24 Apr Are Your Employees Your Best Ambassadors?
Our employees are our most important ambassadors for our organization. How they talk about us often determines our reputation both with customers and potential future employees. While only 16% of people say they trust what a company says about itself in advertising and social media, over 70% of people say they trust what your employees say about your company. In fact, a social media comment about your organization is up to ten times more likely to be shared if it comes from an employee rather than the business itself. Getting employees to truly be your best ambassadors is one of the issues we explore in our new book The Purpose Revolution, a concept we call Branding from the Inside Out
I recently did a video you can watch that both tells you why it matters to get your employees speaking positively about you and how to get them to do it! You can watch the video here.
We have a simple formula for creating great Internal Brand Ambassadors. We call it: Ask, Enable & Empower
Ask: Are your people proud of your organization, believe in your purpose and speak positively about it ALL the time?
If you don’t know the answer to that question, then ASK them! One of the things we encourage organizations to do is to measure whether team members are proud of your company (and its products and services). So, ask and then address any issues that are hindering them being positive about your purpose.
Wise leaders are consistently giving team members information to help them be great ambassadors
This means a constant diet of good news stories about the difference you are making for society and your customers. One banking client of ours consistently shares this information with managers to share with teams. Make sure every meeting includes positive stories and facts about how your company is making a difference.
Empower
Finally, empower your people to tell your story to the world by ASKING them to do so. Encourage them to use social media and their personal voice to tell the world that your company cares about customers, society and planet. I am amazed how many companies and leaders NEVER ask their employees to make this a priority. Share with them the fact that 70% say they believe an employee while only 16% believe company communications and that their shares are 10x more likely to be passed along. And don’t tell them they have to pass their sharing through internal communications channels- trust them, they won’t disappoint you.
When Cisco wanted to tell prospective employees why they would love working for Cisco, CEO John Chambers offered to buy a video camera for any team member who would tell the story of why “they chose Cisco” in a youtube video. They didn’t have to get their videos approved by the company. It lead to millions of views from real life employees convincingly telling the world why they chose Cisco.
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