The rise of social media, and people who have gained a following from it, has taught many enterprises that influencers can help drive brand awareness and sales. While this could include anyone from celebrities to social media personalities, organizations often overlook key influencers within their own four walls: employees.
In this blog post, we explore what an employee influencer is, the benefits of starting your own employee influencer program, and tips for how to get started.
What is an employee influencer?
An employee influencer is someone within an organization that can positively impact the way audiences view, interact, and form opinions about the brand and the products or services their organization offers.
While brand marketing tends to focus on more generalized campaigns and outreach, employee influencers allow organizations to drill down into the working relationships and communities employees have built themselves through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms.
Benefits of using employees as brand influencers
Organizations that leverage employees on social media can enjoy multiple benefits, including:
- Gaining more brand recognition from a wider audience
- Saving money that would have been spent on digital ads and campaigns
- Increasing consumer brand connections
- Extended reach and boost in engagement
Most often, audiences don’t view employees the same way they view a brand or an ad. Posts from people that they trust and follow are viewed as more authentic content than targeted messages from brand accounts. Employee influencers show people the many faces behind a brand, in turn making the organization appear more personable and authentic.
Beyond the benefits to an enterprise, employees often experience a myriad of benefits on their end by becoming brand influencers. Organizations can offer monetary incentives and big-branded initiatives in exchange for employee posts. Additionally, employees that contribute to the success of their company often see that success reflected back in the form of invested employee growth, leading to higher employee satisfaction.
How to get started with an employee brand influencer program
Before getting started with your own employee brand influencer program, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. First, establish your key goals. Here are three to consider:
- Build brand awareness/strengthen brand image
- Increase social engagement and interactions
- Gain customer insight and data
Next, choose the employees that you want to represent your brand. This could be an employee that is already posting about your organization, a long-time employee, or one who has a high volume of followers on their social media platforms. Whoever you choose, make sure to communicate with them what kind of content they should be expecting to post, and how often.
Now that you have your employee influencers on board, it’s time to set them up with the influencer management tools they need to be successful. Mobile apps like Creator Communities are essential for helping large brands and enterprises activate and manage an employee influencer program. Creator Communities allows employees to create and post original content effortlessly across social channels.
Once the Creator Communities’ app is configured for your brand, employee influencers can log in to see projects that the administrator (e.g. social media, digital, or marketing manager) has created. These can include sharable content, which an employee would share directly to their social media, or submittable content, to be created and then shared in other branded campaigns.
An employee can then view their posts and metrics, earn badges, and get paid for participation, all in the Creator Communities app.
Armed with these key tips and tricks, you should have no trouble setting up and activating a successful employee influencer program. For additional information on Creator Communities and how Brand Networks can help get your program off the ground, send us a message here.
