize participation
      

      Emphasize the benefits of advocacy for employees’ personal brands and career growth. Advocating for the company helps them position themselves as thought leaders and begin their social selling training.

Choosing the right content to provide advocates

To keep your employee advocacy program running smoothly, you must provide your team with high-quality, relevant, and engaging content. The easier it is for employees to find and share content, the more likely they are to participate.

1. What content can you provide for employees to share?
   

   • Industry insights: Thought leadership articles, whitepapers, and trends to position the brand and the advocate as experts.
   • Brand news: Provide updates on product launches, events, or company milestones.
   • Authentic stories: Include employee-generated content, personal experiences, and behind-the-scenes insights that humanize the brand.
     

2. Content guidelines for advocates
   

   • Maintain a balance between informative and promotional content. A good rule of thumb is 80% value-driven content and 20% brand promotion.
   • Offer a variety of formats, such as videos, infographics, blog links, and short-form LinkedIn posts, to keep content fresh and engaging.
     

3. Create a centralized content hub.

   Use tools like Oktopost to build a centralized content library where employees can easily access and share pre-approved content.

Choosing the best social media platforms for B2B

A successful employee advocacy program focuses on the platforms most relevant to your audience and industry. Make sure to highlight platforms where your brand pages are active and not where your brand is not active. Here’s where your efforts should be concentrated:

1. LinkedIn: The top platform for B2B marketing. It’s ideal for sharing thought leadership, engaging with industry peers, and amplifying professional content. It will be a significant tool for sparking conversations with advocate contacts.
2. X (Twitter): Great for sharing timely updates, industry news, and participating in trending conversations.
3. Facebook: While less common for B2B, if your company page is active on social media, you can also find active advocates there. You can showcase your company culture and employer brand.
4. Niche platforms: Depending on your industry, platforms like Reddit or specialized forums might also be valuable for engagement.

Encourage employees to focus on platforms where they are most comfortable and have the strongest networks.

Connecting brand social content and advocates social content

One of the keys to a successful employee advocacy program is ensuring alignment between your brand’s voice and the content advocates share. At the same time, posts should feel authentic to employees’ personal presence.

1. Establish brand alignment

   Provide social media guidelines that explain the tone, voice, and messaging employees should aim for. Clarity ensures consistency without restricting authenticity.
   

2. Encourage personalization

   Advocates should tailor posts to their unique voices. For example, a sales executive might focus on content relevant to prospective clients, while scientists might share articles with new lab equipment or research results that interest them.
   

3. Empower and train with examples.

   Share examples of successful posts from other employees to showcase impact, teach the metrics and how to identify a good post, and ensure a professional tone.

Teaching employees how to edit, write, and share posts

Not all employees are social media natives, so training is essential to ensure they feel confident participating in your employee advocacy program.

1. Offer hands-on workshops

   Provide sessions to teach employees the basics of creating compelling social media posts, such as writing attention-grabbing headlines, using relevant hashtags, and tagging the right people. Once they feel comfortable, they will do it more often.
   

2. Writing tips for success
   

   • Keep posts concise and to the point.
   • Try to connect personally with the audience – don’t write like a marketer if you are not a marketer 🙂 
   • Add questions and ask for comments to prompt engagement.
     

3. Incorporate visuals

   Help employees use images, GIFs, or short videos to make their posts more engaging and visually appealing.

Using AI tools to help employees craft messages

AI tools can simplify creating and personalizing posts, making it easier for employees to participate in your employee advocacy program.

1. Generate ideas

   Use tools to help employees brainstorm, post ideas, or create captions.

2. Personalize at scale

   AI can suggest ways to tailor content for specific audiences while keeping it aligned with brand messaging. It helps to have AI editors included in your advocacy platform.

3. Save time

   Highlight how AI-powered tools can free up employees’ time, enabling them to focus on strategic engagement. Take away the fear factor.

Launching the program with fun and engagement

A memorable launch can energize your team and generate excitement for the employee advocacy program.

1. Interactive events

   Kick things off with a fun event featuring giveaways, challenges, or live demos of the program.
   

2. Gamify the experience

   Introduce leaderboards, rewards, or friendly competitions to keep employees engaged over the long term. Never launch your program at the end of the year when everyone is trying to meet their goals and go off on holiday vacations.
   

3. Foster collaboration

   Create internal Slack channels or groups where employees can share tips, celebrate wins, and collaborate.
   

4. Share results

   Send out reports with information about successful posts, the impact of social activity on sales, and what the leading advocates are doing to succeed.  Reward engagement with posts and reward sales impact engagement.

Setting goals and measuring impact

To succeed, you must define goals and measure progress for your employee advocacy program.

1. Key performance indicators (KPIs)
   

   • Social metrics: Impressions, Reach, Engagement, Shares.
   • Business outcomes: Website traffic, leads, and conversions.
     

2. Leverage analytics tools

   Platforms like Oktopost allow you to track individual and program-wide performance in real time.

3. Iterate and improve

   Use data insights to refine your strategy and improve advocate participation.

Choosing a tool like Oktopost to manage and support advocates

A tool like Oktopost can streamline your employee advocacy program by providing everything you need to manage, measure, and support your advocates.

1. Centralized content hub: Provide advocates with easy access to approved content.
2. Performance tracking: Monitor individual and collective results to assess ROI.
3. User-friendly interface: Simplify the process for employees, ensuring higher participation rates.

A well-executed employee advocacy program can transform your brand’s social media strategy, amplifying your reach, engagement, and credibility. By choosing the right advocates, curating impactful content, leveraging tools like Oktopost, and measuring results, you can empower your team to become your most valuable brand ambassadors.

Ready to take your advocacy efforts to the next level? Try Oktopost to simplify program management and maximize your impact!