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SAS’ EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY PROGRAM

KIRSTEN HAMSTRA, GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

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While only 15% of people trust

recommendations from brands, 84% trust

recommendations from people they know.

(Source: Edelman Trust Barometer).

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WHAT IS … EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY?

DEFINITION:

em∙ploy∙ee ad∙vo∙ca∙cy [em-ploi-ee ad-vuh-kuh-see] n.

1. Motivating, empowering and training employees on how to use their

established credibility and personal networks to tell a brand’s story on social

media.

OVER-ARCHING GOAL:

To create a culture where employees and customers

feel confident meeting business goals through social

media.

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THE IDEAL ADVOCATE IS …

• TRUSTED

• Authentic voice

• Not a SAS megaphone

• Follows SAS guidelines

• Owns their “expertise”

• Uses social with consistency

(can just be one favorite

platform) and purpose

• Knows audience

• Spreads goodwill

• Evangelizes colleagues who

could benefit

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Building your program

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PROGRAM

GOALSEMPLOYEE ADVOCACY

EMPLOYEE GOALS:

• Build strong individual online

reputations and gain social

influence

• Find value in using social (use it to

solve problems, learn, build

relationships)

• Be comfortable and confident

about using social in business

SAS GOALS:

• Humanize brand through employee

voice and generate awareness

• Increase sales leads & conversions

• Extend social selling efforts

• Mobilize employee voice around

company culture/GPTW to impact HR,

recruiting efforts

• Use employee reach to amplify relevant

(SAS and 3rd party) content with

authentic voice

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PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

Global Employee Advocacy Program Manager

• Program strategy, objectives & vision

• Governance

• Training

• On-going communication & best practice sharing

Measure share of voice

with Sprinklr profile lists,

Klout, influencer indexes

Set employee advocacy

program goals

Define employee

social media certification

program

Identify established employee

social influencers

Pilot program kickoff

(in-person)

Train pilot group on best

practices & current (free)

resources

Distribute platform as reward for completing

training

• What behaviors do

we want to

encourage?

• What does the ideal

advocate look like?

• Curriculum of in-

person & on-demand

training

EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYWHAT HAPPENS BEFORE THE PLATFORM

• Complete base certification

(video)

• Individual social profile

optimization

• Content Marketplace & Dynamic

Signal main tools (in person)

• Buffer + content schedulers

training (in person)

• Subscribe to Social Soup blog,

follow @sassoftware

• Socially active

employees, already

exhibiting best

practices

• Small targeted group

around 140

• Global & cross-

divisional

Timeframe: Month 1

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Distribute platform as reward for completing

trainingDistribute

platform to top 500

social sellers as incentive

Month 2:

Pilot Check-in / Evaluation

Month 3:

Pilot Check-in / Evaluation

Month 4:

Activate additional users

Train additional users

Pilot ends

EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYWHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE PLATFORM

• Ask pilot group to

nominate colleagues

• Ask for hand-raisers on

Global Social Media Hub

group

• Use data from Global

Social Media Surveys

• Identify all-star

advocates

• Ask them to guest blog

on Social Soup about

experience

• Use those posts in

Social Media Annual

Report

[all employees]

[Sales]

• Private Hub group for

questions?

• Weekly e-mails

• Recognize pilot

participants by:

- Most engaged post

- Wittiest post

- Best UGC

Continuous communication among pilot group and admis via email, Hub group and external social media channels

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Training and education

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EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYMAKING EDUCATION A REQUIREMENT

Social Media Certification

• Three 20-minute e-Learning courses

providing social media fundamentals every

employee needs to know

1. The Essentials of Social Media at SAS

2. Social Media Guidelines and Policies at SAS

3. Social Media Behavior and Personal Branding

at SAS

• Integration into company’s learning

management system

This slide is for video use only.

Company Confidential - For Internal Use Only

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EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYEDUCATION COMPONENTS

• Certification is single *requirement, but the advantage of the program lies in

individualized training via:

• Workshops (monthly): Learn a skill then practice with trainers

• Call (monthly): Addresses a topic relating to the theme of that month

• Newsletter (weekly):

• Vehicle to issue bi-monthly “challenges”

• Way to recognize star participants

• Place to cross-promote tips and tricks

• Group on internal social network

• Catch-all for questions and issues as they arise

• Area to cross-promote newsletter information

• Location to house responses to “challenges”

• Office hours (weekly): 1 hour Q-and-A (via phone, IM, in-person)

Record everything

Be available virtually for

remote employees

**

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Finding a platform

(or not)

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EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYPROVIDING ACCESS TO CONTENT

• Slide about content marketplace

and promoting other free tools like

feedly, etc. ---- screenshots

• Alltop.com

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CHOOSING A

PLATFORMCRITERIA IMPORTANT TO US

• Beyond the basic functions of all employee advocacy platforms, we

specifically asked about:

• Accepting RSS feeds?

• Supporting multiple languages (which ones?) or segmenting content by

location?

• Tagging content so users find it easily

• The ability for users to customize social text? Are those variations

captured?

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PLATFORM/CONTENT MANAGEMENT

• Advocacy Platform Manager

• Responsible for overall platform health

• Vendor point of contact

• Governance at platform level

• Long-term strategy for the platform

• Content Admins

• Feed content into the platform on assigned topics

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Kicking off

program/recruitment

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EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYFINDING YOUR HANDRAISERS

Employee Advocacy Program

Participants identified + vetted.

Representative list of 140 employees

spanning the company + global

offices.

Criteria:

General interest in social media

Demonstrated social media business

use

Coachable social profiles

Online influence and reach (based on

social profile data)

Job responsibilities

Represent every major division & region

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EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYSHOWING THE “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?”

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EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYMAINTAINING PROGRAM’S MOMENTUM

• Surveying your participants (pre, during and post-program)

• Building an internal online community

• Communicating frequently through newsletter

• Recognizing best practices & individual achievement

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Measuring success

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DEFINING INDIVIDUAL SUCCESS

• Vanity metrics (followers, engagement/post, shares)

• General comfort level with social media

• Personal business goals

• Become a thought leader in x topic

• Publish on x topic on LI & company blog

• Get invited to speak at x conference

• Building their networks

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MEASURING THROUGH PLATFORM

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DEFINING BRAND SUCCESS

• Vanity metrics (followers, engagement/post, shares, reach)

• Share of voice on social & communities (social listening)

• Referral traffic back to company’s web properties (tracking links)

• Tying employee channel to existing earned & paid marketing

strategies

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EMPLOYEE

ADVOCACYMEASURING THE EMPLOYEE CHANNEL

OWNED

• Actions: Post compelling content that people react to

naturally

• Goal: Awareness and sales for brand

PAID

• Actions: Pay to have posts exposed to more people on

social

• Goal: Awareness and sales for brand

EMPLOYEE [EARNED]

• Actions: Rally trusted employee voices and social

networks

• Goal: Awareness and sales for brand

1Gauge employee

demand

• Ask The 140 for

advice/recs

• Grassroots hype?

• Who is self-

training? 2Tweak then Phase 2

• Use info you collected

as guide

• Same size? Bigger?

Smaller? Country

specific?

• Ditch certain courses?

But always …• Provide value to past participants for ex., monthly challenge via newsletter or check in

at regular intervals (30 days, 90 days, 1 year following end of program).

• Offer Program (or recorded elements) as an alternative to one-off training

• Integrate employees as a channel in major marketing projects

GROWING YOUR PROGRAM