November 18, 2024 • 52 mins
Want to build an employee advocacy program but don't know where to start? In this episode, employee advocacy expert Nicole Stephens reveals the frameworks and strategies that actually work, from highly regulated industries to Fortune 50 companies. Learn:
- Why authentic employee stories outperform corporate content
- How to help employees spot and share story-worthy moments
- The right way to use content libraries (and when to move beyond them)
- Measuring success without expensive tools
- Getting leadership buy-in for employee advocacy
- Balancing brand guidelines with authenticity
Nicole shares practical examples from intern to C-suite level, explaining how companies of any size can build a powerful employee advocacy program that drives real results. Perfect for talent acquisition leaders, employer brand professionals, and business leaders looking to enhance their talent attraction through employee voices.
#EmployeeAdvocacy #EmployerBranding #TalentAcquisition #Recruiting #ContentStrategy #EmployeeGeneratedContent
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//TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 INTRODUCTION
01:03 Why Traditional Recruiting Content Doesn't Work
04:20 Content Libraries: The Right Way to Use Them
07:44 How Candidates Really Consume Employee Content
10:21 Balancing Brand Guidelines with Authenticity
13:48 Redefining Failure in Employee Advocacy
20:33 Building an Employee Advocacy Program with Zero Budget
24:54 Help Employees Find Story-Worthy Moments
28:04 Entry-Level to C-Suite: Content That Works
34:55 Overcoming Common Employee Advocacy Challenges
43:15 The Future: When EGC Becomes Just Content
45:42 Should You Pay Employees for Content?
RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE
→ #16: Making the case for Hiring Manager branding with Carrie Corcoran
****
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nicole Stephens (00:00):
When we got our first sale in company history
through social media, it wasfrom an employee who was really
active and bought in. NicoleStevens is an expert in employee
advocacy, challenging howcompanies think about social
media and authenticity.
Rhona Pierce (00:18):
If we were working at Burger King and someone
posted, I'm loving it, that's aproblem.
Nicole Stephens (00:24):
I think what we need to do ultimately is
redefine
Rhona Pierce (00:29):
failure. The problem is your own employees
don't even know your brand.
Nicole Stephens (00:35):
That's a great point.
Rhona Pierce (00:37):
What if letting employees share freely is the
secret, or could it back
Nicole Stephens (00:43):
fire? If something doesn't feel right,
then it automatically createseven a subconscious negative
connotation against that brandand company. I'm hoping that we
don't even call it EGC in thefuture, and it's just content.
Rhona Pierce (01:03):
Hey, Nicole. I'm so excited to have you on the
show today. Thank you forjoining me.
Nicole Stephens (01:09):
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
Rhona Pierce (01:12):
So we're gonna talk about one of my favorite
topics, which is really employeeadvocacy and employee generated
content specifically. So I'veheard this concept many times,
and I actually saw a post aboutit this week that says, like,
every employee is a recruiter.Right? Everything. Especially
(01:32):
now with social media, thathiring manager sharing about
their team wins or the engineersharing about the cool project
they're working with.
Everyone sees that, includingpotential candidates. Right? So
what was your moment that madeyou realize, like, the
traditional recruiting contentthat we've been creating for
(01:53):
decades isn't really couldn'tcompete with the authentic
employee content.
Nicole Stephens (01:59):
Yes. This is such a fun question, and I'm
actually wanna take it back tomy marketing days. So 2017,
2016, I was working at amortgage company, so in a highly
regulated industry, and managingemployee advocacy. Even though I
don't even know if at the time Iknew enough to call it advocacy.
(02:21):
I just knew that I was creatinga program that didn't exist for
employees to share things.
And when we got our first salein company history through
social media, It was from anemployee who was really active
and bought in and sharing, like,kind of day in the life, things
about rates, things that wereuseful to his audience. And I
(02:44):
remember it being such a winbecause we were able to take
that to the CEO who at the timethought that social media was a
fad quote. So it wasn'tnecessarily in the recruiting
space, but just being able toshow that people showcasing a
day in their life what they'redoing in business content really
(03:05):
did create business results.
Rhona Pierce (03:07):
That's so interesting that in 2017,
someone was thinking that socialmedia was a fad. I mean, I think
at that point, we were deep in,like, this is this is here to
stay. Also, humans, we've alwaysbeen nosy. We always wanna know
what someone else is doing. AndI really think that's why those,
like, those stories and thosebehind the scenes day in the
(03:29):
life things work becauseeveryone wants to know what does
this person do.
And if you're trying to get ajob doing what that person does,
what better than to see whatthey actually do to show you,
like, do I wanna do this or do Inot wanna do this? I think
that's really that's a bigreason why this type of content
(03:51):
works.
Nicole Stephens (03:52):
That's exactly it. And it doesn't have to be
these big moments that peopleput a lot of pressure on
themselves. Like, I don't haveanything interesting. It truly
is what did you do today? Youhad a really cool meeting.
You know, what was it about thatyou can share? So I think that
day in the life of behind thescenes, even if it doesn't seem
super interesting, really doesprovide that window into your
(04:16):
life, and we are nosy. We wantto know. So tell us.
Rhona Pierce (04:20):
Yeah. Because of a lot of this happening and a lot
of people sharing and just theboom with social media, I've
seen that companies have gonethe whole other side of the
spectrum where they're trying tocontrol the narrative and share
content libraries and prewritten post with people. What
(04:41):
led you to take a differentapproach?
Nicole Stephens (04:44):
Yes. Before I answer that, I don't want to
hate too much on contentlibraries. And the reason is
that's the top of some people'scomfort level. So maybe they're
interested in supporting thecompany, but just their
personality type or the rolethey're in or maybe their
management. They're like, thisis kind of the limit that I'm
(05:06):
comfortable with, and that'sokay as long as we coach them
and provide education that theyshould only share what they feel
really speaks to them and isinteresting to them.
Because if I'm an accountantsharing ESG content and I really
don't understand it or I don'tcare about it, that
inauthenticity is, like,screaming on social. So I think
(05:30):
it's okay to a point and it's agreat starting point for people.
However, there's so much morethan that. And a lot of times,
companies will see that contentlibrary as an endpoint. Like,
okay.
Now we have an advocacy program,when really that should be the
starting point for people. So Ithink that's a huge opportunity.
(05:53):
And Edelman's trust barometer in2024 shared that 61% of
participants, and there werelike 35,000, I think,
participants across a ton ofcountries, believe that 61
percent or 61%, excuse me, ofrespondents believe that CEOs
and business leaders arepurposefully sharing content to
(06:16):
lead people astray. So peoplebelieve each other. It's like
asking your friends, like, hey,who's a good hairstylist?
I just moved to town. Or whatrestaurant should I eat at?
People believe and trust eachother versus kind of that
corporate person or entity witha clear agenda. So content
(06:36):
libraries are an okay place tostart, but by all means, we
can't, as talent acquisition andemployer brand pros, consider
them our end.
Rhona Pierce (06:45):
That's a really good point also that you've made
about people wanna hear fromeveryone, and it has to be
authentic. Yeah. You can havethe library to start, but as an
employee, don't share thingsthat you don't really care about
because that is so noticeable.You can you can tell it's like,
okay. They forced them to sharethis.
(07:07):
It's like we all know that.We've all scrolled through
LinkedIn and seen someone sharesomething that we're like,
that's not even how they speak.
Nicole Stephens (07:15):
Right. Exactly. That tone or those words or just
the sentence structure. It'slike how you can tell when
ChatJPT wrote a post. You cantell when someone didn't write
their own post and you might notknow where it came from, but you
know the people that you'reconnected to.
And, like, if something doesn'tfeel right, then it
automatically creates even asubconscious negative
(07:38):
connotation against that brandand company, and it's just not
worth doing that.
Rhona Pierce (07:44):
Yep. It's absolutely not worth it. So a
lot of the listeners on thispodcast work in talent
acquisition. Right? What's themost surprising thing that
you've learned about howcandidates consume and engage
with content when they'reresearching a potential
employer?
The most surprising
Nicole Stephens (08:05):
thing, and it's so basic, that I need to
constantly remind myself of is,like, this matters. And that
sounds kind of silly coming fromsomeone who's done it for years,
But I was in an interview a fewyears ago interviewing someone
to join the social media team ata Fortune 50. And when asked why
(08:26):
they were interested in therole, right, that typical
question, the person shared thatthey saw a post around veterans
and the support that the companydid for veterans. And that was a
corporate post, but we alsoturned it into an employee blog
and we had multiple ways to kindof get the same message out and
added it to the content libraryfor people to share. And she saw
(08:49):
that post and said, you know, myex relative was a veteran, and
that really spoke to me, andthat led to me applying and
being in this interview today.
And as the person who at thetime was leading the veterans
content, it took a step back,you know, for me to say, wow.
You know, I I wasn't like, oh, Iwrote that. But it's just like
(09:11):
we're in it all day. We'reworking with people. We're, you
know, educating stakeholders,and we're pumping out content a
lot of times and pumping outtrainings and decks.
And, like, these things matterto people. What we're writing
about, the content, the wording,how we're educating people to
become thought leaders or sharetheir expertise themselves, they
(09:32):
will take that on to their nextrole. So as much as we're in it
all day and we're kind of headsdown, it's so important, I
think, to remind ourselves thatthis work matters, and the
content that we're eithercreating or educating employees
to create can really lead topeople joining our company and
them changing their lives inthat way.
Rhona Pierce (09:54):
That's so powerful. That's a powerful
reminder. And I think a lot ofthe guests that I've had
throughout the podcast whoreally empower, like, employees
and stuff like that have alwaysit's that moment of there's
always that moment that remindsyou like, oh, wow. This work
that I'm doing actually ismaking a difference in how
(10:14):
someone decides one of the mostimportant things in their life,
which is where they work.
Nicole Stephens (10:19):
Yes. Absolutely.
Rhona Pierce (10:21):
So you've spoken about just empowering employees
to share their story andeducating them. How do you
balance that? Okay. Be yourself.Be authentic.
Share what you care about withmaintaining the the brand
consistency because we don'twant everyone sharing different
(10:43):
types of things. Right?
Nicole Stephens (10:44):
Yes. I tend to lean pretty far towards the
hands off approach here.Meaning, I would rather
employees feel comfortablesharing and share a wide range
of content than have a superbuttoned up, you know, perfect
brand standardized post. Thewhole point of advocacy is to
(11:09):
empower employees and allow themto share days in the life, what
goes into their role, expertise,them going to conferences, all
sorts of things. And when we puttoo much of a burden on them,
use brand colors, use brandguidelines.
I'm not saying we should say doliterally whatever you want, you
(11:31):
know, use competitor colors,whatever. But when we provide so
many restrictions upfront,especially, that really, I
think, kinders people andremoves their desire to keep
going. Because for some people,this is second nature.
Especially gen z, gen alphacoming up, they will be less
(11:52):
challenging, I think, to workwith to really become advocates.
But people who didn't grow upwith phones in their hands and
they're spending extra time,which is something we also need
to remember, they're not beingpaid to do this.
They're not on the TA teamtechnically, so they are helping
us in addition to us helpingthem. So we need to make things
(12:15):
easy for them. And we canprovide brand standards, brand
guidelines, sample posts, poststhey can edit. But if someone
comes up with a post and Ithink, oh, I would have done
that differently, that's okaybecause that's subjective and
that's my opinion. Unlessthey're doing something that
really could harm the brand orthemselves, and we want to keep
(12:36):
an eye out for both, I'm of theopinion that we really should be
championing what they want totalk about.
And that even goes as far astalk about some business and
some work and talk about someother things. If you're really
interested in snowboarding,cool. Show a picture of you
snowboarding on your time off.If you then wanna do a later
(12:59):
post about our company's timeoff policy, great, and use that
picture. But I want yourconnections to not have what we
were talking earlier and think,oh, they didn't write that.
So it's okay if you're doingthings in a way that we wouldn't
prescribe because, ultimately,this isn't supposed to be overly
(13:20):
prescriptive.
Rhona Pierce (13:21):
I like that approach, but how do you deal?
And I'm just playing devil'sadvocate here. How do you deal
with that? Because I know I'vehad it. That marketing person or
that branding person who sees apost from an employee that's now
going viral, and they arefreaking out blowing like
hyperventilating into a bagbecause they didn't use the
(13:42):
right font or they didn't usethe right colors or they used
they said the slogan in adifferent way.
How do you deal how do you,like, deal with that type of
internal conflict?
Nicole Stephens (13:53):
It's like, you know, those things do happen.
Right? People need paper bags. Ithink what we need to do
ultimately is redefine failure.So if people see they didn't
they used a different red.
Okay. They didn't use thephrasing that we provided or
they didn't say something, youknow, they didn't use the right
(14:15):
hashtag. Okay. That is not afailure. That is this person got
a message out about our companyor, you know, and included our
company to x amount of peopleand they're raising brand
awareness.
At the same time, they'repositioning themselves as the
expert that they are, showingcandidates, investors, you know,
(14:38):
customers, that we have a lot ofexpertise here and we champion
that. So both for the people whomight need paper bags a little
too often and for programparticipants. I think from the
outset, defining what failure isand what success is can be
(14:59):
really impactful because you cansay, hey. People might not
always do things how we wouldwant them to do, and that's
okay. We consider that thesuccess because they're getting
these views and impressions andengagement, and they're raising
brand awareness versus, youknow, this person used the wrong
color, which half of internalpeople wouldn't even notice, let
(15:22):
alone external people.
They're scrolling. They don'tcare what shade of red was used.
So it's was the message on pointbecause we can refine those
details later.
Rhona Pierce (15:32):
Exactly. Obviously, that question came
from from experience. I like totell people and I love your
approach of defining failure.And I like to tell people when I
start these things, it's like,look. If we were working at
Burger King and someone posted,I'm loving it, that's a problem.
Right?
Nicole Stephens (15:50):
Yes.
Rhona Pierce (15:51):
That's a problem. But if someone posts that, the
problem is deeper than we letthem do whatever. The problem is
how do they not know that that'sour competitors slogan and
that's their thing. That's awhole bigger issue than a post
that was created because wedidn't do guidelines. However,
(16:13):
when things like that happen,people immediately go into, this
is the library.
This is what you use. You'llnever say anything else, and
it's like, that's not even theproblem that you have right now.
The problem is your ownemployees don't even know your
brand.
Nicole Stephens (16:28):
That's a great point. First of all, super fun
example and such a great pointbecause is it the actual problem
or is this the result of theproblem? Or, you know, it's not
the root problem that we'reidentifying. It's something that
came from it. So, yes, I thinkoften it's, oh, they didn't use
(16:50):
brand colors.
Okay. Well, if that is a reallybig deal, like, are we educating
employees on that? Isn't it ouronboarding? Like, did we do a
good job of training them? Ifthey are using competitor
slogan, are they like, do wehave an engagement issue?
Are they you know, is thissomething deeper that we need to
address? So issues might arisein an advocacy program, but
(17:13):
you're absolutely right that 9times out of 10, it's a deeper
cause that we now have insighton and we can go address. And
that reminds me of, I think itwas, like, about 4 years ago,
the Sherwin Williams guy onTikTok who is super popular in
creating paints and people wouldrequest, like, make of arctic
(17:35):
blue, And he would, you know,create these paints, and he went
super viral. And then thecompany fired him. And they got
a huge amount of backlash forit.
And just, like, 6 months ago orso, an employee at Waffle House
was doing vibes, and he wasreally popular. People just
enjoyed kind of his presence andwatching him cook, and he also
(17:59):
got fired. And it's amazing thatso many years after Sherwin
Williams, all the backlash thatthey got, deservedly so, in my
opinion, companies are still soafraid. And I think that's when
it comes back to redefiningfailure with key stakeholders is
if if an employee goes live,like, what are our concerns? If
(18:23):
we allow employees to postwithout rigid guidelines, what
are our concerns?
And I worked at a company. Thisis my 2nd time creating an
advocacy program, and I did knowenough to call it advocacy at
that time. And every singlearticle so if I put something in
from Forbes or Inc or whateverthird party into this library
(18:46):
for people to share about, youknow, industry updates, legal
had to review not only the postcopy, but also the article
itself. So by the time I had,you know, a busy legal team
review review, feedback, editsback and forth, things weren't
even timely anymore, and it wasthe furthest from genuine and
(19:07):
authentic. But, you know, that'swhat I had to work with at the
time.
So working at companies whounderstand more of what we're
really trying to do is is sofreeing in a way because it
allows me to better supportemployees. So it's just
educating key stakeholders on,like, what are our concerns?
What's the worst case scenario?Okay. What do we put in place to
(19:29):
mitigate that?
Rhona Pierce (19:30):
And as you were saying that, I was also thinking
for any person who's on the jobhunt right now, any, TA pro,
employer branding pro, becausewe know we have a lot of people
looking. These are questionsthat you ask during interviews
and you want to get to knowwhat's the real process, what
are you really working against,do you have to run every single
(19:53):
thing by legal because that'sgonna impact how successful you
can be in your role, and it'sbetter to know it upfront to
know, like, how to work withthings.
Nicole Stephens (20:05):
Yep. Absolutely.
Rhona Pierce (20:08):
So everyone, I think, understands or most
people the value and theimportance of having an employee
advocacy program. And if theydid before this episode, I'm
sure at this point, they'reexcited. Right? But we all know,
I like to say, budget is atrigger word for anyone in TA or
employer branding because wehardly ever get a budget. It's
(20:30):
literally 0 most of the time.
Nicole Stephens (20:33):
Right.
Rhona Pierce (20:34):
So how do we do any of these things? How do we
implement employee advocacy with$0?
Nicole Stephens (20:43):
Yes. That is such a great question because
you're right. Our budget is 0often, or if we had 1, there it
went. So it is important to beable to do advocacy with $0. And
there are two directions to takethis question.
So first, I'll just make a quickdisclaimer that there's a
(21:06):
difference between a programparticipant and an employee
advocate. And there are a1000000 different ways to create
employee advocates, and programparticipation is 1. But that's
everything, like onboarding,engagement. There are so many
things that contribute to realemployee advocacy, like, you
(21:28):
know, meeting culture, feedbackculture. Creating advocates is
is a whole another discussion.
Program participants or employeeadvocacy. I think that if you
have $0, and I I wish I couldremember. I'll try to look it up
and send it to you. But someonedid that. They created an
(21:49):
advocacy program with $0 andthey created their own ROI and
literally made a calculator andsaid, okay.
Impressions are going to beworth this, likes worth this,
comments, shares worth this. Andso they created their own ROI
calculator and had employeesactually send in their data so
that they could kind of showthat earned media value, if you
(22:12):
will. But if you are fortunateenough to have, there are so
many so many platforms andprograms now for advocacy, There
is an earned media value columnthat is essential for
leadership. And at my lastcompany, what was really
interesting is that marketingand TA split the cost of the
(22:34):
advocacy platform. And at thetime, because we both
contributed to the library, Ithought, like, this is so weird.
And looking back, it actuallymakes a lot of sense because,
ultimately, we're looking to getcandidates and they're looking
to get sales, and both can bedone through advocacy programs.
So that is an argument thatmakes a lot of sense because our
(22:55):
work supports each other. So ifthat is possible, I would
recommend having conversationswith, you know, kind of allies
or or key stakeholders in themarketing or sales department to
just feel out if that would evenbe a possibility. And if not,
you can go the route of, youknow, the person who created a
(23:15):
program and said, okay. We'regoing to assign our own dollar
amounts to these.
And I think a third reallyimportant metric or set of
metrics that gets forgottenbecause we are concerned about
kind of that earned media valueand bottom line, which is really
important for stakeholders, isemployee engagement. Are we
(23:37):
seeing that people involved inthis program are staying longer?
Are we seeing that they'regiving higher, you know, scores
and engagement surveys? Are wegetting higher scores on
Glassdoor and Indeed? Are peopletalking about this program?
When people join the company,are they mentioning, you know,
that they heard about us throughsocial media posts or through
(23:59):
friends? Like, is our referralcount going up? Because people
are talking about, hey.Actually, it's really cool. I'm
allowed to say whatever I want.
Because a lot of companies don'tlet you say whatever you want on
social. I've worked at severalof them. So I think that there
are kind of softer metrics thatwe can incorporate and just
create a dashboard, you know,for key stakeholders and say,
(24:23):
here's our earned media value.Here are the likes, impressions,
you know, all of that as well,but here are some softer
metrics.
Rhona Pierce (24:31):
I like that. Yes. I like the approach of getting
all of the the metrics, the datafrom employees to, like,
calculate that or maybe becauseit's true. I really smart
approach there. So how do youhelp employees spot and share
those, like, story worthymoments in their day to day
(24:54):
work?
Nicole Stephens (24:55):
Yes. This is such a good question because one
of the most common pieces offeedback or fear is I don't know
what to say or I have nothing tosay. So the fun part of this too
is, like, building people'sconfidence and saying, well,
you've been in your role for,you know, 8 years. Surely,
(25:16):
you've learned things in 8years. And reminding people that
just because they do somethingday in and day out doesn't mean
that other people have a clueabout it.
You know, I've been on callswhere people say, oh my gosh.
Like, they should know. And I'mthinking, well, I work in HR and
I didn't know that. So I don'tthink we can reasonably expect,
you know, finance or whateverdepartment to know what we know
(25:40):
and vice versa. So I think partof it is just that confidence
building and reminding people,like, you are in this position.
You were hired for a reason. Youstay here for a reason, and you
have expertise that you probablydon't even see as expertise
because for you, it's commonknowledge. And I bet if you talk
to your friends, like, outsideof work, say, at a cocktail
(26:02):
party, they would be shocked athow much you know because it's
not their world. So that firstkind of part is that fun, like,
confidence building anddiscovery. And the second part
is just like we do forstakeholders.
It's just data and showingexamples. So I love showing
examples from, like, all levels.So I'll pull intern posts from
(26:24):
different companies. Whatthey'll do, like, a selfie in
front of their, you know,building or or on their commute
or whatever. Like, hey.
First day at and they'll get,like, hundreds of likes and then
congratulations. Can't wait tohear. And it really can be that
simple, especially for peoplestarting out. So those are great
examples. And then I'll pulldata all the way up to c suites.
(26:47):
Katie Burke, who formerly wasthe chief people officer at
HubSpot, did a fantastic job.And some CXOs absolutely have
people running their social forthem. It seems like Katie did
her own because she wasconstantly posting, engaging on
others' posts, and just sharing,hey. We had a meeting today, and
(27:08):
what was so interesting was a,b, c. So you'd get that behind
the scenes without her sayingbehind the scenes, you know,
like a corporate post wouldwith, like, colored branded
border and just share or like,hey.
My team had an outing today, andit was so good to see all of
them, and it wouldn't have anybusiness context. But you saw
like, oh, okay. They do teambuilding things. And it's funny.
(27:31):
I remember a year or 2 ago, myboss asking, well, what what
companies do you think have goodemployer brands?
And I said HubSpot for thereason that I followed Katie
Burke on LinkedIn, and she wasjust constantly sharing new
things that we talked about inthe beginning. Oh, here's you
know, we had a meeting or we hada speaker or I'm so proud of my
(27:53):
team for this. And it was somuch constant just, you know,
common content. It wasn'tanything huge that it really
made me feel like I understoodwhat it would be like to work
there.
Rhona Pierce (28:04):
I think people always think that they have to
share all of these, like, greatthings. And the truth is at
work, do you really have theseamazing days every single day?
You don't. And I always like toI like that you share from
intern to c suite because Idon't know if you've noticed,
but a lot of the content thatreally does good online is
(28:28):
usually from interns or entrylevel people, and that's because
they're sharing everything thatthey learn. They're learning
something new every day.
And you would think, oh,everyone knows that. Well, why
does the content do so well?Because everyone doesn't know
that. So I think as you move upin your career, if you remember
that approach, there's alwayssomeone who knows less than you.
(28:52):
So the content is always gonnawork if it's something that,
like, you think is, this iswhatever.
Like you said, that's a greatexample of even at a party when
you're talking to people, theydon't necessarily know what you
do if they're outside of it andif they're starting. So yeah.
Like, that I love that you shareexamples from the entire
(29:15):
spectrum.
Nicole Stephens (29:17):
And you bring up such a good point of, you
know, what do you really do. Iworked at a company where the
single most common job title wasbusiness initiatives consultant
or BIC. What is that? And therewere BICs in every single
department. So obviously someonein finance is not doing what
marketing is doing, is not doingwhat supply chain is doing.
(29:38):
So even if someone had posted a2 sentence post on here's what,
you know, this role means in mydepartment, I would have found
that fascinating. So you'reright. It's remembering, like,
not everyone knows this. Andeven if you think people do,
they don't or they could use areminder. I'll see posts all the
(29:59):
time and I think, okay.
That's not new for me, but Ineeded that reminder. Because
not everything is top of mindalways. We have so much
information all the time. Like,I don't even know how we get
through our days sometimes. Sohaving that reminder of, oh,
yeah.
That's a great strategy or thattactic is a good idea. Or I'm
not a huge fan of these, butevery once in a while, just a
(30:21):
picture of someone on theirtheir walk that day when they're
taking a break or like a quote.Every once in a while, I'm like,
you know what? I needed thattoday. So I think there's such a
big variety of content thatresonates with people, and often
it is just, yeah, we had ameeting today and we talked
about ABC, and, you know, I'mexcited about where we're going.
(30:43):
That really does well, andyou're right. If everyone knew
that, why did that content do sowell?
Rhona Pierce (30:49):
And, also, the the content that I see that does
well is content of the not sogreat moments. When you're
having a sucky day at work andyou go and post. And I'm not
advocating for trashing yourcompany or anything like that.
I'm not that's not the type ofpost I'm talking about. I'm
talking about, like, thefrustrations.
I remember when I was activelyrecruiting, there would be some
(31:14):
post that would stem fromfrustration of why are
candidates doing this or notnecessarily why are candidates
doing this, but why are weencountering the same situation
over and over again? And thenwhen you take a step back,
obviously, you don't post it ina frustrated mode blaming
anyone. But when you take a stepback, it's like, wait. It
doesn't seem like ourapplication form is explaining
(31:38):
why we need to know thisinformation. So you write I
would write a post about, oh mygod.
I know it's so annoying toanswer application questions,
but one of the reasons thatreally helps us blah blah blah.
And people were like, oh, Ididn't know this was why you
were asking. I didn'tunderstand. We started getting
better answers to the specificquestion that we were asking
(32:02):
because people wereunderstanding just from from
that post. So from the suckymoments at work comes great
content.
Nicole Stephens (32:11):
Yes. And that's why you're so good at what you
do because you can step back andturn that frustration we all
have these days. And you canturn that into, okay, here's why
I think this is happening. Letme turn that into an FAQ or a
helpful resource. And that'sanother great starter piece of
(32:31):
content for people is whatquestion do you get asked all
the time?
What are FAQs? Or what'ssomething you wish people knew
about your job that they justdon't seem to get? Turn that
into a helpful piece of content.So the first thing I'll do when
creating, like, an outline foran advocacy program is always
just create a list. I think I'mup to, like, 40 questions that
(32:55):
are thought starters for people.
So they're a huge range and it'slike some are really specific,
some are general. Tell me aboutyour best day. That could be
anything. That could be onemoment. That could be the day
you realize something, butthings like that.
Like, what's something you wishpeople knew about your job?
Like, what do you wishcandidates knew? Well, let's
turn that into a resource. And2, I can't remember who it was,
(33:20):
but there's a some famous CEOwho has, like, a failure resume.
And being willing, as a leader,at any level to externally or
even internally share yourfailures, realizing that they
didn't matter to a point becauseyou are still successful, is
(33:40):
something that I think could beincorporated into advocacy
programs.
Like, that could even be aprompt if key stakeholders are
comfortable with it because thatmakes it so much more real. And,
oh, you're not only allowed toshare negative things, but
you're being encouraged to. Andthere's one career site I love
where the founders say on thecareer home page why you should
(34:04):
work here and maybe why youshouldn't, and they talk about
pros and cons. They do a greatjob of attracting rapport, and
then they answer FAQs. And atthe bottom, it says, what's one
thing you've learned sincerunning this company?
And they talk about the failurefrom when they first started and
how that led them to pivot. So Ithink if we can get people
(34:25):
comfortable with that and showthat, no, our stock didn't drop,
you know, investors aren'trunning away, and people aren't
leaving horrible commentsbecause it's a professional
network, then, you know,hopefully, we can kind of get to
a place where people are morecomfortable sharing the good
Rhona Pierce (34:41):
and the bad. Yeah. So what are the the most common
challenges that you seecompanies facing when they're
trying to implement like a EGC,an employee generated content
strategy?
Nicole Stephens (34:55):
1st, you already called it budget, and
we've touched upon a couple waysto manage that. And then second
is, from what I've seen, kind ofcomfort level with senior level
stakeholders and executives onwe're unleashing this tool and
we're allowing employees to, youknow, share things, the what if.
(35:20):
So that goes back to redefiningfailure and saying, what are we,
you know, what are our concernsand how can we proactively
address those so that we arecomfortable with this? That's
from, like, an internalstakeholder level. From an
individual level, fromparticipants, the two questions
are, I have nothing to say, andI don't know you know, I'm not
(35:43):
an expert.
And I think we've kind ofalready covered those too in
terms of, like, educating them,coaching them, and then just
championing them. So for bothexecutives and participants,
it's showing examples. I will,like, inundate people with
examples and say, stop wheneveryou want. Like but here's a deck
(36:03):
with 50 examples, and I keepremaking it at every company. I
need to just save it, and it'sjust people at all levels.
And it's it's also showing evenif you get a negative comment,
have something in place toaddress that. Like, work with
legal, know, you know, what youwould do. 9 times out of 10,
it's just don't address it. Butgive employees that comfort
(36:25):
that, like, you've got theirback. You're here to support
them.
And even if they run intochallenges throughout this
program, you are their resourcebecause the program is for them.
Rhona Pierce (36:35):
And for I I know the I don't know what to say is
a really common one. I hear itfrom recruiters. I hear it from
other people inside of acompany. And I always encourage
recruiters because we aretalking to people all day long,
same as salespeople. So we'regetting those frequently asked
(36:57):
questions.
Right?
Nicole Stephens (36:58):
Yeah.
Rhona Pierce (36:58):
They're not only asking you about the recruiting
process. They're asking youabout what's the day in the life
type of thing. Share thosequestions. Like, have a bank of
FAQs. Share those questions withthe teams and be like, hey.
We're interviewing formarketing, and I keep getting
asked this question. Does anyonehave any insights to share? Can
(37:21):
you create it as content toshare online? That, like,
really, those are the the thingsthat work because that's what
people wanna know. So if youanswer that anyway so just as
you're doing your work, you'regetting questions from people
who don't do your work everyday.
That's great content. Write downthose FAQs.
Nicole Stephens (37:43):
That's a great point. And an opportunity that
we probably have on the TA or EBside is take some of those FAQs
that recruiters are getting andnot only have them make content,
but share that with themarketing team or the CSR team
or supply chain or what have youand say, here's what we're
hearing from candidates. Youknow, are you comfortable making
(38:05):
a post, or can we help you makeone? As well as thinking of
questions that you just get inyour day to day. I think that's
a perfect supplement.
Rhona Pierce (38:14):
Quick way I learned and and people who've
listened to the podcastunderstand my business and what
I do. It really started from thewhole getting people in a
virtual recording room to recordquestions and turn them into
short social media videosstarted from working internally,
getting FAQs, needing a VP orsomeone to reply to these
(38:38):
questions so that I didn't haveto keep answering them. And I
was like, let me record it andmake this into a video that we
share in social media. That'show it started. That's where I
started like, I like this.
Let me keep these FAQs. And,like, if people don't have time,
whatever. Here. Join me on Zoom.Let's hit record.
Answer this question. I'll editit. I'll make it a social media
(38:58):
post.
Nicole Stephens (38:59):
I love that. And I've seen so many of them.
They look amazing. So, yeah,that's awesome.
Rhona Pierce (39:06):
Thank you. So when it comes to measuring success,
because we know we're working incorporate, people wanna see
metrics. They if you wanna getbudget at some point, you have
to prove that this is working.So what metrics are meaningful
to, like, measure the success ofthe EGC campaigns?
Nicole Stephens (39:27):
Yeah. That depends a lot on the
stakeholder. So I've worked atplaces where earned media value
is the end all be all, andnothing else matters, which I do
understand from, like, afinancial perspective. But
earned media value is calculateddifferently from different
platforms. So it's it's justkind of interesting that, you
(39:50):
know, we take that as the bible,and I I understand that even
though they're calculateddifferently in different places.
So for some people, that's it.I've also worked at a place
where impressions were thenumber one, and I could share
all sorts of engagement ratesand clicks. And ultimately, that
senior stakeholder looked at thetop right corner, which had
(40:12):
impressions and the little greenor red arrow that quarter, and
that's the number that theygrabbed onto. And I understand
that from purely a brandawareness standpoint, which is a
lot of what we were looking tosolve with that particular
program. So this is reallydependent upon not only your
(40:32):
stakeholder, but your goal ofcreating the program because no
2 programs are the same.
And, you know, hopefully, youhave a specific why or a couple
whys when you're creating theprogram so that will lead to the
correct KPIs. But I think it'simportant too no matter what. If
it's impressions, if it's purelyclicks for some people that you
(40:56):
really wanna drive people toapply or to landing pages,
whether it's earned media value,I would love to see more people
bringing in those soft metricsthat we talked about earlier.
Like, what's some feedback thatyou've gotten? Can you just pull
a quote or 2 onto the next, youknow, quarterly dashboard and
just show that employees arereally valuing this time that
(41:19):
they're spending?
Because we realize we're takingthem away from their day job. So
can we show not only are we, thebiased program creators, saying
that this is valuable, but trulythe, you know, user, the client,
the employee is seeing thevalue. And one thing I'm
pointing to a lot at my lastcompany was a senior director
(41:42):
who was one of our insiders. SoI had 9 people who I, you know,
handpicked, and that's where wewere kind of in our maturity
level. Not something I wouldrecommend for everyone always.
But to get started, I handpicked9 people. And within a few
months of just sharingprewritten posts, I want to,
like, highlight and underlinethat. She was invited to speak
(42:06):
in Baltimore at an event becausepeople had seen her content, and
she only chose what was relevantto her. But, you know, she
didn't have that comfort levelat that time to make things more
personalized. But even justsharing those prewritten posts,
which I try to do in a, youknow, way that I think people
would would write on LinkedIn,she was then invited to share
(42:30):
her expertise and have thecompany name behind her at that
event.
So there are kind of thosesofter metrics that you can
point to as well, like speakinginvitations.
Rhona Pierce (42:40):
Yes. And that that's a big one because at the
end of the day, when they go tothe conference, everywhere you
see, Rona Pierce from companyname.
Nicole Stephens (42:52):
Exactly. That's
Rhona Pierce (42:53):
like free publicity right there for that's
relevant because the people atthat conference are gonna be
industry people. Exactly. Yep.So looking ahead, how do you see
the role of employee generatedcontent, like, evolving in
talent acquisition and employerbranding?
Nicole Stephens (43:15):
I'm hoping that we don't even call it EGC in the
future, and it's just content.What I would love to see, and
I've I've said this for, like, ayear now and I I just need to do
it, is I'd love to see a companytaking, say, like, a month, and
all of their corporate social isjust EGC. If you have a new
(43:39):
product, great. Have an employeetalk about it. If you're going
to event an event, have anemployee showcase that.
If you are launching a newemployee resource group, have
the person creating them talkabout what led to this
particular resource group. Imean, there are so many like, I
don't think there's a businesscase that anyone could throw out
(44:00):
to say an employee couldn't talkabout this because your
employees are the ones doing thework. And, hopefully, everyone
on this podcast agrees orlistening to this podcast agrees
with that. So that would take alot of partnership, you know,
with marketing and a lot ofcoordination. But I'm hoping
that in the future, there is notthis huge split between
(44:20):
corporate and employee contentand that we're doing a better
job sharing, amplifying,elevating, educating, all of the
aims to really get employeecontent to just be content.
Rhona Pierce (44:33):
I like that. I like the whole concept of
employee, like, EGC takeover ofthe brand. I love that. I I
think you would have to havestrong partners in marketing to
understand that because they'renot creating the content, their
jobs aren't on the line. Theirexpertise is the strategy.
(44:56):
That's still very much needed.Actually, they should be happy
to outsource per se the contentbecause it's gonna be more
authentic, and then they canfocus on strategy and what
really is marketing, employerbranding, and things like that.
We're always talking about wewanna be strategic partners.
(45:16):
Well, get yourself out of theway and do your strategic work
and let employees do thecontent. That's great.
I've thought of something. So ifwe go that route, which I also
firmly believe is where weshould go, do you see that or do
you think that there should besome type of compensation for
(45:39):
employees creating content?
Nicole Stephens (45:42):
This is such a good question. And as you said
the word compensation, I waslike, okay. I see where you're
going. I can see both sides, butI don't like when people just
say that and then don't give ananswer. So I will give you an
answer.
I'm all for compensatingemployees for extra time for
(46:02):
things like employee resourcegroups. Like, I understand that.
However and I would need to Iwould need to spend more time,
like, defining these in my mind.But for some reason, when it
comes to advocacy programs, I'mnot as comfortable paying
employees. And the reason is, Ithink ERGs are, like, internal
(46:27):
and and advocacy, of course, isexternal.
And I would never want there tobe any obligation felt or, you
know, kind of gray line andhave, like, legal involved. And
if they're already involvedenough, you know, any reason for
people to feel like, oh, I cansay this or I can't say that or
pay to play. But I also reallybelieve that if we are doing our
(46:50):
job well in TA and EB to build areally effective advocacy
program, then participantsshould be feeling the value as
much as the company is becausethe program's nothing without
engaged participants. So thecompany gets nothing if we don't
do a good job creating thatengagement and education. So if
(47:11):
we're doing a good job, they youknow, participants that we're
working with should feel likeI'm getting a lot of value out
of this.
I'm learning things. I'm gettingnew career opportunities or
speaking opportunities or I'mjust becoming a better writer or
maybe I discover a love forphotography that I never had.
There's one person I know in theNetherlands who does a great job
(47:33):
with advocacy programs, and shegoes so far as to give, like,
photography training to peoplewho are interested in really
kind of becoming that next levelof of participant and advocate.
So I believe that we shouldcompensate people fairly from
jump. And, you know, if they arespending time, it's worth
(47:54):
considering.
But for advocacy, let's givethem the value that they deserve
as program participants, andthat won't be monetary. It'll be
in several other ways.
Rhona Pierce (48:05):
I always, like, go back and forth on my thoughts on
this one, but I tend to agreewith you because, really, the
the when you when it'sauthentic, you don't want it.
Like, I think paying people forthis specifically, like, here,
one post equals $50 type ofthing Mhmm. Is going to make it
(48:30):
not be as authentic and notreally be advocacy.
Nicole Stephens (48:36):
Yeah. And then if people were to find out that
they're being paid, to me, thatjust kind of removes, you know,
oh, well, did you really thinkthat? Or did you just wanna hit
50 posts so you got $500 orwhatever it is? So then
potentially as a candidate, thatcould kind of mitigate, like,
(48:58):
all of the work that we'retrying to do. But I'm all for
people being paid well, and Ithink things like ERGs are,
like, a different discussionbecause there's a lot of talk
around pay for that.
So we do need to acknowledgethat we're adding to people's
plates and that they're, youknow, doing this on top of their
day job, but hopefully, they'regetting enough value that it is
(49:20):
worth it for them.
Rhona Pierce (49:21):
Agreed. So this has been a great conversation,
and there's something that I'vestarted asking guests. Is there
anything about employee advocacyand employee generated content
that you feel is important forlisteners to know that I didn't
ask you?
Nicole Stephens (49:37):
I should have been prepared for this because I
try to ask something similar inconversations. I think I mean,
you've you've asked all of thebig, great questions. I think if
I could just leave, like, aparting word of advice, it'd be
to talk to each other. Haveconversations with people who
(49:58):
have created advocacy programsor worked on them at other
companies and see what you canlearn from, Fortune 50. See what
you can learn from a start upwho might not have the formal
program, but they just letpeople post.
So there's their advocacyprogram. Like, have
conversations with others in TAand EB to learn how they do
(50:19):
things and what their challengesare and maybe solutions that you
haven't thought of or challengesthat you haven't thought of so
you can, like, better yourprogram. And there's something
to learn if you're a Fortune 50from start ups and vice versa.
So I think the more that we canjust have conversations with
each other, especially for solobranders or people doing this on
(50:42):
their own, which is probably alot of listeners. So many people
are really generous in thisspace, like you and and a
million people in your network,and I think mine as well, and
are willing to hop on the phoneand just say, here's how we did
something.
So I would just say reallycreate a little bit of time here
and there to learn from otherpeople and to give back and, you
(51:04):
know, talk to others about howyou do things.
Rhona Pierce (51:06):
Love it. Love it. And community is everything. So
I've loved our conversation. I Iknew I was gonna love it, but
I've really loved ourconversation.
How can listeners connect withyou?
Nicole Stephens (51:19):
Well, as someone who has run advocacy for
years, I live on LinkedIn. SoLinkedIn is the best place. And
I always love meeting new peoplein this space. Whether you work
on advocacy or not, I just findTA and EV people to be, you
know, not the typical HRstereotype. So you would
definitely welcome any,conversations.
(51:41):
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Rhona Pierce (51:43):
Thank you. If you want more actionable advice,
like the advice shared in thisepisode, I write a weekly
newsletter for TA professionalswho want to take a more
strategic approach torecruiting. You can sign up at
That'sthrowouttheplaybook.com/newsletter.
(52:05):
The link is in the show notes.
When we got our first sale in company history
through social media, it wasfrom an employee who was really
active and bought in. NicoleStevens is an expert in employee
advocacy, challenging howcompanies think about social
media and authenticity.
Rhona Pierce (00:18):
If we were working at Burger King and someone
posted, I'm loving it, that's aproblem.
Nicole Stephens (00:24):
I think what we need to do ultimately is
redefine
Rhona Pierce (00:29):
failure. The problem is your own employees
don't even know your brand.
Nicole Stephens (00:35):
That's a great point.
Rhona Pierce (00:37):
What if letting employees share freely is the
secret, or could it back
Nicole Stephens (00:43):
fire? If something doesn't feel right,
then it automatically createseven a subconscious negative
connotation against that brandand company. I'm hoping that we
don't even call it EGC in thefuture, and it's just content.
Rhona Pierce (01:03):
Hey, Nicole. I'm so excited to have you on the
show today. Thank you forjoining me.
Nicole Stephens (01:09):
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
Rhona Pierce (01:12):
So we're gonna talk about one of my favorite
topics, which is really employeeadvocacy and employee generated
content specifically. So I'veheard this concept many times,
and I actually saw a post aboutit this week that says, like,
every employee is a recruiter.Right? Everything. Especially
(01:32):
now with social media, thathiring manager sharing about
their team wins or the engineersharing about the cool project
they're working with.
Everyone sees that, includingpotential candidates. Right? So
what was your moment that madeyou realize, like, the
traditional recruiting contentthat we've been creating for
(01:53):
decades isn't really couldn'tcompete with the authentic
employee content.
Nicole Stephens (01:59):
Yes. This is such a fun question, and I'm
actually wanna take it back tomy marketing days. So 2017,
2016, I was working at amortgage company, so in a highly
regulated industry, and managingemployee advocacy. Even though I
don't even know if at the time Iknew enough to call it advocacy.
(02:21):
I just knew that I was creatinga program that didn't exist for
employees to share things.
And when we got our first salein company history through
social media, It was from anemployee who was really active
and bought in and sharing, like,kind of day in the life, things
about rates, things that wereuseful to his audience. And I
(02:44):
remember it being such a winbecause we were able to take
that to the CEO who at the timethought that social media was a
fad quote. So it wasn'tnecessarily in the recruiting
space, but just being able toshow that people showcasing a
day in their life what they'redoing in business content really
(03:05):
did create business results.
Rhona Pierce (03:07):
That's so interesting that in 2017,
someone was thinking that socialmedia was a fad. I mean, I think
at that point, we were deep in,like, this is this is here to
stay. Also, humans, we've alwaysbeen nosy. We always wanna know
what someone else is doing. AndI really think that's why those,
like, those stories and thosebehind the scenes day in the
(03:29):
life things work becauseeveryone wants to know what does
this person do.
And if you're trying to get ajob doing what that person does,
what better than to see whatthey actually do to show you,
like, do I wanna do this or do Inot wanna do this? I think
that's really that's a bigreason why this type of content
(03:51):
works.
Nicole Stephens (03:52):
That's exactly it. And it doesn't have to be
these big moments that peopleput a lot of pressure on
themselves. Like, I don't haveanything interesting. It truly
is what did you do today? Youhad a really cool meeting.
You know, what was it about thatyou can share? So I think that
day in the life of behind thescenes, even if it doesn't seem
super interesting, really doesprovide that window into your
(04:16):
life, and we are nosy. We wantto know. So tell us.
Rhona Pierce (04:20):
Yeah. Because of a lot of this happening and a lot
of people sharing and just theboom with social media, I've
seen that companies have gonethe whole other side of the
spectrum where they're trying tocontrol the narrative and share
content libraries and prewritten post with people. What
(04:41):
led you to take a differentapproach?
Nicole Stephens (04:44):
Yes. Before I answer that, I don't want to
hate too much on contentlibraries. And the reason is
that's the top of some people'scomfort level. So maybe they're
interested in supporting thecompany, but just their
personality type or the rolethey're in or maybe their
management. They're like, thisis kind of the limit that I'm
(05:06):
comfortable with, and that'sokay as long as we coach them
and provide education that theyshould only share what they feel
really speaks to them and isinteresting to them.
Because if I'm an accountantsharing ESG content and I really
don't understand it or I don'tcare about it, that
inauthenticity is, like,screaming on social. So I think
(05:30):
it's okay to a point and it's agreat starting point for people.
However, there's so much morethan that. And a lot of times,
companies will see that contentlibrary as an endpoint. Like,
okay.
Now we have an advocacy program,when really that should be the
starting point for people. So Ithink that's a huge opportunity.
(05:53):
And Edelman's trust barometer in2024 shared that 61% of
participants, and there werelike 35,000, I think,
participants across a ton ofcountries, believe that 61
percent or 61%, excuse me, ofrespondents believe that CEOs
and business leaders arepurposefully sharing content to
(06:16):
lead people astray. So peoplebelieve each other. It's like
asking your friends, like, hey,who's a good hairstylist?
I just moved to town. Or whatrestaurant should I eat at?
People believe and trust eachother versus kind of that
corporate person or entity witha clear agenda. So content
(06:36):
libraries are an okay place tostart, but by all means, we
can't, as talent acquisition andemployer brand pros, consider
them our end.
Rhona Pierce (06:45):
That's a really good point also that you've made
about people wanna hear fromeveryone, and it has to be
authentic. Yeah. You can havethe library to start, but as an
employee, don't share thingsthat you don't really care about
because that is so noticeable.You can you can tell it's like,
okay. They forced them to sharethis.
(07:07):
It's like we all know that.We've all scrolled through
LinkedIn and seen someone sharesomething that we're like,
that's not even how they speak.
Nicole Stephens (07:15):
Right. Exactly. That tone or those words or just
the sentence structure. It'slike how you can tell when
ChatJPT wrote a post. You cantell when someone didn't write
their own post and you might notknow where it came from, but you
know the people that you'reconnected to.
And, like, if something doesn'tfeel right, then it
automatically creates even asubconscious negative
(07:38):
connotation against that brandand company, and it's just not
worth doing that.
Rhona Pierce (07:44):
Yep. It's absolutely not worth it. So a
lot of the listeners on thispodcast work in talent
acquisition. Right? What's themost surprising thing that
you've learned about howcandidates consume and engage
with content when they'reresearching a potential
employer?
The most surprising
Nicole Stephens (08:05):
thing, and it's so basic, that I need to
constantly remind myself of is,like, this matters. And that
sounds kind of silly coming fromsomeone who's done it for years,
But I was in an interview a fewyears ago interviewing someone
to join the social media team ata Fortune 50. And when asked why
(08:26):
they were interested in therole, right, that typical
question, the person shared thatthey saw a post around veterans
and the support that the companydid for veterans. And that was a
corporate post, but we alsoturned it into an employee blog
and we had multiple ways to kindof get the same message out and
added it to the content libraryfor people to share. And she saw
(08:49):
that post and said, you know, myex relative was a veteran, and
that really spoke to me, andthat led to me applying and
being in this interview today.
And as the person who at thetime was leading the veterans
content, it took a step back,you know, for me to say, wow.
You know, I I wasn't like, oh, Iwrote that. But it's just like
(09:11):
we're in it all day. We'reworking with people. We're, you
know, educating stakeholders,and we're pumping out content a
lot of times and pumping outtrainings and decks.
And, like, these things matterto people. What we're writing
about, the content, the wording,how we're educating people to
become thought leaders or sharetheir expertise themselves, they
(09:32):
will take that on to their nextrole. So as much as we're in it
all day and we're kind of headsdown, it's so important, I
think, to remind ourselves thatthis work matters, and the
content that we're eithercreating or educating employees
to create can really lead topeople joining our company and
them changing their lives inthat way.
Rhona Pierce (09:54):
That's so powerful. That's a powerful
reminder. And I think a lot ofthe guests that I've had
throughout the podcast whoreally empower, like, employees
and stuff like that have alwaysit's that moment of there's
always that moment that remindsyou like, oh, wow. This work
that I'm doing actually ismaking a difference in how
(10:14):
someone decides one of the mostimportant things in their life,
which is where they work.
Nicole Stephens (10:19):
Yes. Absolutely.
Rhona Pierce (10:21):
So you've spoken about just empowering employees
to share their story andeducating them. How do you
balance that? Okay. Be yourself.Be authentic.
Share what you care about withmaintaining the the brand
consistency because we don'twant everyone sharing different
(10:43):
types of things. Right?
Nicole Stephens (10:44):
Yes. I tend to lean pretty far towards the
hands off approach here.Meaning, I would rather
employees feel comfortablesharing and share a wide range
of content than have a superbuttoned up, you know, perfect
brand standardized post. Thewhole point of advocacy is to
(11:09):
empower employees and allow themto share days in the life, what
goes into their role, expertise,them going to conferences, all
sorts of things. And when we puttoo much of a burden on them,
use brand colors, use brandguidelines.
I'm not saying we should say doliterally whatever you want, you
(11:31):
know, use competitor colors,whatever. But when we provide so
many restrictions upfront,especially, that really, I
think, kinders people andremoves their desire to keep
going. Because for some people,this is second nature.
Especially gen z, gen alphacoming up, they will be less
(11:52):
challenging, I think, to workwith to really become advocates.
But people who didn't grow upwith phones in their hands and
they're spending extra time,which is something we also need
to remember, they're not beingpaid to do this.
They're not on the TA teamtechnically, so they are helping
us in addition to us helpingthem. So we need to make things
(12:15):
easy for them. And we canprovide brand standards, brand
guidelines, sample posts, poststhey can edit. But if someone
comes up with a post and Ithink, oh, I would have done
that differently, that's okaybecause that's subjective and
that's my opinion. Unlessthey're doing something that
really could harm the brand orthemselves, and we want to keep
(12:36):
an eye out for both, I'm of theopinion that we really should be
championing what they want totalk about.
And that even goes as far astalk about some business and
some work and talk about someother things. If you're really
interested in snowboarding,cool. Show a picture of you
snowboarding on your time off.If you then wanna do a later
(12:59):
post about our company's timeoff policy, great, and use that
picture. But I want yourconnections to not have what we
were talking earlier and think,oh, they didn't write that.
So it's okay if you're doingthings in a way that we wouldn't
prescribe because, ultimately,this isn't supposed to be overly
(13:20):
prescriptive.
Rhona Pierce (13:21):
I like that approach, but how do you deal?
And I'm just playing devil'sadvocate here. How do you deal
with that? Because I know I'vehad it. That marketing person or
that branding person who sees apost from an employee that's now
going viral, and they arefreaking out blowing like
hyperventilating into a bagbecause they didn't use the
(13:42):
right font or they didn't usethe right colors or they used
they said the slogan in adifferent way.
How do you deal how do you,like, deal with that type of
internal conflict?
Nicole Stephens (13:53):
It's like, you know, those things do happen.
Right? People need paper bags. Ithink what we need to do
ultimately is redefine failure.So if people see they didn't
they used a different red.
Okay. They didn't use thephrasing that we provided or
they didn't say something, youknow, they didn't use the right
(14:15):
hashtag. Okay. That is not afailure. That is this person got
a message out about our companyor, you know, and included our
company to x amount of peopleand they're raising brand
awareness.
At the same time, they'repositioning themselves as the
expert that they are, showingcandidates, investors, you know,
(14:38):
customers, that we have a lot ofexpertise here and we champion
that. So both for the people whomight need paper bags a little
too often and for programparticipants. I think from the
outset, defining what failure isand what success is can be
(14:59):
really impactful because you cansay, hey. People might not
always do things how we wouldwant them to do, and that's
okay. We consider that thesuccess because they're getting
these views and impressions andengagement, and they're raising
brand awareness versus, youknow, this person used the wrong
color, which half of internalpeople wouldn't even notice, let
(15:22):
alone external people.
They're scrolling. They don'tcare what shade of red was used.
So it's was the message on pointbecause we can refine those
details later.
Rhona Pierce (15:32):
Exactly. Obviously, that question came
from from experience. I like totell people and I love your
approach of defining failure.And I like to tell people when I
start these things, it's like,look. If we were working at
Burger King and someone posted,I'm loving it, that's a problem.
Right?
Nicole Stephens (15:50):
Yes.
Rhona Pierce (15:51):
That's a problem. But if someone posts that, the
problem is deeper than we letthem do whatever. The problem is
how do they not know that that'sour competitors slogan and
that's their thing. That's awhole bigger issue than a post
that was created because wedidn't do guidelines. However,
(16:13):
when things like that happen,people immediately go into, this
is the library.
This is what you use. You'llnever say anything else, and
it's like, that's not even theproblem that you have right now.
The problem is your ownemployees don't even know your
brand.
Nicole Stephens (16:28):
That's a great point. First of all, super fun
example and such a great pointbecause is it the actual problem
or is this the result of theproblem? Or, you know, it's not
the root problem that we'reidentifying. It's something that
came from it. So, yes, I thinkoften it's, oh, they didn't use
(16:50):
brand colors.
Okay. Well, if that is a reallybig deal, like, are we educating
employees on that? Isn't it ouronboarding? Like, did we do a
good job of training them? Ifthey are using competitor
slogan, are they like, do wehave an engagement issue?
Are they you know, is thissomething deeper that we need to
address? So issues might arisein an advocacy program, but
(17:13):
you're absolutely right that 9times out of 10, it's a deeper
cause that we now have insighton and we can go address. And
that reminds me of, I think itwas, like, about 4 years ago,
the Sherwin Williams guy onTikTok who is super popular in
creating paints and people wouldrequest, like, make of arctic
(17:35):
blue, And he would, you know,create these paints, and he went
super viral. And then thecompany fired him. And they got
a huge amount of backlash forit.
And just, like, 6 months ago orso, an employee at Waffle House
was doing vibes, and he wasreally popular. People just
enjoyed kind of his presence andwatching him cook, and he also
(17:59):
got fired. And it's amazing thatso many years after Sherwin
Williams, all the backlash thatthey got, deservedly so, in my
opinion, companies are still soafraid. And I think that's when
it comes back to redefiningfailure with key stakeholders is
if if an employee goes live,like, what are our concerns? If
(18:23):
we allow employees to postwithout rigid guidelines, what
are our concerns?
And I worked at a company. Thisis my 2nd time creating an
advocacy program, and I did knowenough to call it advocacy at
that time. And every singlearticle so if I put something in
from Forbes or Inc or whateverthird party into this library
(18:46):
for people to share about, youknow, industry updates, legal
had to review not only the postcopy, but also the article
itself. So by the time I had,you know, a busy legal team
review review, feedback, editsback and forth, things weren't
even timely anymore, and it wasthe furthest from genuine and
(19:07):
authentic. But, you know, that'swhat I had to work with at the
time.
So working at companies whounderstand more of what we're
really trying to do is is sofreeing in a way because it
allows me to better supportemployees. So it's just
educating key stakeholders on,like, what are our concerns?
What's the worst case scenario?Okay. What do we put in place to
(19:29):
mitigate that?
Rhona Pierce (19:30):
And as you were saying that, I was also thinking
for any person who's on the jobhunt right now, any, TA pro,
employer branding pro, becausewe know we have a lot of people
looking. These are questionsthat you ask during interviews
and you want to get to knowwhat's the real process, what
are you really working against,do you have to run every single
(19:53):
thing by legal because that'sgonna impact how successful you
can be in your role, and it'sbetter to know it upfront to
know, like, how to work withthings.
Nicole Stephens (20:05):
Yep. Absolutely.
Rhona Pierce (20:08):
So everyone, I think, understands or most
people the value and theimportance of having an employee
advocacy program. And if theydid before this episode, I'm
sure at this point, they'reexcited. Right? But we all know,
I like to say, budget is atrigger word for anyone in TA or
employer branding because wehardly ever get a budget. It's
(20:30):
literally 0 most of the time.
Nicole Stephens (20:33):
Right.
Rhona Pierce (20:34):
So how do we do any of these things? How do we
implement employee advocacy with$0?
Nicole Stephens (20:43):
Yes. That is such a great question because
you're right. Our budget is 0often, or if we had 1, there it
went. So it is important to beable to do advocacy with $0. And
there are two directions to takethis question.
So first, I'll just make a quickdisclaimer that there's a
(21:06):
difference between a programparticipant and an employee
advocate. And there are a1000000 different ways to create
employee advocates, and programparticipation is 1. But that's
everything, like onboarding,engagement. There are so many
things that contribute to realemployee advocacy, like, you
(21:28):
know, meeting culture, feedbackculture. Creating advocates is
is a whole another discussion.
Program participants or employeeadvocacy. I think that if you
have $0, and I I wish I couldremember. I'll try to look it up
and send it to you. But someonedid that. They created an
(21:49):
advocacy program with $0 andthey created their own ROI and
literally made a calculator andsaid, okay.
Impressions are going to beworth this, likes worth this,
comments, shares worth this. Andso they created their own ROI
calculator and had employeesactually send in their data so
that they could kind of showthat earned media value, if you
(22:12):
will. But if you are fortunateenough to have, there are so
many so many platforms andprograms now for advocacy, There
is an earned media value columnthat is essential for
leadership. And at my lastcompany, what was really
interesting is that marketingand TA split the cost of the
(22:34):
advocacy platform. And at thetime, because we both
contributed to the library, Ithought, like, this is so weird.
And looking back, it actuallymakes a lot of sense because,
ultimately, we're looking to getcandidates and they're looking
to get sales, and both can bedone through advocacy programs.
So that is an argument thatmakes a lot of sense because our
(22:55):
work supports each other. So ifthat is possible, I would
recommend having conversationswith, you know, kind of allies
or or key stakeholders in themarketing or sales department to
just feel out if that would evenbe a possibility. And if not,
you can go the route of, youknow, the person who created a
(23:15):
program and said, okay. We'regoing to assign our own dollar
amounts to these.
And I think a third reallyimportant metric or set of
metrics that gets forgottenbecause we are concerned about
kind of that earned media valueand bottom line, which is really
important for stakeholders, isemployee engagement. Are we
(23:37):
seeing that people involved inthis program are staying longer?
Are we seeing that they'regiving higher, you know, scores
and engagement surveys? Are wegetting higher scores on
Glassdoor and Indeed? Are peopletalking about this program?
When people join the company,are they mentioning, you know,
that they heard about us throughsocial media posts or through
(23:59):
friends? Like, is our referralcount going up? Because people
are talking about, hey.Actually, it's really cool. I'm
allowed to say whatever I want.
Because a lot of companies don'tlet you say whatever you want on
social. I've worked at severalof them. So I think that there
are kind of softer metrics thatwe can incorporate and just
create a dashboard, you know,for key stakeholders and say,
(24:23):
here's our earned media value.Here are the likes, impressions,
you know, all of that as well,but here are some softer
metrics.
Rhona Pierce (24:31):
I like that. Yes. I like the approach of getting
all of the the metrics, the datafrom employees to, like,
calculate that or maybe becauseit's true. I really smart
approach there. So how do youhelp employees spot and share
those, like, story worthymoments in their day to day
(24:54):
work?
Nicole Stephens (24:55):
Yes. This is such a good question because one
of the most common pieces offeedback or fear is I don't know
what to say or I have nothing tosay. So the fun part of this too
is, like, building people'sconfidence and saying, well,
you've been in your role for,you know, 8 years. Surely,
(25:16):
you've learned things in 8years. And reminding people that
just because they do somethingday in and day out doesn't mean
that other people have a clueabout it.
You know, I've been on callswhere people say, oh my gosh.
Like, they should know. And I'mthinking, well, I work in HR and
I didn't know that. So I don'tthink we can reasonably expect,
you know, finance or whateverdepartment to know what we know
(25:40):
and vice versa. So I think partof it is just that confidence
building and reminding people,like, you are in this position.
You were hired for a reason. Youstay here for a reason, and you
have expertise that you probablydon't even see as expertise
because for you, it's commonknowledge. And I bet if you talk
to your friends, like, outsideof work, say, at a cocktail
(26:02):
party, they would be shocked athow much you know because it's
not their world. So that firstkind of part is that fun, like,
confidence building anddiscovery. And the second part
is just like we do forstakeholders.
It's just data and showingexamples. So I love showing
examples from, like, all levels.So I'll pull intern posts from
(26:24):
different companies. Whatthey'll do, like, a selfie in
front of their, you know,building or or on their commute
or whatever. Like, hey.
First day at and they'll get,like, hundreds of likes and then
congratulations. Can't wait tohear. And it really can be that
simple, especially for peoplestarting out. So those are great
examples. And then I'll pulldata all the way up to c suites.
(26:47):
Katie Burke, who formerly wasthe chief people officer at
HubSpot, did a fantastic job.And some CXOs absolutely have
people running their social forthem. It seems like Katie did
her own because she wasconstantly posting, engaging on
others' posts, and just sharing,hey. We had a meeting today, and
(27:08):
what was so interesting was a,b, c. So you'd get that behind
the scenes without her sayingbehind the scenes, you know,
like a corporate post wouldwith, like, colored branded
border and just share or like,hey.
My team had an outing today, andit was so good to see all of
them, and it wouldn't have anybusiness context. But you saw
like, oh, okay. They do teambuilding things. And it's funny.
(27:31):
I remember a year or 2 ago, myboss asking, well, what what
companies do you think have goodemployer brands?
And I said HubSpot for thereason that I followed Katie
Burke on LinkedIn, and she wasjust constantly sharing new
things that we talked about inthe beginning. Oh, here's you
know, we had a meeting or we hada speaker or I'm so proud of my
(27:53):
team for this. And it was somuch constant just, you know,
common content. It wasn'tanything huge that it really
made me feel like I understoodwhat it would be like to work
there.
Rhona Pierce (28:04):
I think people always think that they have to
share all of these, like, greatthings. And the truth is at
work, do you really have theseamazing days every single day?
You don't. And I always like toI like that you share from
intern to c suite because Idon't know if you've noticed,
but a lot of the content thatreally does good online is
(28:28):
usually from interns or entrylevel people, and that's because
they're sharing everything thatthey learn. They're learning
something new every day.
And you would think, oh,everyone knows that. Well, why
does the content do so well?Because everyone doesn't know
that. So I think as you move upin your career, if you remember
that approach, there's alwayssomeone who knows less than you.
(28:52):
So the content is always gonnawork if it's something that,
like, you think is, this iswhatever.
Like you said, that's a greatexample of even at a party when
you're talking to people, theydon't necessarily know what you
do if they're outside of it andif they're starting. So yeah.
Like, that I love that you shareexamples from the entire
(29:15):
spectrum.
Nicole Stephens (29:17):
And you bring up such a good point of, you
know, what do you really do. Iworked at a company where the
single most common job title wasbusiness initiatives consultant
or BIC. What is that? And therewere BICs in every single
department. So obviously someonein finance is not doing what
marketing is doing, is not doingwhat supply chain is doing.
(29:38):
So even if someone had posted a2 sentence post on here's what,
you know, this role means in mydepartment, I would have found
that fascinating. So you'reright. It's remembering, like,
not everyone knows this. Andeven if you think people do,
they don't or they could use areminder. I'll see posts all the
(29:59):
time and I think, okay.
That's not new for me, but Ineeded that reminder. Because
not everything is top of mindalways. We have so much
information all the time. Like,I don't even know how we get
through our days sometimes. Sohaving that reminder of, oh,
yeah.
That's a great strategy or thattactic is a good idea. Or I'm
not a huge fan of these, butevery once in a while, just a
(30:21):
picture of someone on theirtheir walk that day when they're
taking a break or like a quote.Every once in a while, I'm like,
you know what? I needed thattoday. So I think there's such a
big variety of content thatresonates with people, and often
it is just, yeah, we had ameeting today and we talked
about ABC, and, you know, I'mexcited about where we're going.
(30:43):
That really does well, andyou're right. If everyone knew
that, why did that content do sowell?
Rhona Pierce (30:49):
And, also, the the content that I see that does
well is content of the not sogreat moments. When you're
having a sucky day at work andyou go and post. And I'm not
advocating for trashing yourcompany or anything like that.
I'm not that's not the type ofpost I'm talking about. I'm
talking about, like, thefrustrations.
I remember when I was activelyrecruiting, there would be some
(31:14):
post that would stem fromfrustration of why are
candidates doing this or notnecessarily why are candidates
doing this, but why are weencountering the same situation
over and over again? And thenwhen you take a step back,
obviously, you don't post it ina frustrated mode blaming
anyone. But when you take a stepback, it's like, wait. It
doesn't seem like ourapplication form is explaining
(31:38):
why we need to know thisinformation. So you write I
would write a post about, oh mygod.
I know it's so annoying toanswer application questions,
but one of the reasons thatreally helps us blah blah blah.
And people were like, oh, Ididn't know this was why you
were asking. I didn'tunderstand. We started getting
better answers to the specificquestion that we were asking
(32:02):
because people wereunderstanding just from from
that post. So from the suckymoments at work comes great
content.
Nicole Stephens (32:11):
Yes. And that's why you're so good at what you
do because you can step back andturn that frustration we all
have these days. And you canturn that into, okay, here's why
I think this is happening. Letme turn that into an FAQ or a
helpful resource. And that'sanother great starter piece of
(32:31):
content for people is whatquestion do you get asked all
the time?
What are FAQs? Or what'ssomething you wish people knew
about your job that they justdon't seem to get? Turn that
into a helpful piece of content.So the first thing I'll do when
creating, like, an outline foran advocacy program is always
just create a list. I think I'mup to, like, 40 questions that
(32:55):
are thought starters for people.
So they're a huge range and it'slike some are really specific,
some are general. Tell me aboutyour best day. That could be
anything. That could be onemoment. That could be the day
you realize something, butthings like that.
Like, what's something you wishpeople knew about your job?
Like, what do you wishcandidates knew? Well, let's
turn that into a resource. And2, I can't remember who it was,
(33:20):
but there's a some famous CEOwho has, like, a failure resume.
And being willing, as a leader,at any level to externally or
even internally share yourfailures, realizing that they
didn't matter to a point becauseyou are still successful, is
(33:40):
something that I think could beincorporated into advocacy
programs.
Like, that could even be aprompt if key stakeholders are
comfortable with it because thatmakes it so much more real. And,
oh, you're not only allowed toshare negative things, but
you're being encouraged to. Andthere's one career site I love
where the founders say on thecareer home page why you should
(34:04):
work here and maybe why youshouldn't, and they talk about
pros and cons. They do a greatjob of attracting rapport, and
then they answer FAQs. And atthe bottom, it says, what's one
thing you've learned sincerunning this company?
And they talk about the failurefrom when they first started and
how that led them to pivot. So Ithink if we can get people
(34:25):
comfortable with that and showthat, no, our stock didn't drop,
you know, investors aren'trunning away, and people aren't
leaving horrible commentsbecause it's a professional
network, then, you know,hopefully, we can kind of get to
a place where people are morecomfortable sharing the good
Rhona Pierce (34:41):
and the bad. Yeah. So what are the the most common
challenges that you seecompanies facing when they're
trying to implement like a EGC,an employee generated content
strategy?
Nicole Stephens (34:55):
1st, you already called it budget, and
we've touched upon a couple waysto manage that. And then second
is, from what I've seen, kind ofcomfort level with senior level
stakeholders and executives onwe're unleashing this tool and
we're allowing employees to, youknow, share things, the what if.
(35:20):
So that goes back to redefiningfailure and saying, what are we,
you know, what are our concernsand how can we proactively
address those so that we arecomfortable with this? That's
from, like, an internalstakeholder level. From an
individual level, fromparticipants, the two questions
are, I have nothing to say, andI don't know you know, I'm not
(35:43):
an expert.
And I think we've kind ofalready covered those too in
terms of, like, educating them,coaching them, and then just
championing them. So for bothexecutives and participants,
it's showing examples. I will,like, inundate people with
examples and say, stop wheneveryou want. Like but here's a deck
(36:03):
with 50 examples, and I keepremaking it at every company. I
need to just save it, and it'sjust people at all levels.
And it's it's also showing evenif you get a negative comment,
have something in place toaddress that. Like, work with
legal, know, you know, what youwould do. 9 times out of 10,
it's just don't address it. Butgive employees that comfort
(36:25):
that, like, you've got theirback. You're here to support
them.
And even if they run intochallenges throughout this
program, you are their resourcebecause the program is for them.
Rhona Pierce (36:35):
And for I I know the I don't know what to say is
a really common one. I hear itfrom recruiters. I hear it from
other people inside of acompany. And I always encourage
recruiters because we aretalking to people all day long,
same as salespeople. So we'regetting those frequently asked
(36:57):
questions.
Right?
Nicole Stephens (36:58):
Yeah.
Rhona Pierce (36:58):
They're not only asking you about the recruiting
process. They're asking youabout what's the day in the life
type of thing. Share thosequestions. Like, have a bank of
FAQs. Share those questions withthe teams and be like, hey.
We're interviewing formarketing, and I keep getting
asked this question. Does anyonehave any insights to share? Can
(37:21):
you create it as content toshare online? That, like,
really, those are the the thingsthat work because that's what
people wanna know. So if youanswer that anyway so just as
you're doing your work, you'regetting questions from people
who don't do your work everyday.
That's great content. Write downthose FAQs.
Nicole Stephens (37:43):
That's a great point. And an opportunity that
we probably have on the TA or EBside is take some of those FAQs
that recruiters are getting andnot only have them make content,
but share that with themarketing team or the CSR team
or supply chain or what have youand say, here's what we're
hearing from candidates. Youknow, are you comfortable making
(38:05):
a post, or can we help you makeone? As well as thinking of
questions that you just get inyour day to day. I think that's
a perfect supplement.
Rhona Pierce (38:14):
Quick way I learned and and people who've
listened to the podcastunderstand my business and what
I do. It really started from thewhole getting people in a
virtual recording room to recordquestions and turn them into
short social media videosstarted from working internally,
getting FAQs, needing a VP orsomeone to reply to these
(38:38):
questions so that I didn't haveto keep answering them. And I
was like, let me record it andmake this into a video that we
share in social media. That'show it started. That's where I
started like, I like this.
Let me keep these FAQs. And,like, if people don't have time,
whatever. Here. Join me on Zoom.Let's hit record.
Answer this question. I'll editit. I'll make it a social media
(38:58):
post.
Nicole Stephens (38:59):
I love that. And I've seen so many of them.
They look amazing. So, yeah,that's awesome.
Rhona Pierce (39:06):
Thank you. So when it comes to measuring success,
because we know we're working incorporate, people wanna see
metrics. They if you wanna getbudget at some point, you have
to prove that this is working.So what metrics are meaningful
to, like, measure the success ofthe EGC campaigns?
Nicole Stephens (39:27):
Yeah. That depends a lot on the
stakeholder. So I've worked atplaces where earned media value
is the end all be all, andnothing else matters, which I do
understand from, like, afinancial perspective. But
earned media value is calculateddifferently from different
platforms. So it's it's justkind of interesting that, you
(39:50):
know, we take that as the bible,and I I understand that even
though they're calculateddifferently in different places.
So for some people, that's it.I've also worked at a place
where impressions were thenumber one, and I could share
all sorts of engagement ratesand clicks. And ultimately, that
senior stakeholder looked at thetop right corner, which had
(40:12):
impressions and the little greenor red arrow that quarter, and
that's the number that theygrabbed onto. And I understand
that from purely a brandawareness standpoint, which is a
lot of what we were looking tosolve with that particular
program. So this is reallydependent upon not only your
(40:32):
stakeholder, but your goal ofcreating the program because no
2 programs are the same.
And, you know, hopefully, youhave a specific why or a couple
whys when you're creating theprogram so that will lead to the
correct KPIs. But I think it'simportant too no matter what. If
it's impressions, if it's purelyclicks for some people that you
(40:56):
really wanna drive people toapply or to landing pages,
whether it's earned media value,I would love to see more people
bringing in those soft metricsthat we talked about earlier.
Like, what's some feedback thatyou've gotten? Can you just pull
a quote or 2 onto the next, youknow, quarterly dashboard and
just show that employees arereally valuing this time that
(41:19):
they're spending?
Because we realize we're takingthem away from their day job. So
can we show not only are we, thebiased program creators, saying
that this is valuable, but trulythe, you know, user, the client,
the employee is seeing thevalue. And one thing I'm
pointing to a lot at my lastcompany was a senior director
(41:42):
who was one of our insiders. SoI had 9 people who I, you know,
handpicked, and that's where wewere kind of in our maturity
level. Not something I wouldrecommend for everyone always.
But to get started, I handpicked9 people. And within a few
months of just sharingprewritten posts, I want to,
like, highlight and underlinethat. She was invited to speak
(42:06):
in Baltimore at an event becausepeople had seen her content, and
she only chose what was relevantto her. But, you know, she
didn't have that comfort levelat that time to make things more
personalized. But even justsharing those prewritten posts,
which I try to do in a, youknow, way that I think people
would would write on LinkedIn,she was then invited to share
(42:30):
her expertise and have thecompany name behind her at that
event.
So there are kind of thosesofter metrics that you can
point to as well, like speakinginvitations.
Rhona Pierce (42:40):
Yes. And that that's a big one because at the
end of the day, when they go tothe conference, everywhere you
see, Rona Pierce from companyname.
Nicole Stephens (42:52):
Exactly. That's
Rhona Pierce (42:53):
like free publicity right there for that's
relevant because the people atthat conference are gonna be
industry people. Exactly. Yep.So looking ahead, how do you see
the role of employee generatedcontent, like, evolving in
talent acquisition and employerbranding?
Nicole Stephens (43:15):
I'm hoping that we don't even call it EGC in the
future, and it's just content.What I would love to see, and
I've I've said this for, like, ayear now and I I just need to do
it, is I'd love to see a companytaking, say, like, a month, and
all of their corporate social isjust EGC. If you have a new
(43:39):
product, great. Have an employeetalk about it. If you're going
to event an event, have anemployee showcase that.
If you are launching a newemployee resource group, have
the person creating them talkabout what led to this
particular resource group. Imean, there are so many like, I
don't think there's a businesscase that anyone could throw out
(44:00):
to say an employee couldn't talkabout this because your
employees are the ones doing thework. And, hopefully, everyone
on this podcast agrees orlistening to this podcast agrees
with that. So that would take alot of partnership, you know,
with marketing and a lot ofcoordination. But I'm hoping
that in the future, there is notthis huge split between
(44:20):
corporate and employee contentand that we're doing a better
job sharing, amplifying,elevating, educating, all of the
aims to really get employeecontent to just be content.
Rhona Pierce (44:33):
I like that. I like the whole concept of
employee, like, EGC takeover ofthe brand. I love that. I I
think you would have to havestrong partners in marketing to
understand that because they'renot creating the content, their
jobs aren't on the line. Theirexpertise is the strategy.
(44:56):
That's still very much needed.Actually, they should be happy
to outsource per se the contentbecause it's gonna be more
authentic, and then they canfocus on strategy and what
really is marketing, employerbranding, and things like that.
We're always talking about wewanna be strategic partners.
(45:16):
Well, get yourself out of theway and do your strategic work
and let employees do thecontent. That's great.
I've thought of something. So ifwe go that route, which I also
firmly believe is where weshould go, do you see that or do
you think that there should besome type of compensation for
(45:39):
employees creating content?
Nicole Stephens (45:42):
This is such a good question. And as you said
the word compensation, I waslike, okay. I see where you're
going. I can see both sides, butI don't like when people just
say that and then don't give ananswer. So I will give you an
answer.
I'm all for compensatingemployees for extra time for
(46:02):
things like employee resourcegroups. Like, I understand that.
However and I would need to Iwould need to spend more time,
like, defining these in my mind.But for some reason, when it
comes to advocacy programs, I'mnot as comfortable paying
employees. And the reason is, Ithink ERGs are, like, internal
(46:27):
and and advocacy, of course, isexternal.
And I would never want there tobe any obligation felt or, you
know, kind of gray line andhave, like, legal involved. And
if they're already involvedenough, you know, any reason for
people to feel like, oh, I cansay this or I can't say that or
pay to play. But I also reallybelieve that if we are doing our
(46:50):
job well in TA and EB to build areally effective advocacy
program, then participantsshould be feeling the value as
much as the company is becausethe program's nothing without
engaged participants. So thecompany gets nothing if we don't
do a good job creating thatengagement and education. So if
(47:11):
we're doing a good job, they youknow, participants that we're
working with should feel likeI'm getting a lot of value out
of this.
I'm learning things. I'm gettingnew career opportunities or
speaking opportunities or I'mjust becoming a better writer or
maybe I discover a love forphotography that I never had.
There's one person I know in theNetherlands who does a great job
(47:33):
with advocacy programs, and shegoes so far as to give, like,
photography training to peoplewho are interested in really
kind of becoming that next levelof of participant and advocate.
So I believe that we shouldcompensate people fairly from
jump. And, you know, if they arespending time, it's worth
(47:54):
considering.
But for advocacy, let's givethem the value that they deserve
as program participants, andthat won't be monetary. It'll be
in several other ways.
Rhona Pierce (48:05):
I always, like, go back and forth on my thoughts on
this one, but I tend to agreewith you because, really, the
the when you when it'sauthentic, you don't want it.
Like, I think paying people forthis specifically, like, here,
one post equals $50 type ofthing Mhmm. Is going to make it
(48:30):
not be as authentic and notreally be advocacy.
Nicole Stephens (48:36):
Yeah. And then if people were to find out that
they're being paid, to me, thatjust kind of removes, you know,
oh, well, did you really thinkthat? Or did you just wanna hit
50 posts so you got $500 orwhatever it is? So then
potentially as a candidate, thatcould kind of mitigate, like,
(48:58):
all of the work that we'retrying to do. But I'm all for
people being paid well, and Ithink things like ERGs are,
like, a different discussionbecause there's a lot of talk
around pay for that.
So we do need to acknowledgethat we're adding to people's
plates and that they're, youknow, doing this on top of their
day job, but hopefully, they'regetting enough value that it is
(49:20):
worth it for them.
Rhona Pierce (49:21):
Agreed. So this has been a great conversation,
and there's something that I'vestarted asking guests. Is there
anything about employee advocacyand employee generated content
that you feel is important forlisteners to know that I didn't
ask you?
Nicole Stephens (49:37):
I should have been prepared for this because I
try to ask something similar inconversations. I think I mean,
you've you've asked all of thebig, great questions. I think if
I could just leave, like, aparting word of advice, it'd be
to talk to each other. Haveconversations with people who
(49:58):
have created advocacy programsor worked on them at other
companies and see what you canlearn from, Fortune 50. See what
you can learn from a start upwho might not have the formal
program, but they just letpeople post.
So there's their advocacyprogram. Like, have
conversations with others in TAand EB to learn how they do
(50:19):
things and what their challengesare and maybe solutions that you
haven't thought of or challengesthat you haven't thought of so
you can, like, better yourprogram. And there's something
to learn if you're a Fortune 50from start ups and vice versa.
So I think the more that we canjust have conversations with
each other, especially for solobranders or people doing this on
(50:42):
their own, which is probably alot of listeners. So many people
are really generous in thisspace, like you and and a
million people in your network,and I think mine as well, and
are willing to hop on the phoneand just say, here's how we did
something.
So I would just say reallycreate a little bit of time here
and there to learn from otherpeople and to give back and, you
(51:04):
know, talk to others about howyou do things.
Rhona Pierce (51:06):
Love it. Love it. And community is everything. So
I've loved our conversation. I Iknew I was gonna love it, but
I've really loved ourconversation.
How can listeners connect withyou?
Nicole Stephens (51:19):
Well, as someone who has run advocacy for
years, I live on LinkedIn. SoLinkedIn is the best place. And
I always love meeting new peoplein this space. Whether you work
on advocacy or not, I just findTA and EV people to be, you
know, not the typical HRstereotype. So you would
definitely welcome any,conversations.
(51:41):
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Rhona Pierce (51:43):
Thank you. If you want more actionable advice,
like the advice shared in thisepisode, I write a weekly
newsletter for TA professionalswho want to take a more
strategic approach torecruiting. You can sign up at
That'sthrowouttheplaybook.com/newsletter.
(52:05):
The link is in the show notes.
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