Employee branding is the continuance of social media marketing with the support of employees. Advertising and product communication hardly reach the recipients. Content marketing can help and support companies with successful storytelling. However, the delivery of non-advertising content via various owned and paid media alone often fails due to the low organic reach of one’s own profiles or budget.
The solution can be found in employee branding or employee marketing. Employees act as brand ambassadors and thus help those responsible for communication to be successful with their content strategy. In addition to successful storytelling, smart tools and the support of an experienced partner are crucial. The social media agency vibrio is an authorized partner of Smarp, one of the leading tool providers in the field of employee branding.
(Translated with Deepl.com)
A flood of information leads to negative response from customers
People process countless sensory impressions and messages every day. Some of them have been equally frequent or intense since primeval times; the experience of cold or warmth, for example. But other stimuli have increased massively in recent decades.
Today we are faced with more than 1,000 different brands every day. The number of communication files has also increased: Around 10,000 times a day we are confronted with advertising. This is not always a human being – chatbots and virtual avatars are also part of today’s commercialized reality. This has an impact on our feelings and behaviour:
- People are increasingly overburdened by communication.
- Most people find advertising annoying and intrusive. As a result, we avoid them and block them out.
- Arrogance, ignorance or bad service disturb the relationship between provider and customer: In the worst case, a company loses the customer completely.
- In the age of the Internet, a further danger threatens: the angry customer spreads his negative experience among friends and acquaintances, in his peer group and via social media. The brand image is going into a downward spiral.
Recommendation Marketing in the Peer Group
The peer group helps individuals to find their way in the environment by seeking advice, tips, personal recommendations and information on products and services of all kinds.
The most important thing that distinguishes a peer group is the trust that the individual places in it. As a result of the social media, the network of customers and consumers has grown. If no one you know has a tip, you just ask the two billion active Facebook users or click your way through rating portals.
Recommendation marketing has always been the best way to win new customers, because around 50 percent of German consumers consider recommendations based on personal experience when making purchasing decisions. And this is exactly what can be used in a profitable way with employee branding.
Left: Numerous messages address the customer.
Middle: Messages only reach the customer via the members of the peer groups.
Right: The company’s message reaches customers and other recipients in the social media via the employee. There, the roles between sender and recipient change constantly.
Empoyee Branding: The Employee as Brand Ambassador
It has long been known that employees are important multipliers in communication. But they offer much more potential: if employees gain leads, they become contacts seven times more often than through other channels. In employee branding, they become brand ambassadors.
- Employees are closer: to the target groups and to the topics.
- They are more trustful than the company. In comparison to the CEO, they even receive two times more trust.
- They communicate with the other target groups in a variety of ways.
- As employees, they automatically have expert or influencer status on topics that affect the company.
- The employees are the link to the peer groups of the customers and partners.
Employee Branding is a Brand of its Own
Each company has three brands: a corporate brand, an employer brand and an employee brand.
The goal is to position each of these brands attractively before the various stakeholders. The corporate brand is aimed at external interest groups – customers, partners, etc. – and is controlled by corporate communications or marketing. Employer marketing is aimed at (potential) employees and aims to position the company as an attractive employer brand. This is often a task for the HR department.
Employee branding describes a brand that is defined by the employees of a company. It is determined by the communication behavior of the employees and can therefore only be indirectly controlled by both the UK and HR. Employee branding lends authenticity and committed brand ambassadors pay off for the company. It is therefore important to manage this size in the brand structure as well as possible.
Better Content Marketing through Employee Branding
Of course, this is not possible with advertising, but with content marketing. Many companies have now recognized that high-quality content is more convincing than flat advertising messages, and they also rely on a corresponding strategy for communication. It doesn’t matter whether you choose informative, advisory or entertaining content – what is important is an attractive and credible storytelling. At vibrio, we develop storytelling tailored to your needs – over 27 years of experience in PR and communication management help us to achieve this. The possibilities are almost inexhaustible and range from blogs and videos to podcasts.
But the principle of content marketing does not stop with the creation and publication. The spreading in the Internet is the supreme discipline, because nevertheless world-wide over 860 million web pages exist – tendency rising. In order to assert themselves, companies also spread the content on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Co. But there they struggle with declining organic reach and low interactivity rates.
This is where employee branding comes in, as it uses the social media gravitational field of employees. Depending on the project, they can address far more than ten times the combined reach of all company profiles.
The Social Media Gravity Field
People always interact and communicate in social media. Even though company profiles are now offered on the platforms and cooperation is encouraged, the mechanisms and functions are basically oriented towards a personal profile and its contacts. The social contacts – or even the potential customers and prospective customers – on a social network belong thus to the employees.
The possibility to distinguish between a private and a professional profile is hardly offered by one of the platforms and the creation and administration of several profiles is tedious. Therefore, the private networks of employees exert a certain attraction on companies: Only those who land there with their messages achieve the necessary reach for their content marketing strategy and can avoid the flood of information with the help of recommendation marketing.
The challenge: The online world is too fast for approval processes like those used in other areas of marketing communication. Those who allow employees to talk about the company and its offers lose control. It is therefore necessary to develop social media guidelines that form the basis for the dissemination of content. In addition, within the framework of the employee branding strategy, the company can provide employees with targeted content that is to be promoted. To this end, those responsible can rely on smart tools and cooperation with an external partner.
Left: In the classic release process, countless correction loops slow down communication.
Middle: In social media communication there is no time for correction loops. Here, social media guidelines are indispensable as a set of rules.
Right: Employee branding relies on employees who are competent in content and technology.
Employee Branding with Vibrio and Smarp
Vibrio and Smarp: Smart Partners for Your Employee Branding
All beginnings are difficult, so it is worthwhile for you to start the employee branding project with vibrio. We have been active for more than 27 years as an agency for PR and social media in the DACH region and accompany you on your way to successful content marketing.
We set up the project with you, train your employees in the correct use of the necessary tools and continuously optimise the project. In order for your employees to become brand ambassadors, it is also necessary for the HR department to work together. As an external partner, we are happy to mediate between both departments. Of course, we will also assist you in both words and deeds after the implementation phase if you see a need for it.
Our partner Smarp is a pioneer in employee branding and has been successful with the tool of the same name since 2011. The tool covers several areas of responsibility in connection with employee branding and content marketing:
- It aggregates different company profiles and other content sources on one interface.
- Using the tool, marketing or communication managers can recommend content that employees can share.
- Sharing takes just one click, for example on Facebook or Twitter.
- The tool creates incentives for active employee branding via gamification.
- The employees discuss the content on the Smarp interface.
- Smarp provides data for an individual success analysis.
As a contractual partner, we are closely connected with Smarp and know the functions and advantages inside out. Smarp is present on the international market, has ISO certification 27001 (information security) and is used by companies such as PWC, Unilever, Nissan and Trivadis IT Solutions.
We not only provide you with content that appeals to your target group, but also support you in disseminating and developing your strategy within the company itself.
A Successful Content Marketing Strategy Needs Employee Branding
In order to assert yourself as a company in the market, you need a communication strategy that does justice to the latest developments. Employee branding is a further building block, alongside content marketing and storytelling.
We work with you and your employees to develop a strategy that will enable you to be successful. As the person responsible for communication, as a brand and thus also as a company.
Use the gravitational field of your employees’ social networks and multiply the reach of your own channels – without any advertising budget.
Increase your credibility by turning your employees into brand ambassadors and strengthen your loyalty to your company.
We would be happy to advise you on this in a telephone call or personal conversation – just contact us.