Transforming Employee Advocacy into Business Results

In a recent LinkedIn Live, Tribal’s CRO, Felipe Torres and Managing Director, Andy Norman, explained how social media is no longer just a ‘cute idea’ – it’s a powerful driver of real business results.  

From increasing revenue and deal sizes to shortening sales cycles and accelerating pipeline growth, they explained how integrating employee advocacy into business strategies delivers measurable outcomes.  

How to Scale Employee Advocacy 

Felipe started the Live off with our mountain analogy. We compare the challenge of activating employees to climbing a mountain. Here’s how different groups of employees navigate this journey:  

Activate the masses: some employees find their own way. They are your trailblazers. They self-educate and feel motivated to find the best path up the social media mountain. Training can be self-led, find out more about how online learning can help.  

Accelerate the many: some travel in groups. For instance, salespeople might work together to focus on a specific account or challenge. These employees will benefit from face-to-face training programs including bootcamps and masterclasses.  

Advance the few: for your leaders and executives a tailored 1-2-1 approach is needed to provide the relevant coaching and support. Find out more about how to activate your executives on social media.  

Understanding where employees fall on this metaphorical mountain helps companies determine: 

• The enablement employees need. 

• Tools to use; for example, online learning platforms.  

• The reporting setup will be needed to measure the impact of social media training.  

Best Practices for Integrating Advocacy into Business Strategy 

Employees expect leaders to embody a modern, digital company. With 68% preferring to work for leaders who use social media (Brunswick), it’s clear that social media is no longer optional—it’s essential to your business strategy. 

Sales and marketing can use social to connect with prospects, share valuable insights, and provide their own insights. Buyers spend more time doing online research now, making it an important part of a selling strategy. Read our five tips for leveraging social for sales.  

Subject matter experts are authoritative voices who build a following and become known for their knowledge.  

Then, there are the employees who share interesting, authentic stories. They create a company people want to work for and are great at attracting talent. Here are ten top tips of content they can share. 

How to Track the ROI of Advocacy 

At Tribal, we track what we call leading and lagging indicators. 

Leading indicators are the first signs of a healthy program, like: 

• The percentage of users and employees active on social media is higher than it was before 

• That number continues to grow 

• Employees post more often 

• Their networks grow stronger 

• Their SSIs (Social Selling Index) scores go up 

The percentage of active employees will never reach 100%. It should always continue to grow because that’s where social media is heading, and it’s becoming embedded into what we do every day. 

A few years ago, people would ask why they needed social selling or employee advocacy. Now, they ask how to improve it, scale it, and show business impact. 

Some of those leading indicators show that you’re on the right path. If you aren’t, you know what to fix regarding enablement, training, and providing resources to get people on the right path. 

What Long-Term Advocacy ROI Looks Like 

Lagging indicators are key business metrics that often take longer to show up. 

From a sales point of view, this includes: 

• Increased revenue 

• Increased deal size 

• Shorter sales cycles 

• Faster pipeline growth 

 In other business areas, it can include: 

• Reduced the sales cycle 

• Increased the pipeline 

• Increased average deal sizes 

• Reduced cost to hire 

• Reduced attrition 

Examples of Results 

Felipe highlighted how companies with well-established social selling programs consistently achieve measurable success. They often experience: 

• Shorter sales cycles 

• Closer relationships with their accounts 

• More accounts because they use social media to stay in touch with customers 

Andy elaborated, sharing some stats from LinkedIn. Buyers spend 27% of their time doing online research and just 17% doing in-person meetings. Anyone not present online is at a disadvantage. 

LinkedIn data also shows that 50% of social sellers have larger pipelines, 15% bigger deal sizes, and 38% more opportunities. 

Top sellers are 13% more likely to be multi-threaded in an account using tools like LinkedIn. 

Andy gave another example from recent customers. One experienced: 

• 63% increase in sales opportunities, with 33% of sellers seeing pipeline growth. 

• Another client experienced a 14% rise in opportunities, a 22% increase in deal sizes, and an 18% growth in pipeline. 

In many cases, just moving the needle 5-10% can significantly impact a company’s bottom line, especially when 20% of sellers often drive 80% of results. 

The Social Maturity Matrix 

The mountain example from earlier helps businesses understand how engaged employees are on social media, but the Social Media Maturity Matrix provides a detailed view of where employees stand and how to support their growth. 

 
However, not everyone will become an influencer and they don’t have to. 

Instead, businesses should focus on increasing employees’ confidence on social media to share their expertise. 

They also need to understand that different people are motivated by different things. 

Business metrics are important for the organisation, but companies also need to highlight what’s in it for employees. What are their personal and career motivations? How can social media become a place for them to continue their career paths and grow and learn?  

The Social Media Maturity Matrix shows companies where people’s activity and network are today. The bigger someone’s network, the greater their reach. That’s important when posting content because you want content to reach as many relevant people as possible. 

When it comes to activity, you don’t want to go overboard, but you need to find the right level on social media that includes not just posting, but also engaging with content from competitors, prospects, peers, and colleagues. 

Based on these two things, companies can put people into boxes on the matrix. Where people sit will help companies decide on the types of training and support they should offer. 

The ones in the first column need more support via things like webinars, e-learning, and guides. 

Employees in the middle column are the ones you can support in groups, like training salespeople together. These employees have similar motivations and goals and can support each other/establish healthy competition. 

Over time, you want to see the column on the right go up and the one on the left go down. 

People will progress at their own pace, but you want to ensure you’ve provided the right level of enablement for the right level of maturity based on what people want to get from social media. That will be based on different traits and what motivates them. 

Employee Advocacy Leads to Business Results 

Integrating social media into your business strategy is no longer optional – it’s essential. When done right, it can boost business results and give companies a competitive advantage. 

If you’d like help growing your employee advocacy program, contact us today.