How to Get Brand Ambassadors to ‘Like’ You
- Stacey Ruth, CEO Inside Out Marketing
- Dec 10, 2019
- 3 min read
Your employees and members don’t really ‘Like’ you – at least on social media. That’s not only emotionally devastating for your brand, it is devastating for growth. Employees and members typically have 10x connections on a social media platform – per individual – than your brand does. Whether you are a non-profit, church or association, a retail or manufacturing business, a sole proprietor or enterprise scale organization, b2b or b2c – the problem is the same.
Employees and members are relatively mute about their employers or affiliations on social media. As a result the most immensely valuable voice of your brand is deafeningly silent. While there are few outliers who like, share and comment, they typically are vested themselves, and that is not the same as the frontline team joining in the conversation.
Why Your Brand Needs Employees to Like You
Brands thrive on trust, and it is human nature to trust those who have the least to gain by sharing. We are all seeking authentic enthusiasm born out of experience, values and meaning. Only employee brand ambassadors can deliver this level of brand affinity effectively. Here are some reasons why this is true:
Brand messages reach 561% further when shared by employees compared to the same messages shared via official corporate accounts.
92% of an employee’s Twitter followers are new to the brand (that might stimulate some social recruiting ideas for you!)
People trust other people 90% of the time, but they only trust official corporate messages 33% of the time.
70% of customer brand perception is determined by experiences with people.
Content shared by employees received 8 times more engagement than content shared by the organization.
An employee is twice as trustworthy as the CEO.
Why Employees and Members Don’t Share Your Brand
The average full-time employee spends 50 hours a week at work. Additionally, 65 percent of U.S. employees cite work as a significant source of stress with more than one-third reporting chronic work stress. Volunteer organizations are similarly taxed – if not more so. The result is not engagement. It’s exhaustion.
The last thing an employee wants to do during any point of a 9, 10 or 12-hour day is post a cheerful comment about your brand. Yet the reasons are actually less about that than several other subtle reasons.
Employees/Members Don’t Understand What your Brand Stands For Educating your brand ambassadors about the brand’s mission, vision, purpose and values in a regular, ongoing basis is vitally important. Even more so is sharing with the ambassadors your stories of success. Understanding the practical application of your values and the impact it has on real people’s lives makes your ambassadors proud to be a part of what you stand for. Share and educate daily – not only from a leadership standpoint, but from a front line perspective.
Your Brand Message Isn’t Personal Your brand has a mission, vision, values and purpose. But so does every one of your brand ambassadors. Theirs is unique and personal to them, and although it aligns with your brand (or they don’t belong there) it is not going to necessarily conform perfectly to your brand. When your brand shares on a social platform, and expects the ambassadors to just automatically like, share and comment, you have put them in an inauthentic position, and they will resist. Get to know your brand ambassadors – no matter how large your organization is – by asking what they are passionate about both personally and professionally. Guide them in how they can see this reflected in the brand, and share authentically about how your brand is supporting and nurturing their passions.
You Are A Branding Control Freak Many brands like to “manage” the conversation with customers. This need to control the conversation is a razor’s edge. On one side there is clarity and consistency, while on the other is “spin” and “reframing”. The brand, at some point, must have the confidence in itself, and its message, to be able to turn it over into the hands of its ambassadors fully to run with it. Running with it does not mean that ambassadors are free to reimagine the brand or to trash it. And if the brand hasn’t fully established its core purpose or values, it is risking a lot. The time to do this is when the brand definitively knows itself. Then it can let the momentum happen.
When a fully expressed brand does release its need to control, ambassadors begin to feel something remarkable – ownership of the brand. When they can share a moment of empowerment or inspiration associated with your brand, then they are stronger and they become more than ambassadors. They are an extension of the brand to the world.
When a brand embraces, follows, likes and supports its brand ambassadors’ individual personal brands, then it generates the love it naturally needs in order to flourish.
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