Trust The Employee and Their Content.

That marketing lady gives you insights into what employee-generated content can do for your brand.

With perfectly polished branding visuals and overly competitive marketing campaigns out there, consumers are becoming less and less interested in interacting with digital content that is not personally relatable. As brand authenticity is becoming a crucial consumer requirement, the rise of user-generated content (UGC) has taken over a key part of marketing strategies. Your potential buyer wants to feel connected! Content such as review messages, images, and videos of products and services published by your customers on social media platforms helps build that trust and is an excellent way for them to visualize your brand in a much more authentic manner. Stackla, a leading visual content engine, recently released a consumer report in 2019, which found out that consumers are two times more likely to perceive UGC as authentic than branded content created by a business. 

However, “users” aren’t the only influential content creators. In a world where consumers now trust their barista or a used car salesperson more than the ads or formal marketing messages, inspiring Employee Advocacy through digital marketing content is Big News. I mean, who else is closer to your brand than your employees?

Employee Generated Content (EGC), in simple terms, is content created by your employees. Digital content is made in videos, photos, tutorials, or blog posts that highlight the company’s mission, values, culture, and the products or services based on it. 

Even the concept of employee-generated content can indeed raise several fears in the minds of companies like:

Can we trust our employees not to paint us in a bad light? 

Will they create poorly written or inaccurate content?

If they share content, will it be perceived as unprofessional?

But the reality is that more than 90% of your employees use social media platforms for their personal use, and somewhere knowingly or unknowingly, employees post content about the products or services they work around or showcase your company culture while sharing their coffee break selfie. Your employees are your company experts; that’s why you hired them, didn’t you? They know your business better than your customer, whether it’s knowledge about your product or service or the industry scenario, and leveraging their valuable insights, expertise, and unique perspective can benefit and humanize your brand.

Let’s see how:

Employees showcasing your products, services, in-house events, and campaigns adds a fresh, unique, and more personalized perspective and outlook towards the brand to the audience compared to the general marketing content.

Employee generated content is far more cost-effective than outsourcing content creation. It’s a great addition to your user-generated content strategy.

Employees have their own personal and professional connections built over the years on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. This allows your brand to connect to them through your employees, expanding your potential reach.  

Companies who trust their employees and give them autonomy to use their experience and insights to create content empower them with a voice and positively impact personal confidence, boost their morals, and enhance their creative skills.

Potential talented recruits for your company are likely to notice the employee and brand engagement, which can be an excellent window for a prospect to look into what the business is like from an employee’s perspective.

Insights shared by an employee create more trust among potential consumers than through advertisements. It’s not easy anymore to buy consumer attention just through fancy marketing gimmicks. Genuine, authentic content and reviews are what your consumer wants. They want to connect with a real face.  

These numbers don’t lie!

Brand messages are re-shared up to 24 times more when distributed by your employees instead of a brand.

Employee-shared content gets eight times more engagement than content shared by brands.

Employees may get up to 10 times more followers than a brand’s corporate account and get more organic social attention. 

And while it may be challenging to loosen your reins to let your employees contribute freely, you can always encourage EGC in a way that minimizes risks or any potential adverse outcomes by giving your employees the right tools, supportive information, and setting out clear guidelines and acceptable best practices.

We know that for many companies, employee-generated content is an afterthought or maybe not even a thought. While it may be too early and difficult to attribute any immediate financial success to this content strategy, there is no disputing the positive impact on the employee, the consumer, and the business. From shared selfies of bringing your dog to work day to authored blog posts, employee-generated content is being leveraged by brands who understand its long-term value, and the only way to find out is by trying it!