How to Build The Best Employee Advocacy Influencer Plan

What if your employees become your brand’s most trusted advocates? That’s the power of an Employee Advocacy Influencer Plan — empowering your team to authentically share your brand’s story and build trust.

In fact, 65% of companies report increased brand recognition through employee advocacy, achieving results that traditional marketing can’t match.

Now, imagine pairing this with influencer marketing. Together, they boost organic engagement, establish your brand as a thought leader, and attract top talent—all while driving measurable growth.

But how can you bring this strategy to life? Enter Vista Social’s Employee Advocacy Tool—a comprehensive solution to empower your team and align your efforts. Whether you’re a startup or a global enterprise, this tool helps you turn employees into impactful brand ambassadors.

Ready to transform your employees into your greatest influencer advocates? Let’s dive into creating a plan that works.

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What is an Employee Advocacy Influencer Program?

Today, employee advocacy influencer programs are revolutionizing the way businesses amplify their brand. But what exactly are these programs, and why should you consider creating one? Keep reading!

Who are Employee Advocacy Influencers?

An employee advocacy influencer program transforms your employees into brand influencers. Instead of solely relying on external influencers, you unlock the potential of your workforce to promote your company in a genuine, relatable way. Unlike external influencers, these are internal team members who:

• Share Company Content Authentically: They post updates, insights, and achievements that resonate with their audience.
• Promote Thought Leadership: Leveraging their unique expertise, they create and share content that aligns with the company’s goals while showcasing their knowledge.
• Expand the Brand’s Voice: By tapping into their personal networks, they introduce your brand to new audiences, increasing visibility and trust.

A robust employee advocacy influencer program benefits both employees and the organization:

• For Employees: They enhance their personal brand by showcasing their knowledge, expertise, and industry involvement. This can lead to increased professional opportunities and recognition.
• For Companies: It provides authentic, cost-effective promotion. Since employees are trusted more than traditional advertisements, their advocacy boosts credibility and engagement.

By fostering an employee advocacy program, you create a win-win scenario!

[Must Read: What is Employee Advocacy and Its Impact on Business]

Steps to Build the Best Employee Advocacy Influencer Plan

To craft an effective Employee Advocacy Influencer Plan, we provided you with a step-by-step guide to follow:

Step 1: Identify Brand and Company Goals

Before diving into the details of your Employee Advocacy Influencer Plan, it’s crucial to understand the bigger picture. Define the purpose of the program and ensure that your advocacy efforts align with your company’s broader goals, such as:

• Build brand awareness by empowering employees to share content and insights.
• Drive engagement by encouraging authentic conversations around your brand.
• Foster trust and credibility through employee-driven content.
• Position employees as thought leaders and subject matter experts within the industry.
• Increase recruitment by showcasing the workplace culture through employee voices.

Once the purpose is defined, it’s important to align your advocacy efforts with broader organizational objectives such as supporting sales growth, improving customer satisfaction, and enhancing marketing efforts. For example, SMART goals could be set to:

• Specific: Increase social media reach by 30% over the next six months by engaging 50% of employees in content sharing.
• Measurable: Track and report the number of posts, shares, and interactions generated by employees monthly.
• Achievable: Set a goal to have at least 75% of the company’s employees actively share company content at least once a month.
• Relevant: Align advocacy with key product launches to ensure employees are promoting new offerings.
• Time-bound: Launch the first phase of the advocacy program within the next 60 days and evaluate the progress after three months.

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Step 2: Find the Right Employee Influencers

The second step in building a successful employee advocacy influencer plan is selecting the right employees to amplify your brand. These individuals should not only align with the company’s overall goals but also bring authentic value to your campaign.

For instance, team leads might be ideal for sharing thought leadership content, while sales teams can be great advocates for generating leads.

Tips for Identifying Influencers

• Analyze Employees’ Social Presence and Engagement Rates: Look for employees who have a strong and active social media presence. Check how often they post, the engagement they receive, and their ability to connect with their audience. Employees with a higher engagement rate are likely to have a greater impact when sharing company content.
• Nominate Influencers Across Departments: This way, you can represent a variety of perspectives, from thought leaders in the tech department to frontline salespeople, ensuring your advocacy program reaches multiple touchpoints within your audience.
• Finalize Your Influencer List: Once you’ve identified potential influencers, make sure your final list has the right mix of roles, expertise, and departments. 

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[Must Read: Ultimate Guide: How to Calculate Your Social Media Engagement Rate]

How to Reach Out to Potential Influencers:

• Personalize Outreach Messages: When reaching out to potential employee influencers, make sure to personalize your message. Highlight the benefits of becoming an advocate, such as building their personal brand, increasing visibility, and boosting their professional credibility.
• Gain Manager Approval: Before extending the invitation to employees, it’s important to obtain approval from their managers. This ensures that they are fully aligned with their role in the program and can manage their time effectively without work conflicts.

Step 3: Develop a Content Strategy

Once you’ve established your influencer list, you need to create a consistent content pipeline to support them. Here’s how:

• Create a Content Pipeline: Make sure your employee influencers have easy access to high-quality content they can share. This includes blog posts, videos, customer success stories, product updates, and more. Having a ready-to-share content calendar ensures a smooth flow of materials to keep your employees engaged.

Here are some content types that will boost your employee advocacy program:

• Blog Posts, Videos, and Infographics: These are the backbone of any content strategy. Blog posts allow you to provide detailed information, videos make your content more engaging, and infographics offer quick insights that can be easily shared. Make sure your employees share content that is both informative and visually appealing.
• Customer Success Stories and Thought Leadership Pieces: Nothing speaks louder than real-world examples. Customer success stories highlight how your product or service has made a tangible difference in people’s lives. Thought leadership content positions your company as an industry expert, demonstrating knowledge and authority. Employees sharing these stories on social media not only promote the brand but also build trust and credibility.
• Product Updates and Industry News: Keeping your audience informed about product launches, feature updates, or any changes within your company shows transparency. Sharing relevant industry news can also help position your employees as industry leaders, building their own personal brand as well as your company’s.

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[Must Read: Organizing Content for Social Media: Expert Tips & Tricks from Vista Social]

Tips on How to Scale Content Strategy

Scaling your content strategy is key to reaching more people and building a larger, more engaged employee advocacy network. Here are some tips to help you scale effectively:

• Repurpose Content: Don’t reinvent the wheel for every post. Repurpose content into different formats to reach a wider audience. For example, turn a blog post into a series of social media posts or create short video clips from a longer video.
• Encourage Employee Contributions: Your employees are your best advocates, so empower them to contribute content. Encourage them to share their insights, experiences, and expertise related to your brand. The more diverse the content, the more engaging it will be.
• Leverage Analytics: Use analytics to understand which content resonates best with your audience. This will help you identify trends and optimize your strategy for better results.
• Create a Content Calendar: Consistency is key when scaling your content strategy. A content calendar helps you plan and organize content in advance, ensuring a steady stream of posts across all platforms.

[Must Read: A Social Media Content Calendar for Your Agency Clients]

Step 4: Train and Motivate Employees

To truly unlock the potential of your employee advocacy program, it’s essential to equip your team with the right knowledge and motivation. Here’s how you can do it:

Provide Training on:

• Advocacy Best Practices: Educate employees on how to effectively share content, craft authentic posts, and engage with their networks. This training should emphasize the importance of transparency, consistency, and relevance in their messaging. Encourage employees to share not just company updates, but also insights or industry-related content that reflects positively on their expertise and your brand’s values.
• How to Use Employee Advocacy Tools: Implement tools that simplify the advocacy process, such as social media schedulers, content libraries, or sharing platforms. Provide clear training on how to use these tools, ensuring employees feel comfortable navigating them to share content efficiently and seamlessly.

[Must Read: Top Employee Advocacy Tools to Improve Brand Reach this 2024]

Motivate Participation with:

• Incentives: Recognizing and rewarding your employees for their efforts can significantly boost participation. Consider offering rewards such as public recognition, exclusive perks, or even tangible incentives like gift cards or bonuses. These rewards not only incentivize employees but also make them feel valued for their contributions to the program.
• Regular Updates on the Program’s Impact: Keep employees engaged by sharing the program’s success stories and impact. Let them know how their efforts are helping to grow the brand, engage customers, or increase sales. These updates will remind employees of the program’s value and motivate them to keep participating. A sense of ownership and progress can fuel their advocacy efforts.

By providing the right training and creating a motivating environment, you’ll empower your employees to become authentic, engaged brand advocates, enhancing the success of your influencer program.

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[Must Read: 10 Vital Steps to Create a Content Strategy for Your Business]

Step 5: Communicate Effectively

Effective communication is the cornerstone of a successful employee advocacy influencer plan. Regular communication ensures that influencers are aligned with your brand’s goals, stay engaged, and are equipped with the tools and resources they need to succeed.

Here are a few ways to foster strong communication:

• Biweekly Newsletters: A biweekly newsletter can be an excellent way to share valuable updates with your employee advocates. This could include shareable content like blog posts, product launches, or industry news, alongside program updates, upcoming events, and relevant metrics. It ensures your influencers are kept in the loop and have fresh, on-brand content to share with their audiences.
• Private Slack or Teams Channels: Set up dedicated communication channels on platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams. These spaces allow for real-time discussions, quick reminders, and spontaneous brainstorming. They can also foster a sense of community among your influencers, encouraging them to collaborate and share insights, ideas, and experiences.
• Regular Check-ins: Schedule regular one-on-one or group check-ins with your influencers to discuss their progress, answer questions, and provide support. This keeps the conversation flowing and strengthens the relationship between your brand and the influencers.
• Feedback Loops: Foster an open channel for feedback, where influencers can share their thoughts and suggestions on the program. This helps you refine your approach, enhance the influencer experience, and ensure that the program stays relevant and impactful.

Step 6: Get Feedback from Influencers

To ensure the success of your employee advocacy influencer plan, gathering feedback from your influencers is essential. Feedback allows you to continuously refine your strategy, make improvements, and address any challenges influencers might face. Here’s how to effectively collect valuable insights from your influencers:

• Use Surveys: Surveys are a great tool for gathering structured feedback. They can help you understand how influencers perceive the content they are sharing, the relevance to their audience, and any obstacles they encounter. You can include questions such as:
  • How relevant do you find the content provided for sharing with your network?
  • What challenges have you faced when sharing content on your social platforms?
  • How could we improve the content or resources to make it easier for you to engage?
  • What type of content do you feel would better resonate with your audience?
• Provide Sample Questions: Sometimes, influencers may need a little guidance on the kind of feedback you’re looking for. Providing sample questions can help them think about their responses in a structured way. You can include prompts such as:
  • Is there anything that made it difficult for you to share content this month?
  • Are there any content themes that resonate more with your followers?
  • What tools or resources could make your participation easier?

Once feedback is gathered, it’s important to share the insights with stakeholders, including your marketing and HR teams. Discuss the feedback to understand patterns, identify areas for improvement, and refine the advocacy strategy. Make sure that the changes you implement based on this feedback are communicated clearly to the influencers, ensuring they feel heard and valued.

Gathering and acting on feedback is a key step in continuously improving your employee advocacy influencer program, ensuring that it remains effective and beneficial for both your brand and your influencers.

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Make Vista Social Your Employee Advocacy Partner

The key to a successful employee advocacy plan lies in choosing the right tools to streamline and optimize the process. That’s where Vista Social comes in.

Vista Social is a comprehensive social media management platform that makes it easy for businesses to manage and measure employee-driven campaigns. The platform allows companies to curate, schedule, and distribute content to employees for sharing across social channels, ensuring brand consistency and reaching a wider audience. 

Vista Social offers a variety of tools designed specifically for employee advocacy, including:

• Customizable Content Sharing: Employees can easily share curated content directly from Vista Social’s library, ensuring brand consistency and timely promotions.
• Social Media Analytics: Track the performance of advocacy campaigns with in-depth insights, including engagement, reach, and overall impact.
• Content Scheduling: Plan and schedule content in advance, allowing employees to share posts at optimal times, increasing visibility.
• Employee Leaderboards: Gamify your advocacy program by creating a leaderboard, encouraging friendly competition and rewarding top advocates.
• Brand Protection: Ensure that only approved, brand-safe content is shared, maintaining consistency in messaging and tone across your employee network.

Beyond its advocacy tools, Vista Social also provides additional features such as:

• Shared Calendar: A unified calendar where your team can plan, schedule, and coordinate content, ensuring that everyone is aligned and posting timely updates.
• Shared Inbox: A collaborative inbox where your team can manage, respond, and engage with customer inquiries and messages, enhancing customer service.
• Team Collaboration Tools: Facilitate communication and teamwork across departments, ensuring that your employee advocacy efforts are well-organized and efficient. You can also set up a post-approval workflow to ensure that all your scheduled posts are approved and checked. 

By using these tools, you can transform your employees into influential brand advocates who boost your social media reach, drive customer engagement, and increase overall brand awareness.

Creating an Effective Employee Advocacy Influencer Program

Creating a successful Employee Advocacy Influencer Program requires careful planning and execution. Start by identifying the right employees who align with your brand values and have a strong presence on social media.

Equip them with the necessary tools, content, and training to confidently share your brand’s message. Foster a supportive environment that encourages engagement and rewards participation.

To ensure scalability and long-term success, leverage tools like Vista Social, which simplifies the management of your program, tracks employee performance, and provides insights to optimize engagement strategies. With the right approach and tools, you can amplify your brand’s message, boost employee morale, and increase your reach.

Ready to start building your best employee advocacy influencer plan? Vista Social is here to guide you every step of the way.

P.S. If you’re new here, Vista Social is a powerful all-in-one social media management platform tailored for marketing agencies, freelancers, and social media managers. Our platform provides advanced tools to boost collaboration, streamline workflows, and elevate social media marketing success.

Sign up for your  Vista Social account now to explore our features and take your social media strategy to the next level!

FAQs on Employee Advocacy Influencer Plan

Can small businesses benefit from an Employee Advocacy program? 

Absolutely! Even small businesses can greatly benefit from an Employee Advocacy program. It helps extend their reach without large marketing budgets, strengthens brand credibility, and boosts employee engagement—all of which are crucial for small businesses looking to grow.

How do I handle negative or controversial posts from employees? 

Establish clear guidelines and a process for managing inappropriate or controversial posts. Encourage employees to stay positive and constructive when sharing content. If an issue arises, address it quickly and diplomatically, ensuring that the employee feels supported while upholding the brand’s reputation.

How do I ensure diversity in the Employee Advocacy program? 

Ensure diversity by including employees from different departments, backgrounds, and levels within the company. This will help bring a variety of perspectives and voices, making the program more inclusive and relatable to a broader audience.

What are the most common challenges in Employee Advocacy programs? 

Common challenges include low employee engagement, lack of content variety, difficulty in tracking performance, and maintaining consistency. To overcome these, provide continuous support, offer varied content, and use tools like Vista Social to monitor and optimize the program.

How long does it take to see results from an Employee Advocacy program? 

The timeline for seeing results can vary depending on the size of your company, the level of employee participation, and the resources allocated. However, you can expect to see measurable results in terms of engagement and brand awareness within the first 3-6 months.