In 2022, we surveyed 250 in-house recruitment, talent acquisition and employer branding specialists about their social media habits, challenges and best practices. We found that, out of the 242 specialists who use social media, 86% actively encourage their employees to share and engage with their social recruiting content.
We then asked our respondents, via an open-ended question, “What is your top tip or best practice for getting employees involved in your recruitment and employer branding activities?” We categorized their expert tips below, alongside quoting some full answers for added insights. Read on to discover their top employee advocacy best practices and employee activation ideas for social media.
Want more social media recruiting and employer branding best practices? Get the 2022 report.
9 social media employee advocacy best practices from 240+ experts
- Create an incentive program
- Involve your employees in your projects
- Explain the benefit
- Empower your employees
- Provide great social media content
- Set some guidelines
- Communicate through different channels
- Get top management to set a precedent
- Make it fun!
Tip 1. Create an employee advocacy incentive program
By far the most-mentioned employee activation best practice was to create some kind of employee advocacy reward program. Use bonuses and other incentives to motivate your employees to get involved and advocate for your company on social media, and reward their successes.
Most of the recruitment and employer branding experts mentioned a monetary reward for successfully introducing a new employee. While some also suggested making the reward “extra days off or extra vacation days per year.”
Tip 2. Involve your employees in your projects
To get your employees interested in your social media initiatives and increase engagement, make sure to involve them in your activation projects. Listening to their ideas and taking them on a journey with you were all suggestions from our respondents. As one specialist noted, “Promoting team spirit is essential, and thanks to that, people participate with pleasure.”
Some experts also recommended appointing employee ambassadors, who can help you communicate your message. In fact, our social recruiting and employer branding survey found that 30% of recruitment and employer branding teams run employee ambassador programs.
Tip 3. Explain the benefit to drive employee advocacy
“Make the purpose of the recruitment clear to them. That it helps replace pensioners and people who leave the company, and lightens the workload for everyone,” said one expert. Many more agreed with this advice, recommending that you should show employees the value of getting involved and the impact that employee advocacy can have.
Tip 4. Empower your employees
Another popular employee activation idea was to give employees the tools and know-how to get involved in employee advocacy activities. One recruitment expert specified, “Equip employees with the skills to do so. Particularly for those individuals who have demonstrated an interest in this area.”
A second added, “Provide them with tools and resources that they can use to make their [social media] profile and posts look better.”
Provide them with tools and resources that they can use to make their [social media] profile and posts look better.
— 2022 social recruiting survey respondent
Tip 5. Provide great social media content
Similarly to the above, many of the recruitment and employer branding experts we surveyed also mentioned the importance of equipping your employees with great content. Think about authentic videos, attractive imagery, and exciting posts that they would be proud to share on their own social media channels.
Tip 6. Set some guidelines for your social media employee advocacy initiatives
To make sure your employees’ content respects your company’s values and image, having clear guidelines and processes when launching a social media employee advocacy program is a must for some. Even so, 37% of survey respondents found that getting employees to follow company guidelines when sharing content about the company on social media can be a challenge.
One recruitment specialist detailed their company’s social media sharing policy: “Not all employees are allowed to post content, because given the number of employees, it’s difficult to verify what has been posted on their pages. However, we do allow them to publish the messages that we post on our company’s social networks.”
Tip 7. Communicate your activation ideas through different channels
Emails, leaflets, posters, events, intranet, via team leads, creating internal groups… Our experts listed several different ways in which you can ask your employees to get involved on social media. Consider the different channels available to you, and which would best support your employee advocacy goals and get your message across.
Tip 8. Get top management to set a precedent for employee advocacy on social media
“As a first step, get top management involved to give an example and boost the dynamic,” was a best practice shared by several of our recruitment and employer branding experts.
Tip 9. Make it fun!
One final popular social media employee advocacy best practice was to get employees motivated by making it fun! Show genuine enthusiasm for your project and keep your employee activations fun and exciting. And avoid “making it feel forced or like work,” as one specialist warned.
How to easily share approved branded content with your employees
One way to increase employee advocacy on social media while safeguarding your company image is to provide your employees with great, on-brand content — then making it easy for them to post this content on their own social media channels.
That’s where Content Stadium SHARE comes in. Our employee advocacy solution enables you to quickly distribute branded images and videos to your employees, who can then share it on their own social media channels in a few clicks. It also allows you to provide approved captions alongside your content, plus monitor how many times your content was downloaded or shared on social media.
Perfect for any social media employee advocacy program! Find out more about Content Stadium SHARE, or book a demo to see our platform in action.
More social media recruitment and employer branding ideas
- Get more social recruiting and employer branding stats, insights and best practices in the 2022 report.
- Check out these examples of “we are hiring” and “new employee” social media posts to inspire your own.
- Learn more about our content creation platform for recruitment and employer branding teams.
