If you scroll on TikTok, Instagram or LinkedIn, it won’t be long until you come across employee generated content (EGC).
Household brands like M&S have used the strategy to achieve TikTok fame in recent years. Staff at their Romford branch share entertaining videos and have so far built a following of nearly 100,000 with 3.9m likes across the channel. Hobbycraft’s Wimbledon store even got a shoutout from Kylie Minogue after staff danced to her new song.
One of the latest EGC stars is Destiny Harold, the ‘Chip Shop Diva.’ Videos of Destiny (see header image) promoting the shop’s food have racked up millions of online hits, making Merchants fish and chips shop, based in Bewdley, Worcestershire, renowned across the country.
EGC’s style of content leverages employees as the content creators, which humanises a brand and helps it to build trust. More brands are now looking to invest in EGC, but it’s essential they ensure content is authentic for it to be successful.
While ECG can clearly be effective on a brand’s channels, content shared by employees still receives eight times more engagement than content shared through branded channels. With this in mind, it’s important to pay attention to how you can give your employees the means and reasons to shout about your brand in an organic way.
After all, your employees have the potential to be your best brand ambassadors. In their role, they represent your brand to the outside world, and can become powerful advocates through social media or word of mouth marketing.
Showcasing the best of a brand
With online platforms like LinkedIn, employees can show off your company culture. A post about a completed project, a successful campaign, or an award they’ve won is reflective of a company’s strengths and values.
Such posts are shared to an employees’ network, which could include future clients or talent. As opposed to traditional corporate communications, these messages are seen as more honest and relatable, showing rather than telling what a company and their brand is all about.
The same happens when employees talk about the company in everyday conversations - word-of-mouth marketing. They might not be intentionally promoting your product or service, but they’re still spreading awareness of what you do and the brands’ qualities.
Both these instances demonstrate how crucial it is for employees to be able to understand their organisation’s brand, in order to engage with it and communicate it effectively. But too often employers assume this is a given, leading to a lack of action or incoherent perceptions across the workforce.
Engaging staff with your brand
Every brand should have a clear and distinct identity, which is reflective of a company's culture and values, as opposed to trying to pretend to be something it’s not. As part of this, any values intrinsic to your brand must resonate internally before they can be conveyed externally.
The easiest way to achieve this is through dedicating time and effort to strengthen internal communication. Holding a clear role in business strategy, internal comms helps align employees with a company’s vision and become aware of their role in the bigger picture.
For example, if a brand positions itself as eco-friendly on its corporate channels but employees are unaware of sustainability initiatives, then they’re unlikely to communicate this. Knowing the individual part they have to play in driving sustainability forward will change that.
Improving internal comms doesn’t just mean communicating more but undertaking meaningful actions, such as launching incentive schemes, and conveying information effectively through HR, processes and policies.
Combine this with striking and branded office interior design, and it will become far clearer to employees what your brand stands for. In turn, they’ll feel encouraged to post about their experience and successes in a way that aligns with your brand’s services and messaging.
