AdvocacyTech: Putting PR Teams Back in the Spotlight

Motivating employees to share company information, why not? Indeed, the much-talked-about employee advocacy can work. But no matter how much you rally your troops, we must never forget that the priority is to produce relevant messages. As the saying goes: "Better to tweet one good thing than a thousand useless ones!" Let’s break it down with Raphaël Labbé, co-founder of Wiztrust.

Tomorrow, will we all be communicators?

Does it work? In any case, employees are often encouraged to become advocates. It’s clear: they are probably the best positioned to share company messages on social networks. It’s a resource we’d be remiss not to use, if only because it’s free, as Raphaël Labbé, co-founder of Wiztrust, points out : “If you manage to convince your employees, they’ll naturally share your content themselves. Rather than spending exorbitant amounts buying likes on Facebook, it’s better to invest in one of the new software suites designed to engage employees organically: LinkedIn’s Elevate, Sociabble, or Hootsuite’s Amplify.”

These technology solutions offer a key advantage: the ability to measure employee advocacy.
“Most of them can tell you precisely the impact of any given message, how many likes it generated, how many retweets, and so on. They’ll even show you how much it would have cost to purchase that engagement individually, and how much you’re saving thanks to their solution.”

What’s more, some of these platforms offer a gamified experience for users. These advocacy tech tools are designed to reward engagement. Employees can earn points or concert tickets as they share content.

“From a strategic and ROI perspective, it’s very appealing, but it’s not enough to truly create engagement”, Raphaël Labbé notes. “The central question remains: what are we sharing?”

What Is the role of communicators?

Clicking and sharing is all well and good, but what determines the reach of a message is its content.

In short, “better to tweet one good thing than a thousand useless ones.”

In fact, some companies are not entirely comfortable with the idea of letting employees speak on social networks. They fear losing control and seeing their communications go off track.

This is where communication and PR teams come into play in the advocacy game. Their role is to support employees in everything they can say, and how they can say it, to avoid friction.

Today, employee advocacy is seen as an internal communication challenge. It mainly uses brand message resources. However, how a company is portrayed in the press or by its partners often matters more to employees.

“The communications teams have the perfect raw material to engage and develop an employee advocacy strategy, a mix of brand messages, press coverage, and third-party commentary.”

“For example, if the company gets a good article in Les Echos or Ouest France, employees will be proud to share it. They might even learn about initiatives they hadn’t heard of before, such as CSR projects, HR initiatives, or innovations.”

In this case, a virtuous circle is created: content circulates thanks to the initiatives of the communications teams, inspires and engages employees, who then amplify it, without feeling like mere corporate mouthpieces relaying only official messages.

Content: The cornerstone of AdvocacyTech

“The heart of an employee advocacy program is what you have to say: your content. Trust your PR and communications teams to provide this content. The software simply facilitates its distribution”.

“It’s a technical way to deploy a message that has been carefully crafted with time, energy, and resources. You have to find what makes sense for the brand. The brand and its message must be at the heart of the process”.

Press relations are often seen as a cost center, with no clear return on investment. Beyond their contribution to the company’s reputation, employee advocacy programs are a great way to make PR teams’ efforts pay off—and to highlight their daily contributions.