1.
FAQS FROM EXECUTIVES,
LEGAL, IT, AND HR
THE
ULTIMATE
BUYER'S GUIDE TO
EMPLOYEE
ADVOCACY
SOLUTIONS

2.
Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................ 3
Is your Enterprise Ready for Employee Advocacy? ..... 4
Selling Internally ............................................................................. 5
Selling to Executives ................................................................... 6
Selling to Marketing ..................................................................... 10
Selling to Human Resources ................................................. 13
Selling to Legal ................................................................................ 15
Selling to IT ......................................................................................... 17
Overall Timeline .............................................................................. 20
FAQ ........................................................................................................... 21
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3.
Intro
The world of work is changing.
Enterprises are now realizing that employee engagement is at the forefront of
successful operations. Companies with engaged employees outperform those
without by up to 202%. Nearly 31% of all high growth enterprises now have a
formal employee advocacy program, and 86% of employee advocates credit their
involvement with the program as having a positive impact on their career.
Employee advocacy isn’t a buzzword, nor is it a “maybe next year” idea. It has
become a must-have for any enterprise wishing to reduce the length of their sales
cycle, increase employee engagement, and build brand trust.
Despite this momentum in the market, many enterprises don’t know how to
implement a formal employee advocacy program. With a growing number of
platforms and vendors, it can be difficult to navigate the procurement process.
This guide will walk you through how to speak to your colleagues about employee advocacy,
address concerns that each department may have, and will offer additional resources to help
develop your social business strategy in 2016.
Are you ready? Let’s go!
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4.
1. Is Your Enterprise Ready for Employee Advocacy?
Employee advocacy is not a campaign based social media tactic, it’s an always-on
internal communications strategy that will evolve over time and continue to scale with
your enterprise.
With that in mind, it’s imperative to conduct an internal audit to determine how
prepared your enterprise is for this program. Be critical, and ask yourself the following:
These questions are meant to provoke some internal analysis. The fact is, some
enterprises aren’t ready for an employee advocacy program. They may have more
work that needs to be done on the content or employee engagement side. Here
are a few common scenarios we’ve seen:
If one or more of these scenarios sounds familiar, don’t worry. Organizations will vary
in terms of readiness, but if you’re even considering whether employee advocacy is
something you should invest in, you’re in the right place.
Who owns internal communications at your enterprise?
What is your current social media policy for employees ?
Are your employees allowed to share company content?
What are the guidelines around that?
Do your employees feel engaged and empowered?
How are you measuring engagement?
What is your current content strategy?
Do your employees engage with your content?
Leadership does not
see the value of social
media and is not willing
to invest
The employees are
highly disengaged and
talent retention needs
drastic improvement
The organization is
very slow to adopt new
technology
Lack of an established
content marketing
strategy
?
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5.
2. Selling Internally
Different business units will have different questions surrounding an employee
advocacy program. When sharing your ideas with colleagues in different
departments, put yourself in their shoes!
The next sections will highlight some of the most common objections each business
unit has, and how to address them. We’ll walk you through what matters to each
department, what you’ll need to prepare, and when you should approach them for
employee advocacy procurement.
BRAND
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6.
3.1. Selling to Executives
We’re often asked by the C-Suite how an employee advocacy program will
impact the bottom line. They may ask...
What are the benefits of having a socially engaged
leadership team? Why does it matter?
How will this contribute to our overall strategic goals?
77% of buyers are more likely to buy from a
company whose CEO uses social media.
Employee advocacy stems across multiple
departments, and can help align communication
and goals. It’s a commitment to both employee
engagement and improved internal
communications.
It allows executives to keep up-to-date
with what’s going on at the company, in one
centralized dashboard.
77%
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7.
3.1. Selling to Executives (Cont’d.)
What’s the ROI ? How much will it cost?
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8.
Reduced cost for social media training
Reduced time spent on internal communications effort (more streamlined
knowledge transfer)
Cost structure for this type of software usually depends on the number of employees
in the program, the various integrations, and location specific requests.
3.1. Selling to Executives (Cont’d.)
Employee advocacy helps improve communication, reduce operational costs,
and helps generate leads that result in revenue over time not to mention the
positive brand sentiment that is built by the trust of your employees.
Of high growth firms with a formal employee advocacy program surveyed...
reported increased
brand visibility
reported increased
brand recognition
reported increased web
traffic/inbound leads
79% 65% 44%
Other measurable benefits include:
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9.
3.1. Selling to Executives (Cont’d.)
Do our competitors do this?
What will adoption look like?
Yes, they do. Leading companies use employee advocacy to their competitive
advantage. Hinge Marketing reports that 31% of high growth firms have a formal
employee advocacy program in place .
Depending on the size of your business, a pilot program may be appropriate.
If a pilot is put in place, a segment of employees (brand ambassadors) are
carefully selected to participate in the program. The program manager will
work closely with the vendor’s implementation specialist/customer success
manager to ensure that goals are met, and that a company-wide rollout is
attainable based on the pilot results.
1-sheet showing stats and logos of other companies using employee advocacy software.
ROI calculator and projections of how employee advocacy can help strategic goals.
What to Prepare
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10.
Most marketing teams have some familiarity with employee advocacy, which
is great! However, there are a few concerns here with regard to messaging and
content. Your marketing department may ask…
3.2. Selling to Marketing
Common Concerns
Why should we use a platform when we’re already investing in paid media?
● What if the employees get our brand messaging wrong?
○Friend and family referrals are more trusted than advertisements. In fact, more than
eight in ten (83% to be exact) of global respondents say they entirely or mostly trust
referrals from friends and family, making personal referrals the single most trusted
form of advertising. This is contrasted with 70% of respondents who trust brand-owned
channels. Your employees are therefore the most credible source of information for
people who are unaware of your brand.
Employee advocacy isn’t meant to replace paid media, but instead, it’s meant to
complement your existing paid strategy. Employee advocacy isn’t campaign-based
the way paid is, so results and KPI’s will be different.
Some platforms can calculate Earned Media Value to demonstrate the cost savings.
Your social media policy can outline at a high level what’s appropriate to share
on social media.
Employee advocacy platforms typically come with a suggested caption for each piece
of content. Each piece can be edited by the employee to reflect their own voice, or
can be left as the suggested caption.
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11.
3.2. Selling to Marketing (Cont’d.)
● Why would employees care about this?
Benefits Advocates Receive from Employee advocacy
Position this to employees as an opportunity to build a personal brand online.
Explain that this isn’t a tactic for them to blindly share your message, but to engage
with your unique content and add their own voice to it.
25.7%
Attract and develop new business
Keep up with the industry trends
Opportunities for professional partners
Develop skills in high demand
More opportunities for referrals
Expand professional networks
Differentiation from peers
Recognized as thought leader
Access to more job opportunities
Generate new revenue streams
Discover new career paths
26.4%
37.8%
44%
45.7%
45.7%
47.2%
48.6%
50.4%
76%
87.2%
(Source: Hinge Research Institute in Association
with Social Media Today)
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12.
3.2. Selling to Marketing (Cont’d.)
● How does this integrate with our current tech stack?
Most platforms come with integrations to CRM software, email marketing software,
intranets, etc. Some of the most common integration requests include Salesforce,
Pardot, Yammer, Sharepoint, Microsoft Single Sign-On, or Google Analytics.
Platforms can often offer a direct API integration or an integration through UTM
Campaign tracking.
Your platform should be as accessible as possible to encourage the maximum
amount of activity from users. It should integrate with your current marketing stack
and be accessible across devices with minimal effort for users to log in
and share content.
Audit of current marketing stack and how an employee advocacy platform would integrate with it
ROI Calculations
❏Full evaluation of current paid media strategy and its results/ROI
Case studies that showcase how employee advocacy increases organic reach and helps to
generate inbound leads
What to Prepare
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13.
Human Resources will be concerned with how this program will impact
employees at every level. Their concerns will be focused on employee wellbeing,
recruiting and employer branding, and might include questions like:
Common Concerns
3.3. Selling to Human Resources
Will employees be doing more work? And does this mean
extra compensation?
Is this part of their job description?
No, as this should be an opt-in program.
Employees will be voluntarily spending time
on the platform, and as such, can spend this
time either on or outside work hours.
Since the program is voluntary, this would
not require extra compensation.
Not necessarily. Some client-facing roles
(sales, public relations) may have more of
a stake in developing their personal brand
online. For behind-the-scenes employees,
it’s an opportunity to develop thought
leadership skills.
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14.
3.3. Selling to Human Resources (Cont’d.)
Review current employee handbook (specifically: policies around social media use on work hours)
❏Refer to case studies that position employee advocacy programs as key drivers for talent
acquisition and social recruiting.
Research the growing importance of employee engagement and employer branding
What to Prepare
How will this improve our employer brand?
Our employees don’t like being tracked or monitored.
How will this program be any different?
Although employees can be tracked down
to the individual level for sharing, this isn’t a
necessary component of the program. Most
platforms will make it easy to measure a
program’s success at a high level that takes
an average of participant engagement.
Your enterprise can choose to gamify the
program in some way (leaderboard, rewards,
etc.) if there are employees who don’t mind
being measured individually, otherwise this
data will stay private.
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15.
Given that there are certain regulations around content sharing and copyright
infringement, your legal department will ask some important questions surrounding
content ownership, intellectual property, and laws around employee engagement
programs. They may have concerns similar to these:
Common Concerns
3.4. Selling to Legal
There are laws around incentivizing employees to perform tasks. Is this
program in violation of these laws?
What is the process around onboarding? How are employees made aware
of what they’re obligated to do (or not do)?
If your region has laws prohibiting incentivization, there are ways to make your
employee advocacy program opt-in only without any reward or incentive.
This will ensure that there is nothing but personal motivation that encourages
employees to join.
Depending on the verbiage (“bonus” vs. “prize”, for example), there may be other
ways to reward employees that are legally sound. Legal would be involved in
every step of this process.
Program managers should make it explicitly clear to their employees that this is an
opt-in program, and they are in no way obliged to share content or say specific things
if they aren’t inclined to. Remember, the idea is to encourage organic sharing.
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16.
Review copyright guidelines for every region you plan to scale your employee advocacy program to.
Evaluate your current System of Record
Content audit (how your enterprise currently shares third party content, and what disclaimers
are made, if any.)
What to Prepare
3.4. Selling to Legal (Cont’d.)
Does sharing third party content violate any copyright laws?
What if our employee defames the company on social media (or edits the
content to say something unsavoury)
This is largely dependent on where your enterprise is located. We’ve encountered
many regions that state you must have a disclaimer for third party content, in which
case this would be made clear to the employees. Most platforms will have an “edit”
feature for each piece, so any necessary disclaimers can be added.
Realistically, this can happen regardless of an employee advocacy platform.
Employees are always free to share whatever message they please on their social
media pages. Social media policies should outline what type of content to share
on social media. Your enterprise may also wish to have a formal social media
training process that requires the employee to acknowledge (in writing) that they’ve
received proper training.
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17.
Security is first and foremost for any IT department. When any employee information is
being shared (particularly social media profiles), it’s imperative to have a platform that
is secure and handles sensitive information with caution. The answers will be largely
dependent on your chosen platform, but should address:
Common Concerns
3.5. Selling to IT
What access does the platform have to Personally Identifiable
Information (PII)?
Where is our data hosted? Are any activities related to hosting
outsourced to a third party?
Unless the information is stated in the body of a piece of content, the platform
should not store any additional information (metadata).
If the platform stores PII in any space, this should be deletable upon request of
the enterprise.
Some platforms will host enterprise data in a cloud-based system (like Amazon
Web Services), which is a secure method for hosting. Other platforms may own
their own data center.
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18.
3.5. Selling to IT (Cont’d.)
● What are your testing procedures?
The platform should perform regular security tests (Blackbox testing) to ensure
that the software is secure. The vendor may also wish to perform regular Code
Review tests to ensure that their code is sound.
How is data stored or transmitted?
All data that is stored should be encrypted and require a private encryption
key to access.
Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols should be used when transmitting data
over computer networks.
What is the authentication process?
Although single sign-on (SSO) is preferable, the platform should also be able
to work with your existing password policies. If, for example, your enterprise
requires that employee passwords be changed every 90 days, the software
should be able to work in this capacity.
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19.
3.5. Selling to IT (Cont’d.)
Review your enterprise’s current Information Security policy
❏Review current password policies
What to Prepare
How often do you perform backups?
Is this platform available in an enterprise app store?
What is the incident response process? How do you prevent incidents
from occurring?
Vendors should perform backups regularly and offer full “restore to point in time”
functionality to ensure that no data or content is lost in the event of a failure.
If using cloudbased hosting, the provider should have a full recovery framework.
Yes, your platform should be available in an enterprise app store.
Registry in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) is recommended as a way to
keep informed with new security concerns. Additionally, if your vendor is hosting
with a cloud-based solution, they should be registered for regular security updates
in the form of a database or newsletter with their hosting service.
A strategic incident response process (or indeed, disaster recovery process)
should be strategically outlined during procurement.
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20.
4. Overall Timeline
Critical evaluation of current workplace culture,
employee engagement, and employer brand
Internal audit of all current social media and
employee engagement strategies
Compare different vendors and schedule
product demos
Work with vendor’s Customer Success team to
establish a full implementation and rollout plan. This
will include identifying the initial brand advocates,
program branding, and establish clear program goals
and associated metrics.
Build excitement with executives to gain
their support (buy-in)
Calculate what the ROI would look like for
your enterprise
Consult with HR and Marketing
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
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21.
5. FAQ
Who should control the platform?
How long does implementation take?
What if the adoption rate among employees is low?
The platform is usually managed day-to-day by someone in the marketing
department (social/digital). HR and Communications teams are usually involved in
content curation, and Legal should be involved for strategy and planning.
The first steps of your program (training the program manager, filling the content
library, launching to the initial brand advocates, etc.) can take anywhere from 4-6
weeks. Full implementation, however, may be extended to a year or more to fully
get the program running at its maximum capacity.
Although some large enterprises are now skipping the pilot phase in favour of
a company-wide rollout, we recommend identifying a small portion of brand
champions who are adept at social media sharing and already highly engaged
and beginning your program with them. This will give you an idea of what type of
content is most successful, and what your employees care about when it comes
to an advocacy program, thereby increasing the chances of successful adoption.
Your vendor’s Customer Success team should assist in identifying the best
adoption strategy to ensure that the program is running to its maximum potential.
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22.
Are you ready to change?
Want to learn more? Request a Demo.
A complete digital transformation is a big step
for any organization, and habits don’t change
overnight. But with the right tools and support,
you can gain an advantage over your competitors
by adopting early.
There’s no longer a question of whether
employee advocacy is necessary for your
enterprise. The question now is whether your
enterprise is ready for it.
Use this guide to take a close look at your
current enterprise operations. Where do you
stand in terms of readiness? Will your enterprise
be a leader in the changing world of workplace
culture, or will you be left by the wayside?
Website | PostBeyond.com
Email | social@postbeyond.com
Phone | (888) 948-4969
I think tools like
PostBeyond
are becoming more
important. It’s now a
question of having a tool
that’s accessible anywhere
that gives you the right
information at the right
time. These are the types
of tools that are becoming
more vital not only in
terms of how the world
of work is changing, but
in terms of how people
expect to engage with
companies and receive
information.
Mark Jordan
Director of Digital Projects,
Brand Strategy & Communications
SickKids Foundation
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