09.6.2023 Sarah Goodall
A quick google of “employee advocacy statistics” will bring up page upon page of results. But after a quick look, you’ll often find that the sources are far from recent, which is far from helpful when you wish to analyse your performance or make a business case for a new program or greater budget.
As you’ll see from these statistics, the case for employee advocacy is stronger than ever as the business-wide benefits are growing. Social media usage is still increasing and so is its influence on brand reputation and buyer purchases – across B2B as much as B2C. Employee advocacy is therefore growing in popularity as a solution that helps extend and increase a brand’s reach, influence and relationships with customer, prospects and current/future employees.
You’ll find the latest statistics and our commentary on what it means for businesses across these areas (which you can quickly jump to with the links).
Social Media Usage Is STILL Rising
Buyers Are Turning To Social Media
Employee Advocacy Statistics That Prove the Business Benefits
How Does Your Business Compare?
Employee Advocacy – Rising But Missed Opportunities
Social Media Usage Is STILL Rising
Of all the statistics in this blog, the statistics on social media usage are probably the least likely to generate shares with a 😮.
Social media usage has been on the rise for years, but the enforced isolation of the pandemic has unsurprisingly meant we turned to it in droves. And there are no prizes for guessing who spend the most time on social media – Gen Z – but there’s still plenty of opportunity to target Baby Boomers too.
1. In the UK, the average times spent on social media a day is 1 hour 41 mins. In the USA it is 2 hours 8 mins. Source: GlobalWebIndex’s flagship report on the latest trends in social media 2020
2. More than 98% of the users of any given social media platform also use at least one other social platform. Source: HootSuite and We Are Social, The Global State of Digital 2021
3. Gen Z are the age group that spends the most time on social media and Baby Boomers spend the least time. They spend an average of 2 hours 41 mins a day on social media, compared with 1 hour 11 mins for Baby Boomers. Source: GlobalWebIndex’s flagship report on the latest trends in social media 2020
4. 46% of women and 41% of men said they’d spent more time on social media during the pandemic. Source: GlobalWebIndex
5. Social media users jumped by more than 13% in the year 2020, bringing the global total to nearly 4.2 billion. That’s over 1 billion new users over the last three years. Source: HootSuite and We Are Social, The Global State of Digital 2021
And So Is Social’s Importance
Executives now recognise social media’s value to be a significant factor in a company’s reputation and social media budgets have begun to reflect this. The pandemic has now accelerated its importance within the marketing budget further and it will be interesting to see how the results of 2020 and 2021 impact social media’s part of the overall marketing budget heading into 2022.
6. Social media now captures 13-24% of the total marketing budget. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
7. Social media spending has increased from 13.3 % of marketing budgets in February 2020 to 23.2 % in June 2020 —a 74% lift. Source: HootSuite and We Are Social, The Global State of Digital 2021
8. CMOs anticipate that social media investments will remain high at 23.4 % of marketing budgets into 2021. Source: HootSuite and We Are Social, The Global State of Digital 2021
9. 53% of global executives believe that a company’s social media communications and interactions are a significant factor in a company’s reputation. Source: The State of Corporate Reputation in 2020, Weber Shandwick
Buyers Are Turning To Social Media
B2C is usually the leader and innovator when it comes to social media, with B2B usually following suit.
As these social media statistics show, social media is now becoming firmly established as a tool for brand, product and services research for consumers and B2B buyers. Word of mouth recommendations remain crucial for B2B and B2C but in modern times social media these are often done via social media.
And whereas B2C may follow the advice and promotions of Instagram and TikTok influencers, B2B buyers turn to thought leaders – who influence how they perceive brands and their likelihood of doing business with them.
When we know that employee advocates have the power to reach more buyers than a brand and become influencers themselves, the case for employee advocacy is strong.
B2C Buyer Behaviour
10. 45% of global internet users now say they turn to social when researching products or services. Source: HootSuite Digital 2021 Executive Summary Report
11. 27.5% of internet users aged 16-64 will discover new brands via word of mouth recommendations. Source: HootSuite and We Are Social, The Global State of Digital 2021
12. 28% of UK internet users aged 16-64 will use social networks for brand research. Source: HootSuite and We Are Social, The Global State of Digital 2021
13. 63% of survey respondents said that they trust influencers more than what a brand says about itself. Source: 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer
B2B buyer behaviour
14. 48% of decision-makers spend an hour or more per week engaged with thought leadership content. Source: 2020 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study
15. Over a third of buyers (35%) in the UK say that they are more likely to select a vendor when a seller is recommended by someone in their network, with 31% of buyers in France and 24% of those in Germany agreeing. Source: LinkedIn State of Sale Report 2020, Europe Edition
16. 89% of decision-makers say thought leadership has enhanced their perceptions of an organization. Source: 2020 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study
17. 49% of decision-makers say thought leadership can be effective at influencing their purchasing decisions. Source: 2020 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study
18. The most trusted source (46%) for researching B2B buying decisions is “Peers or Colleagues”. Source: Demand Gen 2019 Content Preferences Report
19. B2B buyers use social media for various sales cycle tasks:
- 46% of B2B buyers use social media for early-stage sales cycle tasks, such as learning about the different solutions available for solving their unique problem or need.
- 40% use it for middle-stage tasks such as comparing different solutions
- 35% use it for late-stage tasks such as identifying need-to-know information regarding potential solutions before finally making a purchase.
Employee Advocacy Statistics That Prove the Business Benefits
Now to the interesting part for those of you looking to build a business case for an employee advocacy program or increase your current budget. The benefits are of employee advocacy are proving time and again to be far-reaching within the business – impacting internal and external relationships and key KPIs.
20. 26% of content producers tie their thought leadership efforts to sales and business wins. Source: 2020 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study
21. Those using employee advocacy tools report:
- +30% Increase in employee engagement
- +29% Faster Response to Competitive Threats
- +34% Engagement Per Post
- +38% Faster Response to Opportunities
- 39% Company / Brand awareness
22. Companies achieve on average €414 in Earned Media Value for each post they share. Source: Employee Advocacy Benchmarking Report, October 2020, Sociuu (data compiled from August 1st 2019 to August 31st 2020)
23. Best practice companies sees £1300 in Earned Media Value for each post they share. Source: Employee Advocacy Benchmarking Report, October 2020, Sociuu (data compiled from August 1st 2019 to August 31st 2020)
24. The average post click per share is 6.3 every time an employee shares on social media. Source: Employee Advocacy Benchmarking Report, October 2020, Sociuu (data compiled from August 1st 2019 to August 31st 2020)
25. The average reach for employees is: 459 connection on LinkedIn, 433 friends on Facebook and 772 followers on Twitter. Source: Post Beyond’s Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report, July 2019
26. 31% of social media mature organisations report an improvement in brand health, compared with 13% for less mature organisations. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
27. 28% of organisations reports that employee advocacy increases the reach of their messages without having to use social media ads. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
28. 22% of organisations say that that employee advocacy improves employee engagement. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
29. 18% of organisations say that that employee advocacy improves their customer experience. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
30. 78% of respondents agreed that social media empowered them to reach prospective customers more efficiently than other media. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
31. 58% of social media mature organizations agree that they “have tracked sales that can be partially attributed to social media”. This compared to just 40% for less mature organisations. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
32. 69% of respondents agree that social media helped them prepare for COVID-19’s impact on business disruption by maintaining customer/ audience relationships via social. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
How Does Your Business Compare?
Benchmarks help us spot opportunities for improvement, so here are some takeaways that may help.
As you’d expect, personalisation and thought leadership is key to success for employee advocates. We’re also seeing a definite trend towards expectations that brands should take a stance, be transparent and communicate regularly with employees – something employee advocacy can help with.
33. Posts that are personalised generate 64% more engagement, 7.9 vs 4.8 more interactions per post. Source: Post Beyond’s Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report, July 2019
34. Company recognition of employee advocacy contributors was deemed the most effective employee advocacy incentive (39%) - double the second most effective, which was monetary incentives (19%). Source: GaggleAmp, Building the Case for an Employee Advocacy Program Survey Report 2019
35. Thought leadership content was voted the most effective form of company content shared by employees (27%), followed closely by videos (25%). Blog posts were in third place at 19%. Source: GaggleAmp, Building the Case for an Employee Advocacy Program Survey Report 2019
36. The most important marketing and communications factor that global executives believe contributes to company reputation (at 58%) is how a company responds to and addresses any crises, issues or problems it faces. Source: The State of Corporate Reputation in 2020, Weber Shandwick
37. Eight in 10 global executives (79%) say it is important for the CEO to communicate the organisation’s values to be highly regarded. Source: The State of Corporate Reputation in 2020, Weber Shandwick
38. Regular employee communications is now deemed more important than ever, with a net change of 37% deeming it more important in 2021 than in 2020. Source: 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer
The Hidden Risks
But as these stats also show – there are lurking risks when employees are more active, especially when they’re unaware of what they should or shouldn’t say.
Small steps like implementing social media policy training and more advanced social media eLearning could go a long way to help employee advocacy programs gain the traction and positive impact they need.
39. More than 39% of respondents indicated they were not adequately trained on how to find and share brand or business-related updates, while only 35% indicated they felt confident in what they could say. Source: GaggleAmp, Building the Case for an Employee Advocacy Program Survey Report 2019
40. Nearly four in 10 employees (38 percent) report that they have spoken up to support or criticize their employers’ actions over a controversial issue that affects society. These employees are Employee Activists. Source: Employee Activism in the Age of Purpose: Employees (Up)Rising, Weber Shandwick (May 2019)
41. In certain age groups, nearly 40-50% have either read and not understood, never read or aren't aware of the company social media policy. (48% of those in the 55+ age bracket, 43% of those in the 18-24 and 42% of those in the 25-34 age bracket.) Source: Tribal Impact’s Employee Social Media Risk Report 2021
42. Over 50% of 18-24-year-old employees either don't believe what they post will impact their employer's reputation or aren't sure. Source: Tribal Impact’s Employee Social Media Risk Report 2021
Employee Advocacy – Rising But Missed Opportunities
Just two years ago, employee advocacy programs were high there were still too many leaving the opportunity of employee advocacy on the table. But the needs must of the pandemic has shown interest and employee engagement risings – meaning it’s never been a more pressing and opportune time to launch or reignite a program.
(We may conduct our own survey soon on employee advocacy program uptakes, so sign up for our newsletter to be the first to hear!)
43. Nearly the same number of organisations (29%) hoped to implement an employee program in the future, so it would be interesting to see how many have now done do - and how many of the 40% leaving an opportunity on the table have now changed their strategic plans.
44. In 2019, only 31% of respondents actually have an employee advocacy program in place, with another 29% planning to implement one in future. That means close to 40% of businesses don’t have an employee advocacy program, nor any plans to implement one. Source: Gaggle Amp and Social Media Today: SMT Employee Advocacy Survey 2019
45. Enterprise organisations have the largest employee advocacy adoption rate (total number of active users) at 61.02%. Surprisingly, SMBs were next at 54.65% and Mid-Market companies lag behind at 36.6%. Source: Post Beyond’s Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report, July 2019
46. 19% of organisations increased their employee advocacy in response to COVID-19. Source: The Social Transformation Report 2020, Hootsuite & Altimeter
47. Engagement rate in employee advocacy programs increased from 20% to 28% in 2020 compared to 2019 - an increase of almost 40%. Source: Employee Advocacy Benchmarking Report, October 2020, Sociuu (data compiled from August 1st 2019 to August 31st 2020)
48. The average number of shared posts per month has increased from 4.8 posts from 2019 to 6.5 in 2020. Source: Employee Advocacy Benchmarking Report, October 2020, Sociuu (data compiled from August 1st 2019 to August 31st 2020)
49. Hootsuite and Altimeter’s The Social Transformation Report 2020 found that socially mature organisations extend social media beyond marketing and communications to a much higher degree. Here’s the breakdown of adoption rates by department:
- Marketing – 87% for mature vs 67% for less mature
- PR/Communications – 87% for mature vs 67% for less mature
- Sales – 87% for mature vs 67% for less mature
- Customer Service- – 87% for mature vs 67% for less mature
- HR- – 87% for mature vs 67% for less mature
- Product R&D – 87% for mature vs 67% for less mature
- Shareholder relations – 87% for mature vs 67% for less mature
50. Employee advocacy is adopted most for talent acquisition (63.85%), followed by thought leadership (54.65%) and social selling (54.42%). Source: Post Beyond’s Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report, July 2019
