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Welcome to episode 9 of Claire Shares. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m going to be sharing with you high energy, bite size videos, about all things talent attraction, talent acquisition and talent retention. Make sure you’re subscribed to Claire Shares wherever you get your podcasts! Today’s talent topic is developing employees as brand ambassadors. I’m excited to share with you how we’ve developed brand ambassadors here at Lighthouse Technology Services, which not only has improved our company awareness and sales, but also helps our team feel more connected to their work and those we serve – which goes a long way for talent retention!
Before we get started with today’s talent topic, I want to share with you my recommendation of the week!
Recommendation of the week
My recommendation for you this week is to check out industry or function association groups in your community. I’m a member of BNHRA, the Buffalo Niagara Human Resources Association, and have previously served on the board for many years. This organization is designed to bring aspiring HR pros and HR pros of all levels together. Being involved with this organization over the years has helped me personally and professionally. I’ve made friends and contacts that have helped my career grow but have also helped me in my work. The BNHRA hosts monthly learning and development events so HR pros can network, learn, and gain HR recertification credits to keep their HR credentials active. SHRM, the society for human resources management has a chapter locator on their website if you are outside of the buffalo area and curious what HR group may be in your area. Check out bnhra.org for more information and feel free to send me a message if you have any questions.
While on this topic of industry and functional groups, I also wanted to give a shout out to BNSME, the Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives. They are a fun and engaged group for aspiring and experienced sales and marketing professionals in the buffalo region that come together to learn, grow, and network. My colleague Joe Ray, our manager of marketing and experience here at Lighthouse, was recently the guest speaker at one of BNSME’s professional development events. I attended as well and we had a blast. The topic Joe presented on was developing brand ambassadors, which is the topic I’m going to be sharing with you today!
I love to curate resources and share recommendations, so please reach out to me if there’s something you’re looking for! Let’s get into the details of our talent topic of the day, developing employees as brand ambassadors.
What is a brand ambassador?
By sharing their experiences and insight, and leveraging their influence, a Brand Ambassador drives affinity for themselves and a brand they share a connection with. Developing brand ambassadors supports your marketing outreach, because every employee at your organization has a unique network. The more they share about your products, services and culture, the wider audience you reach. Every bit helps to connect with people who could benefit from what your team has to offer!
Brand ambassadors support employer branding and recruiting, by helping the organization get more applicants, and showcasing testimonials or google reviews about working at the company.
Brand ambassadors can support employee engagement and retention, because capturing the energy of engaged employees and including them in an initiative that showcases them makes them feel special. Spotlighting employees on your website and social media channels, and having those employees share their spotlight with their networks, creates feelings of pride and connectedness with their employer. When employees feel appreciated about their work, knowledge, and contributions at the company, they are more likely to stay and tell others about your company as an employer of choice as well.
Brand ambassadors can support talent attraction as well as retention. Companies like Cisco and Chili Piper helped their employees participate in marketing content efforts to attract new job seekers with great success. Showcase your company benefits, culture, those things that make being a part of your team truly unique.
In summary, what can we gain from employee brand ambassadors? Find the connections and talent you need, gain new insight and stay updated on your industry, build authentic connections that allow you to help others as well as grow your network, and establish and enhance your professional online presence.
The impact of employees as brand ambassadors
I’m going to be talking about employees as brand ambassadors, and the brand that they share a connection with is YOUR organization that they work for. There are so many ways to get your employees involved meaningfully in showcasing your company brand, that feels good both to the individual employee and you as the company. Let’s dive into more specifics!
Joe Ray, our Manager of Marketing and Experience here at Lighthouse, has done an awesome job developing our employees as brand ambassadors, and I’m excited to tell you more about what we do! As I mentioned earlier, every employee at your organization has a unique network and community. The more they connect with the people they know and communicate the work they do, a wider audience is reached.
Here’s a good example to demonstrate this. We looked at how our recruiting team at Lighthouse performed as brand ambassadors on LinkedIn over the past 90 days, compared to just our Lighthouse company LinkedIn page. The Lighthouse company LinkedIn page had around 1 thousand engagements (which are likes, comments, and shares) and our recruiting team collectively had just over 5,000 engagements. Our Lighthouse Technology Services company LinkedIn page had 53,000 impressions, and our recruiting team collectively had 281,000. As you can see, getting employees engaged in sharing your brand can help tremendously in spreading awareness about your products, services and open jobs.
Employees also love to be involved because it helps them in their roles as well – more visibility and sharing content helps them get their jobs done, whether it’s selling, networking or learning. In my personal experience, being active on social media and having the support of my marketing department has helped me attract amazing opportunities for myself and my organization, whether it be job candidates, attending or hosting an event, partnering on a community initiative, or being featured on a podcast. I love talking about my experience using social media for career and business growth, so please reach out to me if you want to chat about this further!
Getting employees involved as brand ambassadors
Joe, our fearless department of one marketing professional, has done a great job helping our team create content that feels authentic to them, that they are proud to share, and that aligns with the Lighthouse company values. I’m excited to share with you how we do this and how you can get your employees involved too!
Help your employees share their experience and insights in a way that positions them as thought leader or valuable connection to their network, and positions your organization to attract the customers, clients, or candidates you’re looking for. Joe and I have tons of post examples on how we leverage our influence and share experience and insights. Please reach out to us if you have a specific question pertaining to your organization or would like examples. We have experience in providing social media training to employees and managers, as well as standing up brand ambassador programs within organizations. We love doing this work and would be happy to help you.
Here are some examples to start. At Lighthouse, we have multiple podcasts and blogs, and we make it easy for our team to share those out on LinkedIn by creating plug and play captions. Joe will provide some guiderails, but there is of course room for the employee to add their individual thoughts or insights on the topic when sharing it.
Being a brand ambassador extends beyond just creating content! We also encourage our team to be active participants in community causes they are passionate about. For example, are they speaking at or attending an upcoming event, or are they doing a community event such as the fight for air climb or ice cycle. We encourage them to get a photo while there, and we may even send a fellow Lighthouse team member to go to the event with them to take photo or video that could be used in a social post, on our website, or on our blog. Joe helps team members create captions showcasing their involvement with the event, why they went and what they learned while there.
Showcasing our team’s community involvement is a great way to bring additional exposure to worthwhile causes, but it also helps our team members feel fulfilled. That ties back to our “We all do better when we all do better” message from episode 6 of Claire Shares. Make sure you check that out and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to stay tuned for future episodes.
Employees are proud to share what they are doing, and love having the organization’s support and guidance to help them get the word out to their networks. Most folks aren’t naturally good at creating content and that’s okay! Harness their energy and help them get the word out. This positively impacts them as well as our organization’s brand.
There’s actually a group of us at Lighthouse that are super engaged with being brand ambassadors, and we meet with Joe biweekly for 15 minutes to review upcoming events and ideas we have for posts, blogs, or videos. The meeting holds all of us accountable to sharing content, it’s fun, and we get Joe’s insight on how to make the content most impactful. And again, as an expert content writer, Joe also helps us create captions and post content, so we aren’t starting from scratch. Your employees are much more likely to participate online as brand ambassadors if you are making it as easy as possible for them to share.
Who makes good brand ambassadors?
Who should you chose to be a brand ambassador at your company? Here are some examples of folks that could be great brand ambassadors.
For starters, C suite or executive leadership are great options. They’re likely well known in business circles and the community and would have a broad reach especially on LinkedIn. You’ve all probably seen content from our CEO Randy Harris. He shares all types of stories, experiences and insights about his work as a CEO, the buffalo tech community, and being a dad of 4 girls. Having employees pick 3-4 content topics to really focus in on helps build their brand with their community.
Next, Team members whose network includes current customers/clients, or potential customers/clients are great options for brand ambassadors.
Subject matter experts are another great option. They have a lot of great knowledge and experience to share that would be helpful for current and future employees, as well as current and future customers. Help them channel that knowledge into a blog post, video, LinkedIn post, podcast, whatever they are comfortable with, and the company has available.
And last but not least, hand-raisers who are ready to commit and learn. You’ll find that some of your employees do gravitate to social media and may already be posting on LinkedIn about what they’re doing at work or in the community. Invite those folks to work with you and your marketing team to develop their content and posting skills further.
Wrap-up
It’s marketing’s responsibility to support brand ambassadors. In your organization if you don’t have a marketing person, it may be someone else like your HR person. I’ve been responsible for leading brand ambassador initiatives at prior companies I’ve worked at since I had a recruitment marketing background. Or you may want to work with a consultant to help you with this initiative. Again, reach out to Joe Ray or myself. We’d love to chat with you further about building a brand ambassador program at your company! Having a brand ambassador program is just that, a program that needs ongoing creativity, maintenance and review.
Remember, not everyone in your organization needs to be a brand ambassador. Brand Ambassadors need Amplifiers. These folks are your cheerleaders who share, engage and comment, on Brand Ambassadors’ content. Those likes, comments, and shares still go out to that employee’s unique network and audience and are still a huge help! This week, think about how having a brand ambassador initiative could benefit your employer brand, as well as engage, spotlight, and retain the employees who participate.
Thank you for being here with me and joining me for these bite size videos all about all things talent attraction, talent acquisition and talent retention. These areas of HR and People Ops are my favorite and specialty, and I’m so excited to dive in with you. This work is what I do, if you need help with the tools, technology and process around how you attract, acquire and retain talent, reach out to me and let’s talk!
Claire is Coaching 