FACILITIES MANAGEMENT JOURNAL JOBS
FM CAREERS - EMPLOYEE RELATIONS
Employee social advocacy is the
promotion of an organisation
by its workforce via social
media. On average employees have
10 times more combined followers on
social media than the organisation
itself, which is why employers
can make use of the incredible
social influence of their employees
by empowering them to share
content across their personal social
networks.
Research shows that implementing
an employee advocacy programme,
whether on social media or via other
channels, has lasting benefits for both
the organisation and the employees
involved. Moreover, with over 4.5
billion people now using social media
worldwide, according to Hootsuite’s
Digital Trends 2021 report , and 43
per cent using the platforms for brand
research, a social strategy is key
to those wishing to reach an everexpanding
audience.
Employee social advocacy could
include employees sharing information
about specific products or campaigns;
sharing branded content to peers in
an organisation’s field of expertise; or
authentically o ering a glimpse into
the company culture with more organic
posts—something of great potential
value in attracting new talent. The latter
is particularly useful since the mass
move to online and digital recruitment
methods spurred by the pandemic.
Research shows that both brand
health and trust improve as a result of
employee advocacy, with 84 per cent of
mature organisations surveyed seeing
significant success in these areas when
using employee advocacy tools.
HOW SODEXO TRANSFORMED ITS
SOCIAL STRATEGY
Sodexo decided to commission a social
media audit to understand what was
working and what wasn’t, with the
aim to then move forward with a more
e ective social strategy to support
business growth and support specific
objectives such as building the social
media presence of its executive leaders.
Social media sits within the global
communications team within Sodexo,
so it was their responsibility to develop
a new social strategy based on the
findings of the audit and the company’s
objectives. The team partnered with
Hootsuite to implement an employee
advocacy programme that would meet
Sodexo’s goals.
The audit revealed that Sodexo had
a comparatively small C-suite following
on LinkedIn, so this is where the team
started. They focused on building the
social media presence of Sodexo’s
executive leaders with an executive
advocacy programme, in order to build
the company’s reach with executive
audiences and drive greater business
impact. “Companies will oŽ en decide
to go with the millennial, digital-savvy
employees when launching advocacy
programs,” said Kim Beddard-
Fontaine, SVP Digital and Employee
Communications at Sodexo. “We
specifically decided to go with senior
executives because reaching the C-suite
is so important for us in influencing key
decision makers.”
Sodexo then went on to focus on two
other key areas: utilising employee
social advocacy to support large,
complex deals, and to engage and
inform Sodexo’s own employees in
order to drive further business impact.
For the former, the communications
team decided to build stakeholder
outreach into the core of their social
strategy. Using Hootsuite, they ran
a highly targeted social campaign
aimed at C-level executives at just one
organisation, extending the reach of the
campaign by encouraging employees
with connections to executives to share
campaign content across their personal
social media networks. Ultimately, the
campaign was a success and was one
of the factors in Sodexo winning a highvalue
contract with the organisation in
question.
Utilising Hootsuite Amplify not only
as a way to share content externally,
but also to engage and inform its own
employees with corporate news and
updates resulted in 50 per cent of
employee advocates reading the shared
content, which supports internal,
as well as external awareness of the
company’s campaigns. Further training
has helped employee advocates define
their online thought leadership voice,
such as when personalising content to
ensure both authenticity in tone and
relevance to target audiences.
THE ROI OF EMPLOYEE SOCIAL
ADVOCACY
By putting employee advocacy at the
heart of its new social strategy, Sodexo
has seen significant results both
internally and externally. Following
its executive advocacy programme,
which eventually saw a thousand senior
leaders involved as advocates, the
company found that its global content
was reaching 7.6 million people,
attracting 2.3 times as many views as
content on Sodexo’s corporate LinkedIn
page had previously. The programme
also led to an increase in Sodexo’s
C-suite audience on LinkedIn, as well
as doubling the rate at which it attracts
new LinkedIn followers overall – with
a jump from an average of 7,500 new
followers per month to more than
15,000.
Sodexo also drew great ROI from
their wider employee advocacy
campaigns, with content posted via
Hootsuite Amplify now driving 30 per
cent of all social media tra ic to the
website. Beddard-Fontaine praised the
new approach, saying that “Hootsuite
Amplify has been very powerful in
allowing us to create a culture of
sharing content. Those who use it, love
it, and it’s driving the majority of our
social tra ic to our website”.
SOCIAL LIFE By implementing employee social advocacy, Sodexo was able to transform its social
strategy and strengthen its relationships with customers and clients alike, says
Brayden Cohen, Social Marketing and Employee Advocacy Team Lead at Hootsuite
58 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2022