DSMN8’s Bradley Keenan On Utilizing Worker Advocacy to Drive Enterprise Outcomes14 min read

Attaining concrete enterprise outcomes with social media is not any simple feat.

You in all probability share updates each week along with your model’s social media followers. However these posts barely minimize by means of the litter of content material your viewers sees every day. Paid advertisements might help, however they’re not the one resolution for chopping by means of the white noise on social media. Audiences need genuine connections. They need to have interaction in conversations with folks they know. That’s the place an worker advocacy program is available in.

An worker advocacy program amplifies your model attain utilizing your workers’ well curated skilled networks on social media channels.

Efficient advocacy packages considerably enhance your organization’s share of voice, lead technology, and web site site visitors with out breaking the financial institution. These packages transcend sharing enterprise updates and firm information, or having workers share their genuine work experiences.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Bradley Keenan, Founder & CEO of DSMN8, to find out how corporations can harness their workers’ authenticity to enhance social media attain and model consciousness. Throughout our speak, Bradley shared his journey as a know-how entrepreneur, how you can discover ultimate advocate profiles, and methods to construct an worker advocacy program from scratch.

This interview is a part of G2’s Skilled Highlight collection. For extra content material like this, subscribe to G2 Tea, a month-to-month publication with SaaS-y information and leisure.

AI is large for us proper now. We use generative AI to assist folks create assorted publish captions. When sharing content material, they will use AI to get concepts flowing, and that is been very efficient.

Good! Nicely, to get began, are you able to stroll us by means of your journey thus far, your background, and the way you got here to be the place you’re right now? 

I’ve labored in gross sales all my life. In 2003, I used to be the primary salesperson for a web based product video manufacturing firm, again when that was in its infancy. We didn’t name them account executives throughout my early profession.

I left that firm in 2009 to start out my very own enterprise, which was an e-commerce know-how firm known as E-Story. We helped shoppers find merchandise by means of producer web sites. E-Story was acquired in 2014, and I spent the next two years working for the corporate that acquired the enterprise.

In 2016, I began engaged on DSMN8 and launched it in 2018.

You’ve constructed two know-how corporations during the last 20 years. In your expertise, what’s the important thing to discovering product market match?

Many individuals discuss beginning along with your ardour. But when I had adopted my ardour, I might be a failed musician. The good factor to do is locate an issue and see if sufficient folks have the identical downside.

As soon as you discover sufficient of them, and when a few of them are massive corporations with massive budgets, your subsequent process is to create a technique to clear up that downside. In the event you can present an answer, you’ll have an keen market inside which to promote your product. 

That is sensible. How did you provide you with the concept of DSMN8, and what impressed you?

It is an attention-grabbing story. If you’re a founding father of an organization that is been acquired, the corporate needs you to be round in case one thing goes unsuitable. In actuality, they may not actually need you for the day-to-day operating of the enterprise. So, it’s possible you’ll be allotted a task, however should pivot to seek out your new function. 

I spent two years working of their advertising staff. I needed to supply social media content material that helped the brand new staff of salespeople promote the product that my firm had constructed. Nevertheless,  I discovered it laborious to get them to share it for a number of key causes.

Impressed by overcoming these limitations, I made a decision I used to be going to create a brand new enterprise as soon as my contract concluded. The concept was to assist workers turn into extra lively on social media in a protected and manageable method that protects corporations from model compliance-related points. 

As you talked about, there’s a disconnect between gross sales and advertising. What’s your recommendation for corporations trying to handle this? 

Corporations with out an worker advocacy program ought to begin by talking to the senior management of various departments. Join with departments you assume will profit most from operating an advocacy program.

For instance, if you’d like salespeople to be extra lively on social media, you need to make sure the gross sales management sees the worth of it first. It isn’t simple to onboard workers with out the leaders singing from the identical hymn sheet. 

How do you assume worker advocacy can affect the share of voice and the variety of inbound leads an organization generates? Are you able to share some examples of corporations which have performed it properly?

Let’s discuss salespeople and customer-facing groups. 

Your salespeople meet patrons from totally different corporations. Likelihood is excessive that these patrons additionally join with all of your rivals. The salesperson ceaselessly sharing probably the most useful content material would be the first particular person a purchaser thinks of whereas selecting a services or products. Sharing content material on social media frequently leads to a gross sales staff dominating the share of voice of their class. 

We now have over 150 enterprise prospects. McKinsey & Firm is an effective instance. They’ve over 9,000 lively ambassadors, a big share of their group.

“Typically, when persons are lively on social media, they share round two content material items per week, usually driving three to seven distinctive customers to their web site.”

Bradley Keenan
Founder and CEO, DSMN8

All of our shoppers get this type of outcome. 

Are you able to consider any small enterprise that’s doing it very well? 

Sure, we are able to use ourselves for example. We’re a small firm and we don’t spend any cash on Google Advertisements. 70% of our web site guests come from social media referral site visitors. Plus, we’ve grown our social media followers to over 25,000 in 18 months.

These are spectacular numbers. If an organization is to start out an worker advocacy program right now, how ought to they go about discovering ultimate advocates, and what sort of content material ought to they begin with?

We advise folks to create a really perfect advocate profile, which is determined by an organization’s goals and the people working there. If you wish to promote extra, you need to encourage salespeople to be extra lively. If hiring engineering expertise, you need to get your engineers to be extra engaged on social media. That method, you’ll be able to attain folks they went to school or labored with beforehand, utilizing their community to realize your objectives. 

Whether or not the purpose is gross sales or talent-based, what we usually name ‘firm content material’ is a useful worker advocacy useful resource.

For instance, I can share information about what’s taking place at DSMN8 or product updates. Then, there’s information about advertising and know-how as an alternative of DSMN8. The ultimate sort is firm tradition content material, which might showcase staff away days or the expertise of being an worker with our group. The type of content material you share relies upon loads in your firm’s goals.

What are the standard challenges corporations face after they begin an advocacy program? And the way do you assume they will clear up these issues? 

There are two most important challenges: government buy-in and consumer adoption.

One of many considerations for any person becoming a member of an advocacy program is that in the event that they’ve by no means shared content material earlier than they usually abruptly begin sharing heaps, it could appear like they’re probably in search of a brand new job. And that is a fear for them.

“If you ask workers to affix a program, they may solely do it in the event that they consider it is one thing the senior management helps.”

Bradley Keenan
Founder and CEO, DSMN8

The easiest way to handle that is to have senior-level executives say that is one thing we assist and wish you to be concerned in.

Secondly, you are asking folks to do one thing that is not of their job description and to go above and past their position. So body the advocacy program as being useful to them and their profession. Begin by displaying them how being extra lively on social media helps them create a private model, turn into higher recognized contained in the group, and obtain their private objectives. 

Because you talked about buy-in, how do you assume leaders can persuade corporations to put money into worker advocacy, particularly in right now’s difficult market situations? 

That is a simple query. Most corporations could have spent some huge cash on digital media during the last couple of years. In the event you go and purchase promoting with LinkedIn, you would be paying as much as $20 for a click on. By getting your workers to be extra lively, you’ll be able to distribute or re-align your advertising funds extra effectively. 

When an worker shares content material, there is no price related to it besides this system price. So, the fee per click on comes all the way down to underneath $1. The associated fee per click on for a median DSMN8 shopper is about 44 cents.

The senior management ought to have a look at how an advocacy program will get the corporate extra advertising attain for significantly much less funds by participating workers.

I preferred the instance you gave about the fee per click on. When an organization invests in an worker advocacy program, how lengthy does it take to get a return on funding?

When any person shares one thing clickable, branded content material, video, and even photos on social media, the advantage of that share occurs instantly. For many of our shoppers, the social share is the second- or third-highest referral of site visitors to the web site exterior of serps like Google.

As quickly as you launch a program with, for example, 100 folks, there will be a large distinction within the net site visitors that your social media channels generate. 

Are you able to share some worker advocacy ideas for corporations trying to construct and scale an advocacy program from scratch?

Corporations ought to begin by having a very good grasp of their present state. A technique to do that is to have a look at what number of of your workers are already actively sharing content material. Corporations normally have lower than 5% of their workers sharing content material. Relating to salespeople, the quantity doesn’t improve a lot. Sometimes, 9% of salespeople share on social media. When 91% of salespeople are completely silent, that tells you there’s an untapped alternative.

In the event you run these numbers once more after six months of beginning your advocacy program, you’re more likely to see a noticeable distinction in on-line engagement. At DSMN8, we create these stories for brand spanking new and potential shoppers. We name it an ‘worker advocacy well being examine’, and that’s the place corporations can begin. 

You’re publishing a e-book known as Worker Advocacy: 101 Cheat Codes this September. Might you give us a sneak peek of what to anticipate? 

I get pissed off once I learn enterprise books as a result of they are saying the identical factor repeatedly. You may learn a 300-page e-book, however find yourself studying just one factor. 

What we needed to do with the Worker Advocacy: 101 Cheat Codes was to have each single web page ship worth. The e-book has 101 ideas, however we name them cheat codes (a nod to our love of gaming).

[Bradley opens the book and starts sharing tips from it]

Let’s decide a random web page. We’re on web page 55, discussing how you can write a number of publish captions with various tones. 

You should not give the identical content material piece with the identical textual content to each worker. In the event you do this and all people shares the identical content material on the identical day, it’s going to appear like LinkedIn has been taken over by bots! We advise corporations to offer captions with various tones in order that when an worker selects the piece of content material they need to share, they will discover one thing most suited to their private tone of voice.

I am going to offer you another.

The thirty sixth cheat code talks about limiting how a lot workers can share. It could sound counterproductive as a result of we would like our workers to be lively, however when any person will get excited, they may share an excessive amount of. You don’t need an worker sharing a couple of piece of content material every day. Two is quite a bit. 

People who find themselves new to social media would possibly assume that the extra they share, the higher. After they share 10-15 posts in in the future, it appears inauthentic, which is the precise reverse of what we need to obtain with worker advocacy.

That’s attention-grabbing. So, we’ve particular person contributors, managers, after which c-suite executives. What sort of differentiation ought to there be concerning the content material they share on social media?

You’ll need to produce content material and captions which are applicable for various views and profession levels. You would possibly present thought management posts to the extra senior folks inside the group, with authoritative captions, that may be much less credible if shared by junior employees members. This will also be a useful technique to regulate the narrative if an organization needs to make a stance on public or enterprise points.

Junior workers can even add worth by participating with content material shared by different advocates, in addition to sharing themselves. For instance, when the vice chairman (VP) of gross sales shares a publish, your gross sales staff can work together with likes and feedback to spice up its attain.

Comply with Bradley on LinkedIn to discover ways to flip workers into social media model ambassadors and develop your worker advocacy program.