#26: How to Build a Powerful Employee Advocacy Program with Nicole (Stephens) Coffey

Nicole Stephens:
00:00

When we got our first sale in company history through social media, it was from an employee who was really active and bought in. Nicole Stevens is an expert in employee advocacy, challenging how companies 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 a problem.

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 creates even a subconscious negative connotation against that brand and company. I'm hoping that we don't even call it EGC in the future, and it's just content.

Rhona Pierce:
01:03

Hey, Nicole. I'm so excited to have you on the show today. Thank you for joining 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 employee advocacy and employee generated content specifically. So I've heard this concept many times, and I actually saw a post about it this week that says, like, every employee is a recruiter. Right? Everything. Especially now with social media, that hiring manager sharing about their team wins or the engineer sharing about the cool project they're working with.

Rhona Pierce:
01:42

Everyone sees that, including potential candidates. Right? So what was your moment that made you realize, like, the traditional recruiting content that we've been creating for decades isn't really couldn't compete with the authentic employee content.

Nicole Stephens:
01:59

Yes. This is such a fun question, and I'm actually wanna take it back to my marketing days. So 2017, 2016, I was working at a mortgage company, so in a highly regulated industry, and managing employee advocacy. Even though I don't even know if at the time I knew enough to call it advocacy. I just knew that I was creating a program that didn't exist for employees to share things.

Nicole Stephens:
02:28

And when we got our first sale in company history through social media, It was from an employee who was really active and bought in and sharing, like, kind of day in the life, things about rates, things that were useful to his audience. And I remember it being such a win because we were able to take that to the CEO who at the time thought that social media was a fad quote. So it wasn't necessarily in the recruiting space, but just being able to show that people showcasing a day in their life what they're doing in business content really did create business results.

Rhona Pierce:
03:07

That's so interesting that in 2017, someone was thinking that social media 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 always been nosy. We always wanna know what someone else is doing. And I really think that's why those, like, those stories and those behind the scenes day in the life things work because everyone wants to know what does this person do.

Rhona Pierce:
03:34

And if you're trying to get a job doing what that person does, what better than to see what they actually do to show you, like, do I wanna do this or do I not wanna do this? I think that's really that's a big reason why this type of content works.

Nicole Stephens:
03:52

That's exactly it. And it doesn't have to be these big moments that people put a lot of pressure on themselves. Like, I don't have anything interesting. It truly is what did you do today? You had a really cool meeting.

Nicole Stephens:
04:05

You know, what was it about that you can share? So I think that day in the life of behind the scenes, even if it doesn't seem super interesting, really does provide that window into your life, and we are nosy. We want to know. So tell us.

Rhona Pierce:
04:20

Yeah. Because of a lot of this happening and a lot of people sharing and just the boom with social media, I've seen that companies have gone the whole other side of the spectrum where they're trying to control the narrative and share content libraries and pre written post with people. What led you to take a different approach?

Nicole Stephens:
04:44

Yes. Before I answer that, I don't want to hate too much on content libraries. And the reason is that's the top of some people's comfort level. So maybe they're interested in supporting the company, but just their personality type or the role they're in or maybe their management. They're like, this is kind of the limit that I'm comfortable with, and that's okay as long as we coach them and provide education that they should only share what they feel really speaks to them and is interesting to them.

Nicole Stephens:
05:17

Because if I'm an accountant sharing ESG content and I really don't understand it or I don't care about it, that inauthenticity is, like, screaming on social. So I think it's okay to a point and it's a great starting point for people. However, there's so much more than that. And a lot of times, companies will see that content library as an endpoint. Like, okay.

Nicole Stephens:
05:44

Now we have an advocacy program, when really that should be the starting point for people. So I think that's a huge opportunity. And Edelman's trust barometer in 2024 shared that 61% of participants, and there were like 35,000, I think, participants across a ton of countries, believe that 61 percent or 61%, excuse me, of respondents believe that CEOs and business leaders are purposefully sharing content to lead people astray. So people believe each other. It's like asking your friends, like, hey, who's a good hairstylist?

Nicole Stephens:
06:23

I just moved to town. Or what restaurant should I eat at? People believe and trust each other versus kind of that corporate person or entity with a clear agenda. So content libraries are an okay place to start, but by all means, we can't, as talent acquisition and employer 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 from everyone, and it has to be authentic. Yeah. You can have the library to start, but as an employee, don't share things that you don't really care about because that is so noticeable. You can you can tell it's like, okay. They forced them to share this.

Rhona Pierce:
07:07

It's like we all know that. We've all scrolled through LinkedIn and seen someone share something 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's like how you can tell when ChatJPT wrote a post. You can tell when someone didn't write their own post and you might not know where it came from, but you know the people that you're connected to.

Nicole Stephens:
07:32

And, like, if something doesn't feel right, then it automatically creates even a subconscious negative connotation against that brand and 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 this podcast work in talent acquisition. Right? What's the most surprising thing that you've learned about how candidates consume and engage with content when they're researching a potential employer?

Rhona Pierce:
08:02

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 from someone who's done it for years, But I was in an interview a few years ago interviewing someone to join the social media team at a Fortune 50. And when asked why they were interested in the role, right, that typical question, the person shared that they saw a post around veterans and the support that the company did for veterans. And that was a corporate post, but we also turned it into an employee blog and we had multiple ways to kind of get the same message out and added it to the content library for people to share. And she saw that post and said, you know, my ex relative was a veteran, and that really spoke to me, and that led to me applying and being in this interview today.

Nicole Stephens:
08:58

And as the person who at the time 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, I wrote that. But it's just like we're in it all day. We're working with people. We're, you know, educating stakeholders, and we're pumping out content a lot of times and pumping out trainings and decks.

Nicole Stephens:
09:20

And, like, these things matter to people. What we're writing about, the content, the wording, how we're educating people to become thought leaders or share their expertise themselves, they will take that on to their next role. So as much as we're in it all day and we're kind of heads down, it's so important, I think, to remind ourselves that this work matters, and the content that we're either creating or educating employees to create can really lead to people joining our company and them changing their lives in that way.

Rhona Pierce:
09:54

That's so powerful. That's a powerful reminder. And I think a lot of the guests that I've had throughout the podcast who really empower, like, employees and stuff like that have always it's that moment of there's always that moment that reminds you like, oh, wow. This work that I'm doing actually is making a difference in how someone decides one of the most important 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 and educating them. How do you balance that? Okay. Be yourself. Be authentic.

Rhona Pierce:
10:35

Share what you care about with maintaining the the brand consistency because we don't want everyone sharing different 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 comfortable sharing and share a wide range of content than have a super buttoned up, you know, perfect brand standardized post. The whole point of advocacy is to empower employees and allow them to share days in the life, what goes into their role, expertise, them going to conferences, all sorts of things. And when we put too much of a burden on them, use brand colors, use brand guidelines.

Nicole Stephens:
11:27

I'm not saying we should say do literally whatever you want, you know, use competitor colors, whatever. But when we provide so many restrictions upfront, especially, that really, I think, kinders people and removes their desire to keep going. Because for some people, this is second nature. Especially gen z, gen alpha coming up, they will be less challenging, I think, to work with to really become advocates. But people who didn't grow up with phones in their hands and they're spending extra time, which is something we also need to remember, they're not being paid to do this.

Nicole Stephens:
12:06

They're not on the TA team technically, so they are helping us in addition to us helping them. So we need to make things easy for them. And we can provide brand standards, brand guidelines, sample posts, posts they can edit. But if someone comes up with a post and I think, oh, I would have done that differently, that's okay because that's subjective and that's my opinion. Unless they're doing something that really could harm the brand or themselves, and we want to keep an eye out for both, I'm of the opinion that we really should be championing what they want to talk about.

Nicole Stephens:
12:43

And that even goes as far as talk about some business and some work and talk about some other 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 post about our company's time off policy, great, and use that picture. But I want your connections to not have what we were talking earlier and think, oh, they didn't write that.

Nicole Stephens:
13:11

So it's okay if you're doing things in a way that we wouldn't prescribe because, ultimately, this isn't supposed to be overly prescriptive.

Rhona Pierce:
13:21

I like that approach, but how do you deal? And I'm just playing devil's advocate here. How do you deal with that? Because I know I've had it. That marketing person or that branding person who sees a post from an employee that's now going viral, and they are freaking out blowing like hyperventilating into a bag because they didn't use the right font or they didn't use the right colors or they used they said the slogan in a different way.

Rhona Pierce:
13:48

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. I think what we need to do ultimately is redefine failure. So if people see they didn't they used a different red.

Nicole Stephens:
14:10

Okay. They didn't use the phrasing that we provided or they didn't say something, you know, they didn't use the right hashtag. Okay. That is not a failure. That is this person got a message out about our company or, you know, and included our company to x amount of people and they're raising brand awareness.

Nicole Stephens:
14:30

At the same time, they're positioning themselves as the expert that they are, showing candidates, investors, you know, customers, that we have a lot of expertise here and we champion that. So both for the people who might need paper bags a little too often and for program participants. I think from the outset, defining what failure is and what success is can be really impactful because you can say, hey. People might not always do things how we would want them to do, and that's okay. We consider that the success because they're getting these views and impressions and engagement, and they're raising brand awareness versus, you know, this person used the wrong color, which half of internal people wouldn't even notice, let alone external people.

Nicole Stephens:
15:23

They're scrolling. They don't care what shade of red was used. So it's was the message on point because we can refine those details later.

Rhona Pierce:
15:32

Exactly. Obviously, that question came from from experience. I like to tell 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.

Rhona Pierce:
15:50

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 let them do whatever. The problem is how do they not know that that's our competitors slogan and that's their thing. That's a whole bigger issue than a post that was created because we didn't do guidelines. However, when things like that happen, people immediately go into, this is the library.

Rhona Pierce:
16:18

This is what you use. You'll never say anything else, and it's like, that's not even the problem that you have right now. The problem is your own employees 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 point because is it the actual problem or is this the result of the problem? Or, you know, it's not the root problem that we're identifying. It's something that came from it. So, yes, I think often it's, oh, they didn't use brand colors.

Nicole Stephens:
16:51

Okay. Well, if that is a really big deal, like, are we educating employees on that? Isn't it our onboarding? Like, did we do a good job of training them? If they are using competitor slogan, are they like, do we have an engagement issue?

Nicole Stephens:
17:05

Are they you know, is this something deeper that we need to address? So issues might arise in an advocacy program, but you're absolutely right that 9 times out of 10, it's a deeper cause that we now have insight on and we can go address. And that reminds me of, I think it was, like, about 4 years ago, the Sherwin Williams guy on TikTok who is super popular in creating paints and people would request, like, make of arctic blue, And he would, you know, create these paints, and he went super viral. And then the company fired him. And they got a huge amount of backlash for it.

Nicole Stephens:
17:45

And just, like, 6 months ago or so, an employee at Waffle House was doing vibes, and he was really popular. People just enjoyed kind of his presence and watching him cook, and he also got fired. And it's amazing that so many years after Sherwin Williams, all the backlash that they got, deservedly so, in my opinion, companies are still so afraid. And I think that's when it comes back to redefining failure with key stakeholders is if if an employee goes live, like, what are our concerns? If we allow employees to post without rigid guidelines, what are our concerns?

Nicole Stephens:
18:28

And I worked at a company. This is my 2nd time creating an advocacy program, and I did know enough to call it advocacy at that time. And every single article so if I put something in from Forbes or Inc or whatever third party into this library for people to share about, you know, industry updates, legal had to review not only the post copy, but also the article itself. So by the time I had, you know, a busy legal team review review, feedback, edits back and forth, things weren't even timely anymore, and it was the furthest from genuine and authentic. But, you know, that's what I had to work with at the time.

Nicole Stephens:
19:10

So working at companies who understand more of what we're really trying to do is is so freeing in a way because it allows me to better support employees. 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 mitigate that?

Rhona Pierce:
19:30

And as you were saying that, I was also thinking for any person who's on the job hunt right now, any, TA pro, employer branding pro, because we know we have a lot of people looking. These are questions that you ask during interviews and you want to get to know what's the real process, what are you really working against, do you have to run every single thing by legal because that's gonna impact how successful you can be in your role, and it's better to know it upfront to know, like, how to work with things.

Nicole Stephens:
20:05

Yep. Absolutely.

Rhona Pierce:
20:08

So everyone, I think, understands or most people the value and the importance of having an employee advocacy program. And if they did before this episode, I'm sure at this point, they're excited. Right? But we all know, I like to say, budget is a trigger word for anyone in TA or employer branding because we hardly ever get a budget. It's 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 0 often, or if we had 1, there it went. So it is important to be able to do advocacy with $0. And there are two directions to take this question.

Nicole Stephens:
21:02

So first, I'll just make a quick disclaimer that there's a difference between a program participant and an employee advocate. And there are a 1000000 different ways to create employee advocates, and program participation is 1. But that's everything, like onboarding, engagement. There are so many things that contribute to real employee advocacy, like, you know, meeting culture, feedback culture. Creating advocates is is a whole another discussion.

Nicole Stephens:
21:35

Program participants or employee advocacy. I think that if you have $0, and I I wish I could remember. I'll try to look it up and send it to you. But someone did that. They created an advocacy program with $0 and they created their own ROI and literally made a calculator and said, okay.

Nicole Stephens:
21:57

Impressions are going to be worth this, likes worth this, comments, shares worth this. And so they created their own ROI calculator and had employees actually send in their data so that they could kind of show that earned media value, if you will. But if you are fortunate enough to have, there are so many so many platforms and programs now for advocacy, There is an earned media value column that is essential for leadership. And at my last company, what was really interesting is that marketing and TA split the cost of the advocacy platform. And at the time, because we both contributed to the library, I thought, like, this is so weird.

Nicole Stephens:
22:40

And looking back, it actually makes a lot of sense because, ultimately, we're looking to get candidates and they're looking to get sales, and both can be done through advocacy programs. So that is an argument that makes a lot of sense because our work supports each other. So if that is possible, I would recommend having conversations with, you know, kind of allies or or key stakeholders in the marketing or sales department to just feel out if that would even be a possibility. And if not, you can go the route of, you know, the person who created a program and said, okay. We're going to assign our own dollar amounts to these.

Nicole Stephens:
23:21

And I think a third really important metric or set of metrics that gets forgotten because we are concerned about kind of that earned media value and bottom line, which is really important for stakeholders, is employee engagement. Are we seeing that people involved in this program are staying longer? Are we seeing that they're giving higher, you know, scores and engagement surveys? Are we getting higher scores on Glassdoor and Indeed? Are people talking about this program?

Nicole Stephens:
23:52

When people join the company, are they mentioning, you know, that they heard about us through social media posts or through friends? Like, is our referral count going up? Because people are talking about, hey. Actually, it's really cool. I'm allowed to say whatever I want.

Nicole Stephens:
24:07

Because a lot of companies don't let you say whatever you want on social. I've worked at several of them. So I think that there are kind of softer metrics that we can incorporate and just create a dashboard, you know, for key stakeholders and say, 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 data from employees to, like, calculate that or maybe because it's true. I really smart approach there. So how do you help employees spot and share those, like, story worthy moments in their day to day work?

Nicole Stephens:
24:55

Yes. This is such a good question because one of the most common pieces of feedback or fear is I don't know what to say or I have nothing to say. So the fun part of this too is, like, building people's confidence and saying, well, you've been in your role for, you know, 8 years. Surely, you've learned things in 8 years. And reminding people that just because they do something day in and day out doesn't mean that other people have a clue about it.

Nicole Stephens:
25:26

You know, I've been on calls where people say, oh my gosh. Like, they should know. And I'm thinking, well, I work in HR and I didn't know that. So I don't think we can reasonably expect, you know, finance or whatever department to know what we know and vice versa. So I think part of it is just that confidence building and reminding people, like, you are in this position.

Nicole Stephens:
25:48

You were hired for a reason. You stay here for a reason, and you have expertise that you probably don't even see as expertise because for you, it's common knowledge. And I bet if you talk to your friends, like, outside of work, say, at a cocktail party, they would be shocked at how much you know because it's not their world. So that first kind of part is that fun, like, confidence building and discovery. And the second part is just like we do for stakeholders.

Nicole Stephens:
26:15

It's just data and showing examples. So I love showing examples from, like, all levels. So I'll pull intern posts from different companies. What they'll do, like, a selfie in front of their, you know, building or or on their commute or whatever. Like, hey.

Nicole Stephens:
26:32

First day at and they'll get, like, hundreds of likes and then congratulations. Can't wait to hear. And it really can be that simple, especially for people starting out. So those are great examples. And then I'll pull data all the way up to c suites.

Nicole Stephens:
26:47

Katie Burke, who formerly was the chief people officer at HubSpot, did a fantastic job. And some CXOs absolutely have people running their social for them. It seems like Katie did her own because she was constantly posting, engaging on others' posts, and just sharing, hey. We had a meeting today, and what was so interesting was a, b, c. So you'd get that behind the scenes without her saying behind the scenes, you know, like a corporate post would with, like, colored branded border and just share or like, hey.

Nicole Stephens:
27:22

My team had an outing today, and it was so good to see all of them, and it wouldn't have any business context. But you saw like, oh, okay. They do team building things. And it's funny. I remember a year or 2 ago, my boss asking, well, what what companies do you think have good employer brands?

Nicole Stephens:
27:39

And I said HubSpot for the reason that I followed Katie Burke on LinkedIn, and she was just constantly sharing new things that we talked about in the beginning. Oh, here's you know, we had a meeting or we had a speaker or I'm so proud of my team for this. And it was so much constant just, you know, common content. It wasn't anything huge that it really made me feel like I understood what 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, great things. And the truth is at work, do you really have these amazing days every single day? You don't. And I always like to I like that you share from intern to c suite because I don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of the content that really does good online is usually from interns or entry level people, and that's because they're sharing everything that they learn. They're learning something new every day.

Rhona Pierce:
28:37

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 up in your career, if you remember that approach, there's always someone who knows less than you. So the content is always gonna work if it's something that, like, you think is, this is whatever.

Rhona Pierce:
28:59

Like you said, that's a great example of even at a party when you're talking to people, they don't necessarily know what you do if they're outside of it and if they're starting. So yeah. Like, that I love that you share examples from the entire spectrum.

Nicole Stephens:
29:17

And you bring up such a good point of, you know, what do you really do. I worked at a company where the single most common job title was business initiatives consultant or BIC. What is that? And there were BICs in every single department. So obviously someone in finance is not doing what marketing is doing, is not doing what supply chain is doing.

Nicole Stephens:
29:38

So even if someone had posted a 2 sentence post on here's what, you know, this role means in my department, I would have found that fascinating. So you're right. It's remembering, like, not everyone knows this. And even if you think people do, they don't or they could use a reminder. I'll see posts all the time and I think, okay.

Nicole Stephens:
30:00

That's not new for me, but I needed that reminder. Because not everything is top of mind always. We have so much information all the time. Like, I don't even know how we get through our days sometimes. So having that reminder of, oh, yeah.

Nicole Stephens:
30:13

That's a great strategy or that tactic is a good idea. Or I'm not a huge fan of these, but every once in a while, just a picture of someone on their their 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 that today. So I think there's such a big variety of content that resonates with people, and often it is just, yeah, we had a meeting today and we talked about ABC, and, you know, I'm excited about where we're going.

Nicole Stephens:
30:43

That really does well, and you're right. If everyone knew that, why did that content do so well?

Rhona Pierce:
30:49

And, also, the the content that I see that does well is content of the not so great moments. When you're having a sucky day at work and you go and post. And I'm not advocating for trashing your company or anything like that. I'm not that's not the type of post I'm talking about. I'm talking about, like, the frustrations.

Rhona Pierce:
31:09

I remember when I was actively recruiting, there would be some post that would stem from frustration of why are candidates doing this or not necessarily why are candidates doing this, but why are we encountering the same situation over and over again? And then when you take a step back, obviously, you don't post it in a frustrated mode blaming anyone. But when you take a step back, it's like, wait. It doesn't seem like our application form is explaining why we need to know this information. So you write I would write a post about, oh my god.

Rhona Pierce:
31:44

I know it's so annoying to answer application questions, but one of the reasons that really helps us blah blah blah. And people were like, oh, I didn't know this was why you were asking. I didn't understand. We started getting better answers to the specific question that we were asking because people were understanding just from from that post. So from the sucky moments 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 and turn that frustration we all have these days. And you can turn that into, okay, here's why I think this is happening. Let me turn that into an FAQ or a helpful resource. And that's another great starter piece of content for people is what question do you get asked all the time?

Nicole Stephens:
32:36

What are FAQs? Or what's something you wish people knew about your job that they just don't seem to get? Turn that into a helpful piece of content. So the first thing I'll do when creating, like, an outline for an advocacy program is always just create a list. I think I'm up to, like, 40 questions that are thought starters for people.

Nicole Stephens:
32:57

So they're a huge range and it's like some are really specific, some are general. Tell me about your best day. That could be anything. That could be one moment. That could be the day you realize something, but things like that.

Nicole Stephens:
33:09

Like, what's something you wish people knew about your job? Like, what do you wish candidates knew? Well, let's turn that into a resource. And 2, I can't remember who it was, but there's a some famous CEO who has, like, a failure resume. And being willing, as a leader, at any level to externally or even internally share your failures, realizing that they didn't matter to a point because you are still successful, is something that I think could be incorporated into advocacy programs.

Nicole Stephens:
33:44

Like, that could even be a prompt if key stakeholders are comfortable with it because that makes it so much more real. And, oh, you're not only allowed to share negative things, but you're being encouraged to. And there's one career site I love where the founders say on the career home page why you should work here and maybe why you shouldn't, and they talk about pros and cons. They do a great job of attracting rapport, and then they answer FAQs. And at the bottom, it says, what's one thing you've learned since running this company?

Nicole Stephens:
34:18

And they talk about the failure from when they first started and how that led them to pivot. So I think if we can get people comfortable with that and show that, no, our stock didn't drop, you know, investors aren't running away, and people aren't leaving horrible comments because it's a professional network, then, you know, hopefully, we can kind of get to a place where people are more comfortable sharing the good

Rhona Pierce:
34:41

and the bad. Yeah. So what are the the most common challenges that you see companies 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 ways to manage that. And then second is, from what I've seen, kind of comfort level with senior level stakeholders and executives on we're unleashing this tool and we're allowing employees to, you know, share things, the what if. So that goes back to redefining failure and saying, what are we, you know, what are our concerns and how can we proactively address those so that we are comfortable with this? That's from, like, an internal stakeholder level. From an individual level, from participants, the two questions are, I have nothing to say, and I don't know you know, I'm not an expert.

Nicole Stephens:
35:44

And I think we've kind of already covered those too in terms of, like, educating them, coaching them, and then just championing them. So for both executives and participants, it's showing examples. I will, like, inundate people with examples and say, stop whenever you want. Like but here's a deck with 50 examples, and I keep remaking it at every company. I need to just save it, and it's just people at all levels.

Nicole Stephens:
36:11

And it's it's also showing even if you get a negative comment, have something in place to address that. Like, work with legal, know, you know, what you would do. 9 times out of 10, it's just don't address it. But give employees that comfort that, like, you've got their back. You're here to support them.

Nicole Stephens:
36:27

And even if they run into challenges throughout this program, you are their resource because 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 it from recruiters. I hear it from other people inside of a company. And I always encourage recruiters because we are talking to people all day long, same as salespeople. So we're getting those frequently asked questions.

Rhona Pierce:
36:57

Right?

Nicole Stephens:
36:58

Yeah.

Rhona Pierce:
36:58

They're not only asking you about the recruiting process. They're asking you about what's the day in the life type of thing. Share those questions. Like, have a bank of FAQs. Share those questions with the teams and be like, hey.

Rhona Pierce:
37:13

We're interviewing for marketing, and I keep getting asked this question. Does anyone have any insights to share? Can you create it as content to share online? That, like, really, those are the the things that work because that's what people wanna know. So if you answer that anyway so just as you're doing your work, you're getting questions from people who don't do your work every day.

Rhona Pierce:
37:39

That's great content. Write down those FAQs.

Nicole Stephens:
37:43

That's a great point. And an opportunity that we probably have on the TA or EB side is take some of those FAQs that recruiters are getting and not only have them make content, but share that with the marketing team or the CSR team or supply chain or what have you and say, here's what we're hearing from candidates. You know, are you comfortable making a post, or can we help you make one? As well as thinking of questions that you just get in your 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 podcast understand my business and what I do. It really started from the whole getting people in a virtual recording room to record questions and turn them into short social media videos started from working internally, getting FAQs, needing a VP or someone to reply to these questions so that I didn't have to keep answering them. And I was like, let me record it and make this into a video that we share in social media. That's how it started. That's where I started like, I like this.

Rhona Pierce:
38:48

Let me keep these FAQs. And, like, if people don't have time, whatever. Here. Join me on Zoom. Let's hit record.

Rhona Pierce:
38:55

Answer this question. I'll edit it. I'll make it a social media 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 in corporate, people wanna see metrics. They if you wanna get budget at some point, you have to prove that this is working. So what metrics are meaningful to, like, measure the success of the EGC campaigns?

Nicole Stephens:
39:27

Yeah. That depends a lot on the stakeholder. So I've worked at places where earned media value is the end all be all, and nothing else matters, which I do understand from, like, a financial perspective. But earned media value is calculated differently from different platforms. So it's it's just kind of interesting that, you know, we take that as the bible, and I I understand that even though they're calculated differently in different places.

Nicole Stephens:
39:57

So for some people, that's it. I've also worked at a place where impressions were the number one, and I could share all sorts of engagement rates and clicks. And ultimately, that senior stakeholder looked at the top right corner, which had impressions and the little green or red arrow that quarter, and that's the number that they grabbed onto. And I understand that from purely a brand awareness standpoint, which is a lot of what we were looking to solve with that particular program. So this is really dependent upon not only your stakeholder, but your goal of creating the program because no 2 programs are the same.

Nicole Stephens:
40:39

And, you know, hopefully, you have a specific why or a couple whys when you're creating the program so that will lead to the correct KPIs. But I think it's important too no matter what. If it's impressions, if it's purely clicks for some people that you really wanna drive people to apply or to landing pages, whether it's earned media value, I would love to see more people bringing in those soft metrics that we talked about earlier. Like, what's some feedback that you've gotten? Can you just pull a quote or 2 onto the next, you know, quarterly dashboard and just show that employees are really valuing this time that they're spending?

Nicole Stephens:
41:20

Because we realize we're taking them away from their day job. So can we show not only are we, the biased program creators, saying that this is valuable, but truly the, you know, user, the client, the employee is seeing the value. And one thing I'm pointing to a lot at my last company was a senior director who was one of our insiders. So I had 9 people who I, you know, handpicked, and that's where we were kind of in our maturity level. Not something I would recommend for everyone always.

Nicole Stephens:
41:54

But to get started, I handpicked 9 people. And within a few months of just sharing prewritten posts, I want to, like, highlight and underline that. She was invited to speak in Baltimore at an event because people had seen her content, and she only chose what was relevant to her. But, you know, she didn't have that comfort level at that time to make things more personalized. But even just sharing those prewritten posts, which I try to do in a, you know, way that I think people would would write on LinkedIn, she was then invited to share her expertise and have the company name behind her at that event.

Nicole Stephens:
42:34

So there are kind of those softer metrics that you can point to as well, like speaking invitations.

Rhona Pierce:
42:40

Yes. And that that's a big one because at the end of the day, when they go to the conference, everywhere you see, Rona Pierce from company name.

Nicole Stephens:
42:52

Exactly. That's

Rhona Pierce:
42:53

like free publicity right there for that's relevant because the people at that conference are gonna be industry people. Exactly. Yep. So looking ahead, how do you see the role of employee generated content, like, evolving in talent acquisition and employer branding?

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, a year now and I I just need to do it, is I'd love to see a company taking, say, like, a month, and all of their corporate social is just EGC. If you have a new product, great. Have an employee talk about it. If you're going to event an event, have an employee showcase that.

Nicole Stephens:
43:46

If you are launching a new employee resource group, have the person creating them talk about what led to this particular resource group. I mean, there are so many like, I don't think there's a business case that anyone could throw out to say an employee couldn't talk about this because your employees are the ones doing the work. And, hopefully, everyone on this podcast agrees or listening to this podcast agrees with that. So that would take a lot of partnership, you know, with marketing and a lot of coordination. But I'm hoping that in the future, there is not this huge split between corporate and employee content and that we're doing a better job sharing, amplifying, elevating, educating, all of the aims to really get employee content to just be content.

Rhona Pierce:
44:33

I like that. I like the whole concept of employee, like, EGC takeover of the brand. I love that. I I think you would have to have strong partners in marketing to understand that because they're not creating the content, their jobs aren't on the line. Their expertise is the strategy.

Rhona Pierce:
44:56

That's still very much needed. Actually, they should be happy to outsource per se the content because it's gonna be more authentic, and then they can focus on strategy and what really is marketing, employer branding, and things like that. We're always talking about we wanna be strategic partners. Well, get yourself out of the way and do your strategic work and let employees do the content. That's great.

Rhona Pierce:
45:24

I've thought of something. So if we go that route, which I also firmly believe is where we should go, do you see that or do you think that there should be some type of compensation for employees creating content?

Nicole Stephens:
45:42

This is such a good question. And as you said the word compensation, I was like, okay. I see where you're going. I can see both sides, but I don't like when people just say that and then don't give an answer. So I will give you an answer.

Nicole Stephens:
45:57

I'm all for compensating employees for extra time for things like employee resource groups. Like, I understand that. However and I would need to I would need to spend more time, like, defining these in my mind. But for some reason, when it comes to advocacy programs, I'm not as comfortable paying employees. And the reason is, I think ERGs are, like, internal and and advocacy, of course, is external.

Nicole Stephens:
46:30

And I would never want there to be any obligation felt or, you know, kind of gray line and have, like, legal involved. And if they're already involved enough, you know, any reason for people to feel like, oh, I can say this or I can't say that or pay to play. But I also really believe that if we are doing our job well in TA and EB to build a really effective advocacy program, then participants should be feeling the value as much as the company is because the program's nothing without engaged participants. So the company gets nothing if we don't do a good job creating that engagement and education. So if we're doing a good job, they you know, participants that we're working with should feel like I'm getting a lot of value out of this.

Nicole Stephens:
47:18

I'm learning things. I'm getting new career opportunities or speaking opportunities or I'm just becoming a better writer or maybe I discover a love for photography that I never had. There's one person I know in the Netherlands who does a great job with advocacy programs, and she goes so far as to give, like, photography training to people who are interested in really kind of becoming that next level of of participant and advocate. So I believe that we should compensate people fairly from jump. And, you know, if they are spending time, it's worth considering.

Nicole Stephens:
47:56

But for advocacy, let's give them the value that they deserve as program participants, and that 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 agree with you because, really, the the when you when it's authentic, you don't want it. Like, I think paying people for this specifically, like, here, one post equals $50 type of thing Mhmm. Is going to make it not be as authentic and not really be advocacy.

Nicole Stephens:
48:36

Yeah. And then if people were to find out that they're being paid, to me, that just kind of removes, you know, oh, well, did you really think that? Or did you just wanna hit 50 posts so you got $500 or whatever it is? So then potentially as a candidate, that could kind of mitigate, like, all of the work that we're trying to do. But I'm all for people being paid well, and I think things like ERGs are, like, a different discussion because there's a lot of talk around pay for that.

Nicole Stephens:
49:10

So we do need to acknowledge that we're adding to people's plates and that they're, you know, doing this on top of their day job, but hopefully, they're getting enough value that it is worth it for them.

Rhona Pierce:
49:21

Agreed. So this has been a great conversation, and there's something that I've started asking guests. Is there anything about employee advocacy and employee generated content that you feel is important for listeners 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 in conversations. I think I mean, you've you've asked all of the big, great questions. I think if I could just leave, like, a parting word of advice, it'd be to talk to each other. Have conversations with people who have created advocacy programs or worked on them at other companies and see what you can learn from, Fortune 50. See what you can learn from a start up who might not have the formal program, but they just let people post.

Nicole Stephens:
50:12

So there's their advocacy program. Like, have conversations with others in TA and EB to learn how they do things and what their challenges are and maybe solutions that you haven't thought of or challenges that you haven't thought of so you can, like, better your program. And there's something to learn if you're a Fortune 50 from start ups and vice versa. So I think the more that we can just have conversations with each other, especially for solo branders or people doing this on their own, which is probably a lot of listeners. So many people are really generous in this space, like you and and a million people in your network, and I think mine as well, and are willing to hop on the phone and just say, here's how we did something.

Nicole Stephens:
50:56

So I would just say really create a little bit of time here and there to learn from other people and to give back and, you know, talk to others about how you do things.

Rhona Pierce:
51:06

Love it. Love it. And community is everything. So I've loved our conversation. I I knew I was gonna love it, but I've really loved our conversation.

Rhona Pierce:
51:16

How can listeners connect with you?

Nicole Stephens:
51:19

Well, as someone who has run advocacy for years, I live on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is the best place. And I always love meeting new people in this space. Whether you work on advocacy or not, I just find TA and EV people to be, you know, not the typical HR stereotype. So you would definitely welcome any, conversations.

Nicole Stephens:
51:41

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Rhona Pierce:
51:43

Thank you. If you want more actionable advice, like the advice shared in this episode, I write a weekly newsletter for TA professionals who want to take a more strategic approach to recruiting. You can sign up at throwouttheplaybook.com/newsletter. That's throwouttheplaybook.com/newsletter. The link is in the show notes.