Employee Advocacy 2.0 Team Growth Storytelling

If you’re still only posting to your company’s social profile and hoping that will win the war for organic reach and engagement on social media… you’re in for a tough time.

Here’s why Employee Advocacy 1.0 doesn’t work and how Employee Advocacy 2.0 can help grow your brand, demand gen, and social selling.

Here’s your company online and on social media:

Imagine you are in a town square.

It’s a noisy square with a few people you know and a lot of people you don’t. It’s a goat for some reason. kids are playing.

You will notice that there are already quite a few stalls from traders selling their wares, lots of people standing and handing out road signs and leaflets; Loud salesmen who randomly try to strike up conversations with passers-by.

There are those who seem to be constantly standing on milk cartons to tell anyone who will listen to their thoughts and feelings, their beliefs and their knowledge of a better life; Solve XYZ, achieve your goals.

What do you say now?

You also have a product or service to sell. You honestly believe they can be valuable to people, hopefully – or at least you feel they’re valuable enough to some people that it helps pay for your living expenses as well as what you protect and provide for.

So you’ve set up your stall too.

Your new website and social profiles

But, imagine your surprise: No one comes—except your mom and a random guy with a beard who thought you were handing out free cookies.

So what are you doing? You decide to quickly hire or find someone on your team who will hopefully help bring attention to your stall and your goods or services.

Your professional attention seeker.

But oh, what do you know? They have almost no success. No one wants to read their brochures, no one wants to hear their stories about your products or even about the problems you solve and how well you solve them.

your next step

Your Company About Employee Advocacy 1.0

You come to the conclusion that people don’t want to hear from brands, they want to hear from people.

So: you ask everyone who works for you, the people you work with as partners, and some of your past customers to please share and pass on the flyers that your attention-seeking colleague is distributing.

Please stop and listen to what your salespeople and professional attention seekers have to say as they stand on milk cartons to hopefully get more people to pay attention to the ancient human instinct of herd behavior.

– and why it doesn’t work
This is what employee advocacy usually ends up being nowadays.

“Would you please share our company social post on your profile as well?”

“Please use this additional tool to like, share and respond to our branded social media?

But that’s not what you really want to happen.

Because that’s not how people pay attention, build connections and trust, learn and ultimately make mutually beneficial agreements – business or personal.

What do we humans want?

Ра doing People naturally do in the town square, does it help to build these things?

They walk and talk to their friends.

They browse the stalls and strike up conversations there – if and when they feel inclined to do so. If they have a problem to solve, they will ask their friends or trusted, unbiased connections in their network or even new friends about their experiences with certain problems, about potential solutions and how to use them and who to turn to. specific tools or help with certain issues; Prices and their experience with these people.

Which many of us in the market seem to be trying to create, with our thinking and approach Advocacy of employees, is a town square where most of us spend most of our day standing on milk crates and telling stories about how wonderful our company is. But naturally, from a human perspective, hardly anyone wants to do it, and at least equally important: hardly anyone wants to listen to it.

What we want are honest, inspiring and transformative stories.
We will be happy to listen, remember and retell to all our friends. That’s why great movies, series, and books are growing that reach so many people—without massive employee advocacy campaigns on social media.

People love great stories.

So: if you don’t have an amazingly transformative, revolutionary idea or knowledge to share today in the form of a beautiful story: why not be quiet for a day? is a shocker.

Maybe look at other people’s stories, find one that resonates with you, one that sharing with other people is in line with who you are and where you want to grow and share that?

What we want is to see and hear.

These are natural human instincts, needs as deeply embedded in our DNA as the need to breathe air or drink water. So why don’t we focus on listening more, on social media? Listen, acknowledge and even respond from time to time.

When you respond, do so with the intention of first acknowledging the other person, second of understanding what was said, and third of adding to the conversation—the opposite of which, by the way, is “getting back” at everyone. From brilliant arguments about why they are wrong and you are so right. Unless it’s really necessary and the conflict or clash will add to the overall conversation.

What we want are real conversations.
We are often happy to participate in these things, but only when it is on our own terms.

So, instead of always posting road signs with ads, why not do a poll every now and then? Let people join us who are strongly invited to add to the conversation.

What we also really want is an honest, truthful exchange between people in the same organization online – instead of this tumultuous mutual underbelly grumbling over shared brochures and road signs and even milk crate sessions with empty compliments.

Why not bring some of the genuine, honest discussions that are taking place at the forefront of your conversation outside, and bring other people in, inviting them to add their own insights?

Why not add more entries to the conversation than the one – overtly or covertly – called “Sales”?

My friend and CEO and co-founder of StoryLab.ai, Brian Cohen, actually wrote a book full of ideas on how to shift your demand generation strategy to one focused on what he calls “conversational generation.” Ready to think beyond the demo? Then it’s definitely worth your time to check out Brian’s book.

What we want is an honest, real, human connection.
And we create them when we are free, inspired, supported and applauded by ourselves; Sharing our own truth, our own growth, and our own passions, insights, and knowledge as it guides us. Combining points that are relevant to the company or organization to which we belong, by natural, organic connection or mention of the company; His story, his goods and services – if and when we see fit, and if and when we feel it’s natural to talk.

Your people’s identities, their stories, and their conversations are not driven by association with your company. This is only a small part of it. Focus on increasing the number of people who are connected to you or your company, primarily online. This will allow them to grow and, in turn, your company to grow with them. not vice versa.

Employee Advocacy 2.0: Team Growth Storytelling

As people and brands alike listen, respond, and tell stories online, what they’re actually doing without even realizing it is telling the story of their growth. Think about it: the posts you shared 5 years ago or even 1 year ago are not the posts you would likely share today. give meaning; You are not the same person and you are not the same company.

hopefully

And the stories we share, in any case, are meant to help others grow and help ourselves grow.

hopefully

What this means is that we are all actually already telling growth stories.

So what is this growth story?
Telling growth stories is an approach that harnesses the transformative power of storytelling for business and personal growth. Read more about how to use it in a marketing context here.

So use Growth Storytelling and as a team instead of using the new experience of Employee Advocacy 1.0. Understand and embrace the transformative power of shared storytelling; So you can tap into the dormant power of the growth story that you and your people are already exercising.

And do it like this:

How to tell growth stories as a team

1. Hear the stories shared by people you work with and want to work with.
2. Find out how to acknowledge, deepen (with clarifying questions) or add to these stories.
3. Inspire, educate, and empower your people to create more and better stories and reach more people with them—with knowledge and tools from a platform like StoryLab.ai.

Share these stories and expand the reach of those that are most helpful or inspiring. Watch your people grow and, as a result, watch yourself and your business grow.

At StoryLab.ai, that’s what we’re enabling our team to grow with a storytelling platform, AI-generated content to help you and your people get started, and tons of free resources on how to get better results with your storytelling content. Go check it out here: www.storylab.ai.

Go from “employee advocacy” to a team growth story and support your people, grow brand and demand, improve sales and help more customers do what you know and do best.

From employee advocacy to shared stories that enable growth

Employee advocacy is clearly the direction B2B and SaaS marketing is moving towards.

But not “Please share our social posts on your profile too”.

If executed well—by understanding a shared or team growth story—more reach, more engagement, and more growth can come from this social media strategy than any other. And getting your people’s voices heard doesn’t have to be such a struggle.

Especially if you remember that it’s about the people themselves, firstly, their unique voice, secondly – and thirdly – their association with your company;

Increasing your brand, thought leadership, demand generation and social selling effectiveness is almost a happy bonus.

Grow your people, grow your business. It really is that simple.

There is more to the story of you and your people. Let’s take it out.