Thread by @beastoftraal

A Financial Times update on 'employee advocacy', from yesterday.

I have conducted quite a few corporate workshops on employee advocacy and my approach has always been about a simple starting point: if a corporate wants its employees (at any level) to be its advocates, 1/5

2/5 formally or informally, those employees need to have a distinct and interesting enough online voice!

The other point to understand, for corporates, is that if they do find an employee with a fairly significant online voice, chances are that it is not because they speak

3/5 about the company often (there are exceptions). To add company-talk in an employee's pre-existing online reach is force-fitting the corporate brand and diluting why the employee gained her/his online reach in the first place.

4/5 The approach could be towards one of the 2 things:
1. aim for visibility - a LOT of employees sharing the company's update may not make the communication seem interesting or authentic, but it could amplify it. This is particularly useful for large software companies.

5/5
2. aim for authenticity - work with a few/select set of employees for the long-term, with both investing time and effort in each others' voices and content.

#employeeadvocacy #publicrelations #PR