EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY
CASE STUDIES
CASE STUDY 2️⃣
SF GIANTS AND FORTUNE 500 ENTERPRISE EMPLOYEE AMBASSADORS
CONTEXT
The client is a global Fortune 500 enterprise. In 2019, their ambitious goal was to scale, mobilize, and programmitize the brand’s existing employee social ambassador program. Our KPIs included number of users, percentage of users active, number of engagements, and clicks back to company web domains. Because of a newly-created partnership with the company’s brand sports marketing program, the client’s employee advocacy program occasionally receives tickets to concerts, sports games, and events to share with employee social ambassadors of choice.
PROBLEM
We asked ourselves, “What if we used these tickets to drive engagement and shares within the program while rewarding rockstar brand champions with memorable experiences?” This client’s in-house employee advocacy program would clearly be tapped to drive and deliver on these marketing and communications goals.
ACTION
In effort to surprise and delight true brand champions – and to reward high-value behaviors (i.e. regularly sharing social content and stories) – we ran a report to identify the top 10 San Francisco Bay Area brand champions using our gamification feature, “Leaderboards”. We then applied this data by reaching to these high-performing brand champions and invited them and +1 to the San Francisco Giants vs The Chicago Cubs baseball game at Oracle Park.
RESULTS
The results further solidified high-value behaviors within the client’s employee social ambassador program. These experiential rewards also became extremely valuable by building energy and positive relationships in and outside the client’s programmatic efforts. Finally, through this experiment, the client also began to appreciate the importance of imparting its brand story with employees outside of digital walls.
CASE STUDY 1️⃣
FORTUNE 500 COMPANY & ITS WIDER EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY PROGRAM
CONTEXT
The client is a Fortune 500 Enterprise located in Silicon Valley, CA. In mid-2018, their goal was to scale, mobilize, and programmitize the brand’s existing employee social ambassador program. The program had only been in place at the company for 1-2 years and had about 300-400 employee members across the globe. Our KPIs included number of users, percentage of users active, number of engagements, and clicks back to company web domains.
PROBLEM
The Fortune 500 client has limited time, budget, and resources required for creating, reviewing, approving, and sharing social media content pieces and stories. The client’s in-house employee advocacy program was tapped to drive programmatic efforts and deliver on broader organizational marketing and communications goals.
ACTION
In effort to create true brand champions, we tackled these goals by adding 3 more pillars to our program charter. This was accomplished by working cross-collaboratively with global teams to help equip employees to learn and tell the brand story. These pillars also included evangelizing the brand story by passionately sharing it on social channels, organically consuming our products, and enthusiastically participating in corporate social impact efforts. Lastly, as part of enablement efforts, we proposed and launched monthly Employee Advocacy Learning Series webinars. This learning series featured internal & external micro- and nano-influencers educating both current and prospective social ambassadors on high-value behaviors online and social channel best practices.
RESULTS
The results were bewildering. In FY2019, our efforts drove +30.5% YoY user growth through data-centered content curation and strategic employee activations. They also influenced +11.4% YoY engagement growth by tapping relevant and data-driven social copywriting techniques and actively engaging the company’s robust ambassador community globally.
CASE STUDY 3️⃣
KHALID AND FORTUNE 500 ENTERPRISE INTERN SOCIAL AMBASSADORS
CONTEXT
The client is a global Fortune 500 enterprise. Because of a newly-created partnership with the client’s internal brand sports marketing program, their employee advocacy program occasionally receives tickets to concerts, sports games, and events to share with employee social ambassadors of choice. In the summer of 2019, the client’s social ambassador program received four free tickets to an upcoming Khalid concert at Oracle Arena. This same client had also recently onboarded a cohort of ~350 interns, most of whom were based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The client’s goal was to scale, mobilize, and programmitize the brand’s existing employee social ambassador program by leveraging these newly onboarded interns. Their KPIs included number of users onboarded, number of social media content pieces and stories shared, and number of engagements garnered.
PROBLEM
We asked ourselves, “What if we used these four concert tickets to specifically drive engagement and shares from Bay Area interns within the program while rewarding them with memorable experiences?” This client’s in-house employee advocacy program was tapped to drive and deliver on these marketing and internship engagement goals.
ACTION
In efforts to encourage user adoption and engagement for our newly onboarded interns – and to reward high-value behaviors (i.e. regularly sharing social content and stories) – we decided to run an impromptu contest with all Bay Area interns. The contest would run for five days and the top four interns who shared the most stories shared on social media would win the Khalid tickets.
RESULTS
The results were extraordinary. In our five-day contest, we saw:
+13% increase in new users of our platform; all of which were newly-onboarded interns
+593% increase in branded stories shared to social media from this cohort alone;
+14% increase in engagement within the five-day period.
Employee shared posts reach 561% further than posts by corporate social media profiles.
—Source: “Why Employee Advocacy Can’t Wait” via LinkedIn