Back your staff to be your chief advocates

I would like to share a success story with you. A customer success story that could become your story.

It is a simple tip that is possible for every company. It does not cost money, just the involvement of your employees and the awareness that they can substantially increase the reach of your company and thus the chances of growth and success.

The success story

One of my customers recently won a big order. How? Very simple. Someone in his organisation shared a newly written blog via his personal LinkedIn account.

The blog had already been sent to all the people in the company’s database and now this employee shared it with his own network. He did it almost casually.

The post was read by one of his LinkedIn contacts and struck a chord. This person clicked through after reading the blog.

He read multiple blogs, visited the products web page, then went to the contact page and called to make an appointment.

The blog was in the right place at the right time, resulting in a fantastic new customer. And it’s not all down to luck.

Law of the big numbers

The greater your reach, the greater the chance of new customers. It is the law of large numbers.

The more people you touch with your story, the more people can choose you if they need your product or service. It is not simply down to knowing you exist, but because they have some knowledge of what sort of a company you are – and indeed have a personal connection with you.

Recent research has shown that when you employ 50 people and they all share your blog or whitepaper, your reach is much greater than a sponsored post.

And that’s good news because content sharing costs nothing and is extremely effective. It is therefore important to ensure that as many of your employees as possible actively share your company’s content with their own network.

Potential range

Let’s say you employ 20 people and each of them has 500 LinkedIn contacts. If they do not share your company’s monthly blog on LinkedIn, you will miss 10,000 contacts per month that could be a potential customer. 10,000!

I can tell you that most companies do not have this many contacts in their database, not by any means.

And calculate what it means for your reach when you write two blogs per month, your staff have more than 500 LinkedIn contacts and are also on Facebook and Twitter.

Encourage them to share

The question is not whether your people should share the content you create, but how you encourage them to do it. It is a matter of awareness, of taking responsibility and of simply doing.

Give your employees insight into the figures: what happens to the website visits, for example, when everyone shares the blogs.

Make it easy for them: with a social media reminder, make sure they only have to click the LinkedIn button to share the blog with their personal account. And give a reward to the one who shares the blogs the most.

More than anything, ensure your content is professional, relevant and something that your staff can be proud of.

As a former Microsoft employee, I am always struck by how many Microsoft staff share news and views from their CEO and company on LinkedIn, commenting on how proud they are to work there.

If they are proud of working for your company, they will happily share the great content that you produce.

And that will drive customer growth.

For more information on how Make Marketing Magic can help your business thrive, click here.