Module 3: Enhancing Touchpoints with Contagious Content and Community Conversation Unit 2: Creating Content That Spreads and Sticks
Using Employees as Brand Ambassadors
Greater social media reach and engagement
• 561% greater reach when messages are shared by employees rather than by the brand’s official social media channels (MSLGroup) • Content shared by employees receives 8X more engagement than content shared by brand channels. (Social Media Today) • Brand messages get 24X more exposure if they're shared by employees (MSLGroup)
More leads, higher conversion rates, increased sales and better customer retention
• Leads developed through employee social marketing convert 7x more frequently than other leads (Marketing Advisory Network) • 27% of high growth firms, those with revenue growth over 20%, reported employee advocacy programs as helping to shorten their sales cycle (PostBeyond)
Increased brand awareness and online presence
Most trusted and authentic spokesperson • 76% of consumers are more likely to trust the content shared by a brand’s employees than the brand itself (AdWeek) • An employee advocate is 2X more trusted than a CEO (Edelman Trust Barometer)
• 79% of firms surveyed reported more online visibility after the implementation of an employee advocacy program. • 65% reported increased brand recognition (Hinge Marketing) • Formalized employee advocacy programs can result in up to 5X more web traffic (Edelman Trust Barometer Report)
• Consumers 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to content created by brands (Stackla). • 93% of marketers agree that consumers trust content created by customers more than content created by brands. People trust people. (State of UGC 2021 Report). • 75% of marketers know that adding UGC makes brand content more authentic. (State of UGC 2021 Report) These and other studies also found that UGC highly impacts purchase decisions as demonstrated by the following statistics: • 79% of people say user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions (Stackla)
As shown above, the priority placed on employee advocacy is based on the superior performance attained in reach, brand awareness, trust, and conversion. Customer and Brand Loyalists (UGC) Another category of advocacy involves the use of customer and brand loyalists as brand ambassadors, often used interchangeable with user-generated content (UGC). “Their content is one of the most powerful tools in today’s marketing arsenal. It’s proof that you have dedicated fans, products worth talking about, and a social network that will appreciate great content” - Hootsuite. Besides being more cost-effective than brand or influencer content, UGC is often viewed as the most authentic and trusted source of content as evidence by the following studies:
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