Hey this is Mike Ambassador Bruny for Brand Inside a Brand.
Today I’m sharing a clip from a panel I was on at The first Employee Advocacy Summit put on by Social Media Today. The great thing here is that I’m not speaking as a marketer per se but as an actual employee advocate. I’ve had the pleasure of being part of Intel’s first group of employee advocates and later had the opportunity to work on the marketing team to help develop the community strategy for that same advocacy program.
See the video on YouTube
I answer the following questions:
1. What would you say has been the top benefit of being an advocate from your personal and professional perspective?
- Allowed me to bring everything I was already doing outside of work (speaking, writing, social media) into work.
- Allowed me to fall in love with the brand. I got clarity around the mission of the company and once I became an advocate my attitude changed from “Time to make the donuts,” to “I can’t wait to wake up in the morning.”
2. What would you say is the top benefit your company got from your efforts?
- Saved money because they already had someone (me) engaged and I could go to events on their behalf at no significant cost. They also had the opportunity to show the human side of the brand.
3. For those who are developing employee advocacy programs, what would you recommend as the most important piece of advice around reward and recognition?
- Paying attention to who your people really are; what they do day-to-day. Being an advocate isn’t their full-time job; acknowledge that.
- Get to know them as people. How can you help them to become a brand inside a brand
- Being able to match what your people care about and what the business is trying to get done.
4. When you think about Employee Advocacy, is this the exception or the rule? Do you think everyone will be one?
- I think it’s like the bell shaped curve and you will have that kind of distribution.
- Focus on loving the people first and they will love you back. How much love you give will dictate how much you get in return.
5. For advocacy to be successful you need a lot of great content. How can a company continually provide that content?
- Leverage departments in your company that are already creating content.
- Leverage curation tools as another avenue.
I had a great time being on the panel and I look forward to seeing more of these crop up so you get the perspective from people who are actually doing the work and not just thinking about the work. As someone who has been on both sides, trust me, there is a huge difference.
How would you answer the questions?
Would you like to see the whole video with the answers from the other two panelist? You can see it right HERE.
[alert type=”block” title=”Need help with your advocacy program? Reach out and let’s talk for 15 minutes. Mike at BrandInsideaBrand.com”][/alert]
As always my goal is to help you run the point, that’s take action, from where you are with what you have.
Your Ambassador,
Mike Ambassador Bruny
