Enlisting Employees as Brand Ambassadors: The Inside-Out Branding Strategy

Most organizations believe public relations means cultivating relationships with outside groups. Sometimes, they overlook a key constituency: employees.

Customers form opinions of brands based on their firsthand experiences throughout the purchase journey, not just on the information and promotional materials the company delivers. Employees throughout the organization, not just those in customer service and marketing, affect consumer opinion about the brand through interpersonal and social media engagement.

Employees can be a valuable resource to friends, neighbors and social media contacts who are contemplating a purchase. The dynamic has always existed. Social media now amplifies the effect greatly – with employees having more contacts, easier and more frequent engagement, and greater influence. In fact, employees make or break a company.

The Power of Employees

That’s why company employees, the people who deliver experiences to customers, are critical, write Gallup experts Nate Dvorak and Robert Gabsa. Employees educated by the organization about its products – and especially employees who have experienced the products or services – can advocate better about the company and its brands within their personal and social media networks.

Many companies do a poor job at internal branding. Less than half of U.S. employees (41%) strongly agree that they know how their company’s product or service differs from competitors. If employees don’t understand the brand, they can’t effectively communicate it to their contacts who are potential customers.

Because of the extraordinary positive effects of employees proselytizing on social media about their company’s products, the Gallup experts recommend an “inside-out” branding strategy that includes internal branding as part of an omni-channel brand-building strategy. Customers want relationships with people, not brands.

Communications and branding experts offer these recommendations to transform employees into top-notch brand ambassadors.

Look Inward

• Re-evaluate and possibly revamp internal branding efforts. Leaders must ensure that employees understand and embrace the company’s brand promise and know how to deliver on it. Provide employees with relevant tools, education and support.
• Educate employees on the brand experience. Let them experience it and provide them the ability to deliver it to their contacts.
• Show all employees how their day-to-day work affects the brand and business, and how their work connects to a larger mission.
• Infuse internal branding into recruiting strategies. A company’s leading brand advocates are those who were attracted to its brand from the start. By finding and hiring people who are most likely to naturally embody the company’s brand and culture, companies lay the groundwork for consistent, valuable interactions with customers.

To attract and retain the right employees, companies need to communicate their values in every employee experience, from applying for a job to being recognized for successes. Companies that proclaim their values and perspectives — emphasizing not only customer experiences but also employee and job-seeker experiences, can build workforces of brand champions.

PR experts also recommend measuring internal communications. Measuring results of effectiveness of employee communications and presenting that information to senior management is critical if internal communications is to retain its position in the overall corporate hierarchy, says measurement expert Katie Paine, CEO of Paine Publishing.
New media measurement tools can integrate different data streams from internal communications, traditional media and social media into a single dashboard.

A Facebook Case Study

Jeamy Molina, communications manager for Texas electric transmission and distribution company Oncor, said her company did not realize its employees are one of its most, if not the most, important customer groups. However, an examination of Facebook social analytics revealed that the best-performing content was always about its employees, sometimes by employees, Molina relates in an article for the PRSA.

Those posts generated the highest engagement — quadruple the amount seen from other types of content geared to other customer segments.

The revelation prompted the utility to revamp its Facebook marketing strategy. It substantially increased engagement by catering specifically to employees and their spouses, friends and family.

“The Pew Research Center estimates that the median number of Facebook friends a person has is 338, so if you considered that alone, it would give enough rationale to provide good content to employee networks,” Molina says. “After all, if you have just 100 employees who are engaged with your social presence, that’s a potential network of 33,800 people.”

Bottom Line: Because consumers base their perceptions about brands largely on interactions with the company’s employees, communications with employees are paramount for a company’s success and survival. Educating employees about the company’s products and services and, then, weaving employees into the marketing and PR communications strategies can produce a remarkably positive influence on consumer opinion – and business results.