As the driving force behind communications strategy, corporate communications departments are taking it in turns to develop employee advocacy programs. But what if press relations had a role to play? Clément Boehm of LinkedIn Elevate and Anthime Caprioli of Schneider Electric explain.
Today, all communicators have this expression on their lips. The theory that employees are their company's first ambassadors is not new. It dates back to 1999, when David Weinberger wrote in the Cluetrain Manifesto that companies should open up their intranets to the outside world, as the voice of their employees is far more credible than their marketing pitch. A way of generating a positive dialogue between insiders and outsiders? Kapoor (2010) notes that employees are the main ambassadors of the employer brand.
Over the past few years, a number of innovative communications players have chosen to set up programs to encourage their employees to speak out about the company on social networks. "In 2011, we launched a discussion among our AXA France employees on Digital Common Sense. A participative platform and some 500 contributions later, we published the first guide to using social networks. The strength of this concept lies in two key areas: addressing the questions that everyone is asking, and drawing on collective intelligence. Six years later, we are witnessing a massive increase in the professional use of social networks by our employees. In particular, with the widespread use of LinkedIn and x." Eric Lemaire, Dircom at AXA France for We Are Com.
"Internally, we've put in place a number of tools, starting with training courses. At the same time, every month, we send out a newsletter to our employees, revealing the KPIs for our social media presence, the best xs and twittos of the month, new products, upcoming events, the best posts on LinkedIn... It's all about constant communication! On X, we've created groups to communicate by direct message the information to be relayed in real time and be as interactive as possible." Beatrice Judel, Dircom Pierre et vacances dans l'ADN.
Today, digital transformation has invaded communications departments and all company employees. It's the perfect time to deploy Employee Advocacy strategies and mobilize employees to share the company's issues. Numerous software tools exist to amplify communication content: Linkedin Elevate, Smarp, Socienvahiabble, Amplify, sharee, Ambassador by Socially Map...
Connecting Wiztrust, the content management and distribution platform for communications teams, to employee advocacy tools, makes it easy for communicators to boost the visibility of their content among company employees and increase its reach. Raphaël Labbé, CEO of Wiztrust.
Technology now makes it possible to capitalize on the content created by press relations and communications teams. This allows them to be re-exploited and recoup their investment in terms of time, collective intelligence and budget.
"With Wiztrust PR, Schneider Electric's PR team is curating content without even knowing it. I can push our content on Linkedin Elevate without making any extra effort" Anthime Caprioli, Schneider Electric. Indeed, corporate PR teams produce vast quantities of information, particularly for the media.
"We created ultra-simple software to enable good content to go viral. If all employees share the company's PR content, the total reach of a CP is multiplied by 22" comments Clément Boehm, Linkedin Elevate.