During the numerous lockdowns in the past year, brands big and small decided to empower their employees to share content directly to their own followers and friends on social media to keep their brand message alive – even when in-store footfall wasn’t possible.
Those same brands are now using the same technique to amplify their marketing messages as stores plan to reopen.
Telling their own stories – and yours
In the past year, there has been a massive spike in employees taking to social media to talk about the work they were doing to support their colleagues, their communities, their employers.
Some were already part of formal employee influencer or advocacy programmes. Others wanted to join the conversation, lend their voice to the movement and share how they were stepping up and taking on new responsibilities to support people in crisis.
The content people consume online has changed
The result was astonishing. People started talking about the brands they love. They shared the stories of how work colleagues were helping each other out and of the impact they were having.
This last year has seen a radical shift in the type of content people want to consume.
This desire for more authentic, raw, genuine content along with wanting the opportunity to engage with real people who share those experiences or understand what they are talking about, is on the rise.
Build a genuine brand story
At its heart social media is about connecting people to people by building a genuine story. Yours should be told by the people who know you best – your employees.
If you haven’t tried it already, think about enabling your employees to create work-related moments they can bring to life on social.
You want to find stories that resonate, that people want to talk about and share.
By giving your employees a guiding light – prompts and ideas of the type of content they could share that’s personal to them but also reflects your brand and organisation – you’ll hit employee influencer gold.
Get started by downloading our free introduction to employee advocacy for retail guide.