How to Do Hyperlocal Social Media Marketing through Employee Advocacy

What is hyperlocal social media marketing?

Today’s market is characterized by the consumers’ need to connect with the brands they purchase from. Whether they are seeking a specific product or a service, buyers want to know and connect with the stories of the brands their trust on a personal level. That trust can’t even exist in the first place if there is no authentic story behind it.

That means that consumers are now looking for and favoring local brands when searching for products and services a lot more than they used to, and that goes also for social media. Terms like ‘near me’ and similar are more and more frequently used when it comes to Google and social media searches, which means that local marketing has to necessarily become a focus for many B2C and even B2B companies.

Hyperlocal marketing can take advantage of this consumer trend and the power of social media to really yield impressive results for organizations that rely on this strategy to connect with local consumers. This takes then the name of hyperlocal social media marketing, and it’s used by brands to target potential customers in a specific geographical area, increase their social media presence, and focus their marketing efforts on the local market and audience. On top of that, it is a way for brands to build trust and perception with consumers on a local level. 

How to maximize hyperlocal marketing effort

When it comes to hyperlocal marketing on social media, the keyword is personal connection. Yet again, corporations and larger organizations have a notoriously difficult time connecting with consumers and installing an authentic personal brand that takes away the standoffish and detached look in favor of a more humanized one. 

That’s where employees come into play. They are the most authentic voice your company can ever have: they are your people and the essential cogs of your organization, but at the end of the day, they are consumers themselves, just like you and me. They are people — and people trust people; they connect with them. 

If businesses want to establish genuine relationships with their customers, and attract and gain the trust of their audience, employees are their only chance to do so. Social media offers this virtually unlimited space where people can interact with each other, influence each other’s opinions and buying behaviors, and connect with like-minded people. They are thought leaders who are experts in what they do and whose voice sounds genuine, human, and truthful. 

The role of employee advocacy in hyperlocal social media marketing

Mobilizing your employees on social media to talk about and advocate for your company then will make sure you amplify your efforts in hyperlocal social media marketing, and what better way to do that than by formalizing the efforts of your employees?

Employee advocacy programs collect your most trusted and engaged employees in an online community and stimulate social media ambassadorship, which, in turn, can help you connect with the local audience yet expand your reach as a company.

There are three main benefits to installing advocacy in your company as the primary way of amplifying your hyperlocal social media marketing strategy:

1. Local reach on a large scale. By leveraging the vast net of employee connections on LinkedIn, for example, big brands and large corporations will have the chance to locally connect and reach their target audiences.
   
   International companies and larger corporations counting several offices in different countries, can thus expound the potential of their employee base in each location to target the local market in a more personal way. That way, they can establish durable and trusted connections with the local public with whom they share an experience on a variety of levels. Your employees’ social media connections and target audience will share similar interest, values, and ideas as them, thus being the people most likely to be interested in your products, based on demographics such as age, job title, income level, education, location, or behavior.
   
   
2. A more authentic company story. Your employees are the most suited people to tell your company story. They live it on a daily basis, their share a common experience while simultaneously having a personal, unique experience with your brand too. They embody your company values and culture and work alongside you to achieve your goals.
   
   By extension, they are the people you want to tell your story, to talk about you, to humanize your brand with their personal, day-to-day work life and experience. Their voice is the authentic voice that will, with time, build credibility around the brand, with whom people – consumers, potential customers – can identify. And as far as hyperlocal social media marketing goes, they will be able to tell that story so that it resonates with the local audience: they can use the right words, language, and their unique identity to build a bond with the local public, because they are part of that same local reality.
   
   
3. Know your audience and target better on social media. As a natural and consequential result of the previous point, employees active on the local level on social media will have a deeper understanding and knowledge of the local audience.
   
   When you understand your customers’ needs at the hyperlocal level, you can easily position yourself as the only provider of that product or service in your area. When you become the only place people can get what you offer — because you can tell your story better on social media and establish a personal connection with them — you can dramatically increase demand for what you offer. 

How to implement a hyperlocal social media marketing strategy

Implementing a hyperlocal social media marketing strategy entails a lot more than can be listed here. However, one essential step that should be considered is that of involving employees on a local level by setting up and launching an employee advocacy program. 

A solid platform and program will help you maximize your efforts when communicating directly about the challenges your target market is facing right now. On top of that, employee involvement will help you empathize with your audience and demonstrate that you care for them. 

Enhancing the loyalty and retention of your customers can be achieved by personalizing your messaging, which can be done precisely through your employees. Hyperlocal social marketing techniques allow you to tailor your messages to the specific needs and interests of individuals within your local community, creating a stronger connection and increasing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.