Why you need Employee Advocacy Now More Than Ever

Ever so often, we get asked the question – What makes employee advocacy so special?

Of course, being in the business, we’re able to list out every single minute detail of what the concept brings to the table. Better reach, more visibility, a curated list of prospects… the list is long and you’re probably thinking you’ve heard it before. But, you haven’t heard it all.

Employee Advocacy So Far…

The idea behind getting your employees to share your brands content is that it reaches an audience that pays far more attention to what you’re saying. Not because what you’re saying is extraordinarily creative or witty, but because it’s coming from a source that is more trusted.

A friend, a colleague, a family member. Someone with a name, and a face to go with it. Someone they know.

So, What’s New?

Recently, Facebook threw everyone in the digital publishing field a curveball with the testing of the latest algorithm update. Effectively, the free ride has ended. Publishing houses like Buzzfeed’s Tasty – who rose to popularity by creating drool-worthy videos that instantly went viral – are in for a tough time as the new algorithm puts them lower on your Newsfeed, and prioritizes your Aunt Mary’s pot roast photos.

If you haven’t copped on yet, we’ll explain why this means the importance of employee advocacy has quite literally multiplied overnight. But before we get into the nitty-gritties, here’s a rundown of what’s changing and how it’s going to impact you.

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Facebook’s Edgerank Algorithm Update

Let’s face it, the purpose of Facebook was to keep you connected to the people who matter. Reinforcing that thought, you’ll now see content from your friend list prioritized on your newsfeed. Facebook found that after your friends, you wanted to stay updated with the news and well, stay entertained. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but that’s where content from pages comes in.

What’s good –

  1. Posts with lots of engagement
  2. Posts that garner a lot of engagement quickly
  3. Posts on trending topics that get people to interact with them
  4. Video posts and Link posts

What’s not so good –

  1. Clickbait posts
  2. Posts with spammy links
  3. Low-quality posts (those that are often reported or hidden)
  4. Posts that ask for likes and other engagement

Now for the fun part…

How Does This Impact Employee Advocacy?

The concept of employee advocacy works because it depends on the organic engagement from your brand ambassadors. Once they like and share your brand content with their personal and professional networks and in turn, their networks continue to share it onward.

Since there are actual people sharing your content, you know for sure that your Brand’s content is going to stay in the prime position regardless of the algorithm change. In fact, with the new update, your content will be even more visible given that it won’t have to compete with other pages for people’s attention.

As long as you make sure that you keep dishing out quality content – nobody likes spammy clickbait –you should be more than able to ride out this new update far better than those who haven’t considered joining the employee advocacy brigade.

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