Need Social Media Influencers to Promote Your Brand? Look No Further Than Your Employees.

Apr 17

Employees represent a powerful network of brand advocates that can help an organization spread its message, increase visibility, and attract more customers.

Your company may have a legion of brand fans and social influencers ready to help you promote your organization. They know, like, and trust you. They are familiar with what you do and why you’re different. And they have a strong incentive to see your company succeed.

They are your employees.

Employees represent a powerful network of brand advocates that can help an organization spread its message, increase visibility, and attract more customers.

Let’s look at how you can turn your employees into social influencers for your brand through employee-generated content.

What Is Employee-Generated Content?

Employee-generated content (EGC) is content created or shared by employees to highlight their company, expertise, and work life. Unlike branded content, it has a more natural and authentic tone as it represents an employee’s insights and experience from a personal point-of-view.

While it can come in many forms, the most common formats for employee-generated content include:

Social media posts
Blog posts and articles
Video testimonials
Behind-the-scenes content
Case studies and customer wins
Comments and social media engagement

LinkedIn is the ideal platform for EGC. Employees are usually open to using their LinkedIn profile to share work-related content, and LinkedIn is where content is most likely to get in front of ideal audiences, especially for B2B brands.

The Benefits of Employee-Generated Content

Employee-generated content gives your team an opportunity to boost their visibility and authority while also helping your brand get in front of new audiences. Here are a few reasons why it’s a win-win.

Builds a Personal Brand for Employees: Sharing insights and expertise helps employees position themselves as knowledgeable professionals in their field.
Builds Trust for the Company: Content shared by employees feels more authentic, personal, and relatable. It helps audiences form a more genuine connection with your brand.
Improves Engagement Rates: Audiences are more likely to engage with content shared by real people rather than corporate accounts.
Extends Reach and Visibility: When employees share branded content, they amplify your message to networks you might not otherwise have access to.
Enhances Employer Branding: EGC gives a behind-the-scenes look at your company culture, making your organization more attractive to potential hires.
Is Cost-Effective: It’s free for employees to share content through their channels.
Increases Sales Opportunities: When employees post about your company’s wins or services, it builds credibility that can influence purchasing decisions.

How to Get Your Team Engaged with an EGC Program

An employee-generated content strategy only works with the help of your team. You need to get your team on board and actively engaged with your program for it to succeed. A quick audit of team members who already share your posts or engage with brand posts are primed to get on board. Here are a few ways to get buy-in and engagement from your employees.

1. Explain Why It Matters

Your team will be more likely to participate if they understand what’s in it for the organization — and for them. When you introduce the program, explain the benefits for both your company and the individual employee.

2. Provide Training

Don’t expect teams to be social influencers and content creators on their own, though you may be surprised by those who naturally are. Educate them on best practices for creating employee-generated content. Host a training session and/or create documentation on the following topics.

Brand Guidelines: Outline brand tone, voice, and key messaging. Define personas and visual guidelines. Include dos and don’ts when sharing branded content.
Hashtags: List any branded hashtags to use. Give guidelines on hashtag best practices for each social platform.
Tagging: Encourage teams to tag your company when posting branded content.
Profile Optimization: Help teams optimize their profile to reflect their expertise and role with your organization.
Brand Engagement: Teach teams how to reshare content from your company page with a personal note or insight.
Platforms: Guide teams toward the platforms best for boosting content in your industry. (LinkedIn is usually the best platform.)
Tools: Introduce teams to tools that help with content creation, such as Chat-GPT, Canva, and social schedulers.
AI Content Guidelines: Train teams on AI best practices so posts don’t end up sounding generic or including misinformation.

3. Provide Prompts

A common problem employees encounter while creating EGC is not knowing what to post. They get stumped on what to share and say. Help employees through this hurdle by providing prompts and ideas for content.

Company Posts: What has the company shared that you can comment on or reshare with your network?
Value and Insights: Do you have a hot take on industry news? What’s a new trend you’re seeing? What’s your perspective?
Industry Events: Are you participating in any in-person or virtual events? What are they? How are you participating?
Success Stories: Do you have any client success stories? Share a few details about the client, problem, solution, and results.
Employee Features: Has anyone on your team celebrated a milestone or win?
Personal Highlights: Do you have any relevant personal highlights? A big trip? Work milestone? Community or charity work? Special family event?

4. Provide Templates (and Content)

To gain employee buy-in, make it as easy as possible for your team to create consistent content. Give them short-cut resources so posting takes less time and effort.

Provide scripts and templates. Give your team a starting point for copy and captions by providing customizable scripts and templates that they can easily update and personalize.
Create branded graphic templates. Build editable Canva templates that your team can easily adjust by editing the copy and images.
Create drafts written for your team. Take it one step further and provide custom posts for team members so they simply need to copy and paste.

5. Provide Incentives

If you want your team to get engaged (and excited) about your EGC program, reward them for participating. Offer incentives to encourage team members to create and share. You could:

Keep a team leaderboard that tracks the number of posts and engagement.
Give work-related perks such as an extra hour of PTO or chance to win a day off.
Offer fun gifts of gratitude and recognition such as branded swag, free lunch, gift cards, and prizes.

Brands often pay outside influencers to post about their brand, so bring the bucks back to your team. Take some of your budget and use it to reward and pay your employees for using their platforms to promote your brand.

Start Leveraging Employee-Generated Content

If you are looking to boost brand affinity, visibility, and sales, look no further than your team members.

Your employees are a powerful group of influential brand fans who want to help your organization succeed. Tap into their power. Develop an employee-generated content program to create a new channel for highlighting your brand and team members.

Use the tips in this post to develop an employee-generated content program that benefits both your employees and your organization. If you need help, SpotOn is here. Talk to us about how we can structure an EGC plan for your organization. Contact us today.

Robyn Spoto