The success of your employee advocacy effort lies squarely on the value your employees see from your employee advocacy efforts. Your program management and maintaining an active membership are critical to program growth and success. Once your employees are engaged in a program, they must continue to be active.
As a best practice, the Gaggle Manager should aim for at least 70% of your engaged employees to be active in any given 90-day window.
All programs will experience some level of decay over time, but the more employees that remain active in the program, the larger the impact you will see. To help hedge off decay, you must remember to personalize content, support your employees, and communicate the benefits. Let’s take a look at how to help keep employees engaged and some emails you can send to reengage your workforce.
How to Keep Employees Active
Three key areas will help keep your employees active in your employee advocacy efforts.
- Personalize their content
- Support your internal advocates
- Communicate with the team
Any one of these three areas can be a reason for decay in your program, and some employees may need more support in more than one of these key areas.
Personalize Content
First and foremost, to have an active program, you need to ensure the content is personalized and not generic. It should align with your employees' needs. You can do this by ensuring that your content is designed specifically for the employees and segmented just for them. Keep in mind that you need to consistently remind employees why social media can be beneficial to their personal brands.
For example, here are a few stats that can be helpful to leverage in reactivation emails, internal newsletters to add active members to programs, and also help you expand your efforts into other parts of the business.
- When a lead is generated through social selling or employee advocacy, that lead is 7X more likely to close compared to other lead generation tactics (IBM).
- Employee advocates are better brand ambassadors than brands themselves. Studies have shown that 70% of customer brand perception is determined by experiences with people.
- Employees who participate in a social employee advocacy program with GaggleAMP organically grow their social networks by 28% on average per year.
- Employees make for better thought leaders. 35% of clients of B2B leaders spend 1-3 hours every week reading through thought leadership pieces, many of which are going to be tied to an employee name (Edelman)
When sending activities to your employees, they should look and feel like something that employees would be willing and able to share to be the most effective. If the activities are well-targeted, but employees are still disengaged, you might want to consider sending an email like the one below.
Re-engagement Email Template
Hi [name],
I am thrilled you have chosen to take advantage of our employee advocacy program here at [company name] and I trust the program has been helpful for you.
I can’t help but notice that you haven’t been as active on the platform as you once were and wanted to get some feedback on your experience. Is it a disconnect in the content being served in the Gaggle or is there something you want to understand more before participating further in the Gaggle? Either way, I’d love your feedback.
If it’s the former, feel free to reply to this email and let me know how I can better serve you. If it’s more the latter, I do not want you to miss out on your personal branding opportunities because those that participate in programs like this see a 10% or greater increase in their network year over year. This can certainly position you for other opportunities in the industry as well as help you network amongst your peers.
I’d love to invite you to a weekly training session that is hosted by our customer success team at GaggleAMP. Here you’ll be reintroduced to employee advocacy programs and can ask questions you might have about participating in the program.
Let me know if that is of interest to you. I am here to help!
[Gaggle Manager Name]
P.S. If you have stopped sharing on some of your social media networks because the account is no longer connected to the Gaggle, it’s easy to reconnect and reauthorize your social media networks.
Support Your Advocates
Just as you did with the initial onboarding emails, it can help to have executives or internal leaders involved in the recruitment and retention process. Their support will help drive more engagement from their teams and will make the recruitment process easier for you.
For this type of reengagement, it can be really helpful to have the email come from the department leader, internal advocate, or executive champion. These folks were already likely introduced as program champions at the onset of your program. They will help bridge the gaps between marketing and other areas of the company, as well as level set the benefit their sharing can have on their departmental goals.
If you have internal program champions, it may be best if the re-engagement email comes from them. Below is a template you can use to help drum up participation from disengaged Gaggle Members.
Advocate Email Template
Hi [name],
Back in [month/year of employee advocacy program launch - March 2020 (for example)], [company name] launched an employee advocacy program to help [add reason you started the program - increase brand awareness (for example)]. You were one of the first on my list to invite to the program because participation in these programs helps enhance and build on your personal career profile, expands your networking opportunities, develops relationships with like-minded businesses, and further develops your career path and future opportunities.
I can’t help but notice in the last few weeks you’re not as involved in the program as you once were. Did something change? Is the content what you expected it to be (or do you have any recommendations on how to improve it)? I’m all ears and welcome your feedback.
I’d love to have you back on board with the program. Here are a few helpful items to get you back up and running:
- Need a refresher? We have two awesome opportunities to learn how to get reinvested in your employee advocacy efforts. First, visit this article — Gaggle Member Training Session — to learn everything you need to know when getting started with GaggleAMP. Alternatively, GaggleAMP does host a weekly training session and they would love to have you in attendance. You can register for that here.
- Disconnected social network? Visit this article to learn how to reconnect your networks (and why you will need to do that again in the future).
- Can’t remember where to log in? You can log in here. You might also find it helpful to have your Gaggle activities sent right to Slack or Microsoft Teams.
At the end of the day, I want to see you succeed in your efforts. If you are no longer interested in participating in our employee advocacy program, that is completely okay. Please just let me know so we can offer your seat to one of your coworkers. If you are still interested in participating, please let me know how I can better support you.
I look forward to hearing from you soon!
[Gaggle Internal Advocate]
Communicate With Your Team
It cannot be stressed enough that communication can drive the success of your program. You must acknowledge your program members regularly to help keep them engaged.
One of the best, low-key ways to do this is with shout-outs on internal communication networks or newsletters. Here at GaggleAMP, we do this in our Gaggle (surprise) or on a dedicated Slack channel. Not only does this help drive a little friendly competition, but if you are the recipient of a shout-out, it just feels good.
You can also use this time of communication to help reengage a team member. For example, say your Gaggle Manager sends out an internal communication with links to a few activities you can share, forward that communication to an underperforming member of the Gaggle and show them that it’s simple to participate.
Pro Tip: Want to add links to Activities in your newsletters? Check out this knowledge base on how to share an activity using the copy link to an activity.
Communications Email Template
[Forward the weekly newsletter and add this note]
Hi [name],
Did you get a chance to look at [Gaggle Manager’s / my] newsletter sent out [time frame]? It's jam-packed with links to activities you can perform with just one click. Here are two of my favorites that can be done right from this email:
- [Activity text #1 - you can copy and paste this right from the internal newsletter]. Just click here to perform the activity.
- [Activity text #2 - you can copy and paste this right from the internal newsletter]. Just click here to perform the activity.
A lot of the activities that [Gaggle Manager name] is sending out require very little uplift from you but can have gigantic results. For example, participation in these programs helps enhance and build your personal career profile, expands your networking opportunities, develops relationships with like-minded businesses, and further develops your own career path and future opportunities.
I’d love to see you participating in our Gaggle again so let me know what I can do to help. We have two awesome opportunities to learn how to get reinvested in your employee advocacy efforts: Gaggle Member Training Sessions to learn everything you need to know when getting started with GaggleAMP. Alternatively, GaggleAMP does host a weekly training session and they would love to have you in attendance. You can register for that here.
Hope to see you sharing again soon!
[Name]
P.S. If you have decided participating in an employee advocacy program is not for you, no hard feelings at all. Just let me/us know and I/we will assign your seat to someone else wanting to be involved in the program.
How to Reactivate a Disengaged Gaggle
If you have examined your Members and see a widespread issue with disengaged Gaggle Members, it’s time to pull out all the stops.
First and foremost, contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) and see if a relaunch of the program is called for. This is an approach that is somewhat common when a new Gaggle Manager takes the reigns or if there has been a change in strategy and your program needs a refresh. Your CSM will make several recommendations, depending on the level of re-engagement needed. Some recommendations might include:
- Gaggle Member Training Sessions can be done with the Customer Success Manager or visited on our Knowledge Base.
- Weekly Training Sessions are open for any Members to join regardless of the organization. This is often good when Members are new to the program or some select Members need additional assistance, but a full-scale company-wide training session is unnecessary.
- Check for disconnected social networks. Sometimes a disengaged Gaggle is as simple as the fact that no one communicated you need to reconnect your social media networks from time to time. Visit this article to learn how to reconnect social media networks (and why everyone will need to do that again in the future).
- Perhaps they can’t remember where they can log-in. Members can log in here. You might also find it helpful to have your employees' Gaggle activities sent right to Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- And when in doubt, kick them out. It's okay to have disengaged employees in your Gaggle and it’s okay to remove them from your Gaggle, too. This makes way for Members of your team that want to be actively engaged. They can always request access again at a later time when their situation changes.
If you need to reactivate an entire Gaggle, we’d recommend sending this template to all Members of your program.
Disengaged Gaggle Template
Hi [team],
[Gaggle Managers names / or I] am thrilled to get you involved in our employee advocacy program to help [insert main reason you are running this program - example: increase brand awareness] at [company name].
As you may recall, there are several benefits to you when you participate in an employee advocacy program. Some include, but are not limited to:
- Lead generation. When a lead is generated through social selling or employee advocacy, that lead is 7X more likely to close compared to other lead generation tactics, which is helpful for our sales and marketing teams.
- Brand ambassadorship. Employee advocates are better brand ambassadors than brands themselves. Studies have shown that 70% of customer brand perception is determined by experiences with people. This supports how people purchase new products or services. They want to purchase from you and from the relationship they are building with you, not with [company name].
- Increased personal social networks. Employees who participate in a social employee advocacy program organically grow their social networks by X% per year. That expands your reach and your network exponentially.
- More Thought Leadership Opportunities. Employees make for better thought leaders. 35% of clients of B2B leaders spend 1-3 hours every week reading through thought leadership pieces, many of which are going to be tied to your names.
With these stats in mind, I want to give you all the tools you need to be successful with employee advocacy. Below are some helpful links to get you started.
- Knowledge base article: Gaggle Member Training Sessions is a great primer on how to get started and what’s in it for you.
- GaggleAMP offers Weekly Training Sessions for any Members to join regardless of the organization.
- Do you have a disconnected social network? Visit this article to learn how to reconnect your social media networks (and why you will need to do that again in the future).
- All Members can log in here. You might also find it helpful to have your Gaggle activities sent right to Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- Can’t recall your password? Learn how to reset your password.
Lastly, if you no longer want to participate in our employee advocacy program, that’s okay! Please respond to this email and let me know so I can give your seat to another member of the team that is interested in participating.
Please let me/us know if there is anything else we can do to help you in your success with employee advocacy.
Thanks,
[Gaggle Manager name]
As an alternative to the links to help employees get started, you can simply advise them that there will be an upcoming training on a specific date and time in which they are requested to attend. Be sure to note that a calendar reminder will be sent. You should also advise the Members that the training will be hosted by your program's Customer Success Manager at GaggleAMP and that questions are encouraged.