How to Train Your Employees for Employee Advocacy

Why Employee Advocacy is important for your marketing strategy

In order for a business to expand, it must be visible to its target audience. This involves creating and sharing content that offers solutions to the pain points of that audience and reaching those potential customers with it. A way to reach a wider audience is to empower employees to act as brand ambassadors, namely employee advocacy. 

This means encouraging your employees to share company content on social media in their own voice. People tend to trust and believe what employees say more than they would a company, which makes their personal endorsements more authentic and credible.

According to a LinkedIn report, posts shared by employees on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook) often get 2 times more interactions and engagement than the same content shared by a corporate page. This is because, on average, a company’s employees’ networks are at least 10 times larger than a company’s follower base. 

Plus, since social media platforms like LinkedIn prioritize content from personal connections and followers over branded content, unlocking the full potential of your employees and empowering them to be brand advocates can have a huge impact on your brand growth and business results.

How to train employees for employee  advocacy 

Training your employees before and during the launch of an employee advocacy program is extremely important for its success. Well-trained employees are more confident in sharing company content, understand the brand’s messaging, and know how to represent it authentically. Training ensures that employees are equipped with the skills to engage their networks effectively, maintain consistency in their posts, and utilize social media best practices.

Communicate the importance of employee advocacy 

Not every employee is aware of what the term "Employee Advocacy" means and the benefits it brings to both the employer and the individual employee. Involving employees from different departments also means that not everyone will be on the same level in terms of skills, social media dexterity, or even knowledge of the marketing lingo and its strategies. 

That is why your employees need to understand what the strategy means and how their involvement impacts not just the company but also their own professional development. A research by  Nielsen shows that content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than content shared by brands and contributes to higher engagement rates, lead generation, and a stronger brand image; explaining these benefits to them will make your employees more likely to embrace advocacy.

Building their personal brand on social media, presenting themselves as thought leaders, growing their professional network of followers, and engaging with them meaningfully are some of the benefits your employees will get, and you can communicate it to them. When this formal training is done, your employees will have a good understanding of what is involved and what's in it for them, so they will be more likely to participate.

Offer practical hands-on training

Your workforce might be made up of Gen Z, Millennials, and Baby Boomers, and not every employee from these different generations knows how to use certain social media platforms or will feel as comfortable doing so. Not every team member is a social media expert, and that’s okay! 

The goal is to create a seamless process that transforms employees into confident brand ambassadors who know how to engage their networks in meaningful ways.  Start by organizing hands-on workshops that focus on social media literacy. Your employees may be active on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram in their personal lives, but professional advocacy requires a different approach. The training should cover basics about these social media platforms, such as:

• Social media guidelines to interact online
• Tips for writing better and engaging captions
• How social media platforms work and what content type performs better on each of them
• How to professionalize their LinkedIn profile
• How to engage in online conversations
• When to post for maximum visibility

This practical training ensures that your employees are equipped to communicate the brand's message confidently in a way that will drive traffic for the company.

Encourage employees to customize their messages and find their own voice

With an employee advocacy platform such as Ambassify, you can easily create pre-written social media posts for your employees, which is a good initiative to help keep your brand ambassadors engaged and ease their worries about content creation. However, it is important to encourage them to add their personal touch and reword the content in a way that reflects their personality and experience (their individual tone of voice).

How can you do that? The short answer is through training. Inspire them with examples of pre-written LinkedIn articles, posts, white papers, etc., demonstrating their expertise and tone of voice while aligning with company goals. 

For example, a marketing manager at your company can write a LinkedIn post on the emerging trends in social advocacy, sharing both personal insights and company successes in social advocacy. Such content positions employees as experts while subtly promoting the company, and the posts become more authentic and credible. Besides, people prefer to read personal stories and opinions rather than standardized corporate messages. 

Encourage your employees to really pay attention to what they're sharing and share only the content that really resonates with them, their area of expertise, and their knowledge so that they feel more confident adding their opinions, personalizing their messages, and using their voice on social media.  As a side benefit, they will also enhance their personal brand which will gain them credibility, authority and engagement.

Ongoing support and feedback: ensuring long-term employee advocacy success 

Advocacy training shouldn’t be a one-time effort. Some employees might take some time to adjust and become expert brand ambassadors, and that's fine. As a company, you should provide ongoing support through regular check-ins, feedback sessions, and continuous learning opportunities, this will help your employees to feel supported. 

To make sure they feel accompanied and supported every step of the way, you could hold monthly or quarterly reviews and feedback sessions where you can share advocacy data with employees, helping them understand how their efforts have contributed to company goals. You can also use these meetings to fine-tune the program based on employee feedback.

Motivate participation with incentives and recognition

Advocacy is not a one-way street, it’s about giving and taking. People are more likely to participate in programs that offer something in return for their efforts. They want to know what’s in it for them, and the best way to encourage participation is to recognize and reward employees who actively share content. 

Doing this will encourage continued participation, stimulate motivation, and boost morale and activation: this, in turn, creates a virtuous cycle where employees feel appreciated and are more likely to speak positively about their employer, further boosting your brand's presence and reputation.  There are plenty of reward and recognition ideas you can adopt in your organization to engage and motivate your employees in their advocacy efforts; you just have to find out what works for them and aligns with your company culture.

Training employees to become better and more confident brand advocates requires thoughtful planning, hands-on training, and ongoing support. By empowering your employees to be brand advocates and providing them with the right training and advocacy platform, you will have a network of ambassadors who will boost your company’s visibility, reach, and corporate reputation.