From Employee ‘Advocacy’ to ‘Ambassadors’ in 2021

It’s 2021 now, you might be thinking is advocacy still the right way of phrasing employee participation toward a brand goal? You might be right, we’ve now seen enterprises adopt more fluid advocacy initiatives, allowing for optionality and autonomy in how an employee can/could evangelise about their organisation or culture. It might be fitting then to consider Ambassadors, It affords employees the right to opt-in or out, but the invite is there and the employee buy-in is often more human, less cynical and mutually beneficial. 

So we’ll use Ambassador for the time being 🙂 

After a year of organizational disruption, physical separation, global health, and environmental crises, what people want most is to be a part of something bigger than themselves. As we’re starting off 2021 with new energy, we all need to adjust our strategies to stay relevant and resilient walking towards a new reality. As workplace communication is evolving, companies are looking into new ways to connect with their employees and give a reason for them to become active brand ambassadors.

In a year that will be once again dominated by uncertainties, employee support is something organizations need to keep an eye out for more than ever.

To this date, it’s great to witness how many businesses are aware of the benefits of employee ambassador programmes: so many brands have already got started with employee ambassadorship or have plans to launch a program, and this is great news given how this is key to keep internal engagement levels high.

But as workplace communication is evolving, companies are looking into new ways to connect with their employees and turn them into active brand champions.

Here are three employee support trends that will shape the 2021 digital workplace:

 

Content Distribution that Drives Adoption and Engagement

 

We have all been annoyed by irrelevant content when we check our corporate and internal news feed, and it might have also happened that our employees felt frustrated at the content we shared with them if they were not interested in it. What’s bad here, is that they won’t share it with their networks!

When it comes to employee ambassadorship, it’s all about relevance. If you want to connect your employees with your content and keep them engaged with your ambassador program, you’ll need to rethink the way you distribute your content internally.

The key is to make sure that each employee receives the right content at the right time and by the right content, we mean content that is relevant to their expertise, interests, and role in the company.

Think about it: your employees are your #1 audience. As marketers strategically design their communication strategy so the right content reaches the right target audience, you’ll need to make sure that you connect your employees with the right information. That’s the only way you’ll drive adoption and activate your employees as brand ambassadors. More and more businesses are using content marketing tactics for their ambassador program and this trend will continue to rise in 2021.

 

The Era of Employee Advocacy 

 

When it comes to building brand trust, you need to get your employees on board. As we all know, consumers trust more messages shared by people than corporate messages shared through the brands’ social media accounts.

Your employees are your best ambassadors, they are the ones who can help you connect with your customers. Employee champions are the secret to growing your business, but launching an ambassador program at your workplace is not enough. To earn trust, you’ll need to do it right.

Employee championing doesn’t mean asking employees to share company-related content. How many businesses are still emailing the link to their latest blog post to their employees and asking them to share it to the personal networks? Quite many, unfortunately.

The good news is things are changing: more and more companies are shifting their current employee advocacy approach towards the more holistic employee ambassador model and this trend is expected to be one of the top employee trends in 2021. And if you’re wondering what this is, well: employee ambassadorship is all about employee empowerment.

When you embrace employee ambassadorship, you provide opportunities for your employees to do much more than share content, you ask for their involvement in culture, branding, ideas, innovation, messaging and more. You encourage them to be personal and purposeful in their involvement in the brand. 

 

The Rise of Employee-Generated Content

 

Employee Ambassadorship can involve employee-generated content. If companies want their corporate communication to be authentic, they have to encourage the employees to start creating their own content.

Not all your employees are the same: some of them may feel comfortable with writing blog posts while others may prefer to make videos or to get started with podcasting. The most important thing is to support them by helping them acquire the skills they want to develop and to do so, companies will need to run proper training programs that include workshops, webinars, or online training.

Keep in mind that content created by employees doesn’t have to be perfect from a technical point of view as long as this content is authentic. For example, employees can make short videos with their smartphones to show what it’s like to work at your company.

Think about it: with a smartphone in everyone’s pocket, employee-generated content is achievable for every brand running their own ambassador program. Two keys to making this a success are training your staff to spot the moments that could become a social media story and then training them to capture that story in a sharable digital format.

And do you what can help companies thrive in this dynamic? An all-in-one employee platform!

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So, with 2021 here, is now a good time to empower your staff and supercharge your ambassadorship strategy? If you think so, well, you’re in the right place!