5 key stats that prove Employee Advocacy is crucial in today’s digital world

Every business is going digital today and the impact of social media in trusting and recommending brands has become the need of the hour. Advocacy marketing has become a new buzzword and has strategic business potential in today’s digital world. It harnesses the power of employees, customers and partners by empowering them to be trusted advocates to boost your brand’s social reach.

Many organizations have not tapped one of their key marketing assets – engaged employees to build employer brand. So, what is employee advocacy? Empowering your employees to become trusted brand advocates by means of sharing brand content across their social media platforms. In my opinion, it’s a new way of marketing. I prefer to call it as:

• Future of marketing
• Next-gen word of mouth marketing
• Recommendation Marketing
• Participation Marketing
• Endorsed Marketing
• Digital word of mouth marketing and the list goes on and on…..

Today’s business reality is that employees are still untapped resources to extend social reach of company’s brand. Here are 5 key stats that prove Employee Advocacy is crucial in today’s digital world:

1. Content shared by employees receives 8X more engagement than content shared by brand channels (Source: Social Media Today).

Many organizations are missing an opportunity to tap its key marketing assets today i.e. your engaged and happy employees. Implementing a successful employee advocacy program helps your organization to generate more social engagement and amplify branded content in their personal social media channels as compared to brand’s social channels.

2. 84% of consumers’ value recommendations from friends and family above all forms of advertising – and additionally, 77% of consumers are likely to make a purchase after hearing about it from someone they trust (Source: Nielsen).

Trust has become a new marketing currency in today’s digital world. People only trust friends, peers and family. An effective employee advocacy program enables you to leverage a digital word of mouth marketing by transforming your employees into trusted brand advocates. If your employee brand advocates share your content, they give a human touch to your brand.

3. 98% of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50% are already posting about their company (Source: Weber Shandwick).

The rise of social media opens up a new world of advocacy opportunities today. Employees are untapped marketing resources in an organization so implementing an employee advocacy programs empower your employees to become the marketing engine of the future for your business. Start leveraging your important spokesperson of your company to boost your brands’ social reach in real-time.

4. Referrals are one of the top sources of external hires, according to CareerXRoads, and employee advocates are perfect referrers. A recruitment campaign driven entirely by advocacy can have an on-cost that’s close to zero (Source: Social Media Today).

Employee engagement is a big problem in today’s complex business environment. HR plays a pivotal role in enabling employees with right tools to transform them into trusted brand advocates. An effective employee advocacy program boosts your employee engagement and also social recruitment. Unleash the power of employee advocates to step-up your social recruiting efforts.

5. Leads developed through employee social marketing convert 7x more frequently than other leads (Source: IBM).

Start encouraging your employee advocates to generate and nurture leads through social media using an effective employee advocacy program. So, train them how to use social media and advocacy to bring more qualified leads to your business.

In a nutshell, the above stats indicate the importance of employee advocacy programs to increase employee engagement, organic web traffic, content amplification and qualified leads. It’s a cost-effective as well as a new marketing channel to tap a key marketing asset in your organization – Employee Brand Advocates!