Why they are important
Today, they are important because, according to LinkedIn reports, the authenticity of employees’ voices increases the reach of their message by 72% and their content can achieve up to 700 times more reach than the corporate page itself.
Some companies prefer to share an alliance or a success story through their ambassadors.
Activating communication through employees is a real competitive advantage.
Objectives pursued in these programmes
There are four very clear ones:
- Organic reach: it really has much more impact than what is published through the company page.
- Credibility: the authenticity of employees’ voices builds trust and makes connections more credible.
- Attracting talent: the culture is shared in the employee’s day-to-day life, and this has an impact by making the company more attractive when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.
- Generating business opportunities: we like to buy from the best, and people buy from people, so positioning yourself on LinkedIn as an expert or reference will open up business opportunities.
Telefónica Empresas success story
Once the project on paper has traction, we begin to develop it using three levers: training, support and community.
- Training: the starting point and key element was the LinkUP course published on the internal B2B Sales Academy training website.
- Support: individual support with one-to-one consultations, analysing niches, setting goals and helping to publish was essential.
We provided a welcome kit with photos, videos, coaching and a weekly newsletter with posts from executives and experts on LinkedIn. Content curation is established in Teams.
- Community: the feeling of belonging and being in the same chat, contributing content and energising the group creates a sense of adding value and that your experience inspires others.
What other large companies are doing
The report by Good Rebels and LinkedIn Spain analysed 50 large companies, including those in the IBEX35, and shows how Repsol, Santander, BBVA, Mango, Ferrovial and Eroski are activating these programmes with great results.
The trend is clear: decentralised corporate communication created through its ambassadors.
The challenges
First, overcome the ambassadors’ fear and impostor syndrome: ‘I don’t know what to say, I don’t know if what I say is interesting.’
Then, acquire a certain amount of patience and consistency in your posts: this is about believing, writing about what you know and not despairing because everything takes time.
Finding your own niche in which to position yourself is better than being a generalist: you have to differentiate yourself, and niche content has an exponential impact.
Lessons learned from the process
- Management support is essential; when CEOs or directors publish, it encourages the rest of us to publish too. It’s contagious.
- Synergies and coordination between all departments involved (business lines, LinkedIn company page managers, communications, etc.). We can’t work in silos; we have to be synchronised and understand that we have the same goals.
- Give it the value it deserves, as these projects are not just about communication: taking care of your ambassadors ultimately means taking care of your brand and your business. In other words, the leader of the plan must behave as the ‘representative’ of the ambassadors so that they shine both inside and outside the company.
