VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 3 Why the Era of Brand Ambassadors is Dead! And How to Create Real Advocates… When was the last time you met a brand ambassador? Seriously. A real one. If you’re like most people, the concept of brand ambassadors only ever existed in the minds of either the CMO or CCO. The reason was that employees didn’t have the content, channels or interest in extolling the virtues of the brand or company. And the company wasn’t focused on employee engagement as a competitive advantage. In today’s rapidly changing digital world, just about everyone is coming to the realization that enabling your workforce to communicate your company’s message is an organizational imperative. Previous attempts at encouraging employees to proactively engage in conversations about promoting the brand, product or company have incorporated one huge difference. The days of hoping, cajoling and soliciting scripted, employee ambassadors are long gone. Real brand advocates within an organization – read employees – have immense long-term business value. Brand ambassadors are appealing to some companies because they appear more regulated, but they simply aren’t authentic and therefore aren’t effective. Employees who are properly activated with the right tools can drive awareness, change perceptions, educate stakeholders, assist customer service, lower risk, influence friends and provide insight into various industries. Corporate + Strategy Best Buy is one company that tapped into those advantages early on. When Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling started the employee-only social network Blue Shirt Nation (BSN) in 2006, they probably didn’t expect to have 20,000 of Best Buy’s employees on board within a year. Best Buy figured it out early. Recent studies continue to indicate that employees are some of the most credible spokespeople for an organization, providing unfiltered information devoid of spin. But the challenge is how. The answer is rather simple but no less difficult to achieve. The effort must be organic. The approach should be a Discover vs. Sell model. 1 Why the Era of Brand Ambassador is Dead! VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 3 Discover vs. Sell The classic mistake most managements and communicators make today is the belief that they need to “sell” employees on everything from a new benefits program to the corporate strategy. People “smell the sell” and they turn off to the very thing being endorsed. The right approach is to base communication and a “discover” model that allows people to find the truth themselves. A new type of thinking means a provocative tone, a more authentic method of discussion and debate, and a more pragmatic view of the human behavior. For starters, there needs to be governance and policies that allow people to actively engage in outside conversations on behalf of the organization. There also needs to be a regular flow of information – data, stats, content, stories, etc. – on every dimension of the business from which to curate content. More importantly, though, there needs to be a very subtle, sophisticated effort at treating people with respect, dignity and like they are capable of handling information in a manner that strengthens the organization’s intellect. Most of us, at this point, know that the above is easier said than done. Just look at websites like Glassdoor, which currently has a population of 25 million members, spanning 190 countries. Here’s some tips on enabling your employees to be advocates: Harvest confidence. Ask any wine-maker worth his/her salt. You can’t just slap a pretty label on a bottle and declare the contents a masterpiece. There is a disciplined, pragmatic process that allows the contents to mature, evolve and ferment to achieve maximum quality and taste. It’s the same with developing advocates in your organization. It’s a complex process that’s unique to each company. Oftentimes in public relations/marketing/communications, counsel is pulled in to slap a beautifully packaged bandage on larger issues. People don’t want to be brand ambassadors. They want to be proud employees. An emphasis has to be placed on employee development, training, tools and strategy. Once you build pride and confidence in the ranks of your company internally, people will be motivated to speak up, whether it’s in the digital space or with friends and family. Train constantly. So, how do you do that? One way is to provide professional training and development programs that are engaging and informative. For example, take the digital space. Beyond your standard digital policy and protocol training, provide your employees with elective courses catered to individual interests. Invest in developing their skills online. A more knowledgeable workforce will naturally grow your business capabilities, promote loyalty and organically produce proud employees who are skilled at communicating online. 2 VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 3 Why the Era of Brand Ambassador is Dead! Dell, a well-known pioneer in company branded blogging and digital advocacy, went as far as to hire a team member with comedy experience to host digital trainings. Why not? It’s simple, but makes training worthwhile and entertaining for employees. Dell’s employees go beyond mentioning the company online. They engage with customers, write about their professional interests, answer questions, discuss industry trends and more. Dell’s Social Media and Community University (SMaC U) training program has certified almost 20,000 employees, as of earlier this year. Make advocacy easy. The fastest way to lose participation is by making something overly difficult. Training is a piece of this, but there are so many other ways to make advocacy easy for employees. One simple way to make sharing information effortless is to create a content repository. A single internal platform that houses shareable content can eliminate the time-consuming aspect of search for employees. For those that don’t even know where to look, it’s also a great place to start. Have an exciting piece of company news you’d love employees to share on their personal channels? Provide them with formatted leads for platforms like Twitter and Facebook. That way, if they want to modify wording on their own they can, but they can also simply copy and paste. Why employee advocates? Trusted 2X An everyday employee is two times more trusted than a Chief Executive. - Edelman Trust Barometer, 2013 New audience 92% of employees’ Twitter followers are new to the brand - Dell study, 2012 More likely to buy 77% of consumers are more On-going conversations drive engagement. likely to buy a product when they hear about When it comes to digital policies and governance, the more concise and it from someone they simple, the better. Policies and guidelines for all employees have to be trust. - Nielsen, 2013 comprehensive, but they also can’t cause fear. If employees are afraid to participate, they won’t. It’s as simple as that. Governance, particularly when it comes to company affiliated content, needs to be structured efficiently so that it facilitates real-time publication. If corporate blog posts or personal tweets from employees are gridlocked because of a confusing or lengthy legal review process, for example, content can quickly become stale and even irrelevant. Intel wouldn’t be able to facilitate such robust information on various community forums for employee developers, IT and peers if the processes deterred timely interaction. The goal is on-going conversation between and among employees and folks on the outside. Let early adopters run. Particularly when it comes to advocacy online, a large portion of employees will likely be hesitant to dive right in. It’s important to let early adopters in your organization move quickly. These are often digital natives and enthusiasts. They know the channels, the language and they already have industry relationships online. You can then work to leverage the skills of these trailblazers in combination with the knowledge of subject matter experts across organizational functions. 3 VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 3 Why the Era of Brand Ambassador is Dead! Don’t force it. Employees aren’t going to lie to their friends, family and business connections for their employer. You shouldn’t expect them to. Enabling employees to communicate the company message won’t work if they don’t buy it. Again, it’s not a quick fix and it starts with understanding your company’s culture. If the story your executives are telling doesn’t match the front-line, there’s a problem. Once you give employees the encouragement and tools to grow professionally and ensure that the company message is unified and understood across the board, advocacy will come naturally. Employees will want to engage because they’ll realize the company is investing in them and encouraging professional growth, not just bottom line business objectives. Of course, when this does occur organically, positive business outcomes is exactly the result. Not only will you attract the right talent, but you’ll retain it. Know what you’re chasing. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Simply declaring that you’re going to empower employees isn’t enough. It’s important to specify precisely what outcomes you’re after or your efforts won’t be tangible enough. It might be that you want to activate subject matter experts within a particular function online. Maybe you’re looking to inform an entire workforce of new policies and training programs. It could be that you want to provide in-depth tips on an online channel, so that employees are armed with the tools to maximize their professional and personal digital presence. Whatever it is, pull it down to measurable terms. Our increasingly digital world is positioning employees in a way that allows them to voice realities. This means that employees can humanize a brand negatively by airing dirty laundry or enhance reputation by sharing thought leadership and growing influence. Which will it be? Well that’s up to you. You do the math... 70% of adults online trust recommendations from friends and family 15% trust posts from companies and branches on social media from 84% of consumers trust recommendations people they know - Forrester, 2013 - Forrester, 2013 - Nielsen, 2013 4 VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 3 Why the Era of Brand Ambassador is Dead! WCG’s Corporate and Strategy Group is the organizational communications consulting practice for WCG*, a leading independent, global strategic marketing, digital, and corporate communications firm. The mission of the WCG Corporate Strategy Group is to advise and assist organizations in effectively addressing reputational risk, change management, innovation, product supremacy, and brand leadership. The group offers distinctive expertise in culture transformation, strategy implementation, CEO transitions, leadership positioning, internal branding, M&A post-merger integration, labor-management relations, advocacy and issues management, internal communications improvement programming, investor relations, training and development, and employee worldview research/measurement through a proprietary combination of analytics, management outreach, employee engagement and strategic communications. For more information, please contact Meriel McCaffery at [email protected] or 212 257-6994. *WCG is a firm of the W2O Group 5