Forget celebrity influencers: Your employees are your brand's secret weapons

In today's digital landscape, corporate influencers-employees who promote their company's brand on personal social media are becoming increasingly popular. This strategy makes the brand more personal and builds trust with audiences. A renowned example is Deloitte's hiring of Lara Sophie Bothur as a full-time corporate influencer. Her LinkedIn posts have approximately 400 million impressions!

From research, it is found that personal LinkedIn profiles can achieve nearly three times more impressions and five times more engagement than company profiles. For example, the Founder of Hebbia, George Sivulka, got about 2,400 reactions on a personal post announcing a funding round, while the company's official post garnered only 400 reactions. By empowering employees to share authentic content, companies can increase their reach and credibility in the market.

Corporate influencer is a kind of a new term in the business world, but the activity is not new. Ayman Sadik, the founder of 10 Minutes School, has more influence as an individual on the general students than his company does. Corporate influencers can be the founder of the company, C-Suite members, or any employee of a company who actively promote their company's brand, values, and culture through social media channels. They build trust with the audience and humanise the brand by sharing genuine insights and experiences.

Benefits of corporate influencers: Corporate influencers-employees who promote their company's brand on personal social media-offer several key benefits:

Employee-generated content often achieves higher engagement than traditional corporate posts. For example, micro-influencers with 1,000-5,000 followers have an engagement rate of 4.6 per cent, which is higher than that of larger accounts. This suggests that content shared by individuals can resonate more genuinely with audiences.

When employees share personal stories and experiences, it adds authenticity to the brand. This transparency increases trust and makes the company more sympathetic, as customers perceive genuine insights into the company's values and culture.

Sharing company culture through employees' social media activity can attract potential talent. Potential employees gain a realistic view of the workplace, which can influence their decision to join the organisation.

Case studies: To enhance authenticity and reach, organisations are aiming to incorporate corporate influencers more and more these days. Some real-life case studies are given below.

Corporate influencer initiative by Deloitte: Deloitte appointed Lara Sophie Bothur as their first full-time corporate influencer for Germany, Australia, and Switzerland. Her posts on Linkedin mainly focus on topics like "teach for good". She got around 400 million impressions, an average of 840K impressions per post. This strategy helped Deloitte to increase its reach and also humanise its brand image.

Founder as a corporate influencer - Hebbia's case: Founder of the AI company Hebbia, George Sivulka, effectively utilised his personal LinkedIn profile to announce a significant funding round. His post received about 2,400 reactions, which substantially outperformed the company's official announcement, which gained 400 reactions. This example explains the higher engagement potential of personal accounts over corporate profiles.

IBM Employee Advocacy Program: To increase the brand presence and establish credibility in the tech industry, IBM implemented an employee advocacy programme. IBM encouraged its employees to share their expertise and experiences on social media. Here, IBM leveraged its workforce as corporate influencers. This initiative increased IBM's reach, along with humanising the brand, showcasing the diverse talents within the company, and helped to increase engagement and positioned IBM as a thought leader in the technology sector.

Is there any example in Bangladesh? In Bangladesh, the concept of corporate influencers-employees who actively promote their company's brand through personal social media channels-is gaining traction. A notable example is Aydha Mehnaz, who served as the communications and digital lead at Sailor by Epyllion, a Bangladeshi fashion and lifestyle brand. During her tenure from 2014 to 2017, Mehnaz utilised her personal blog and social media presence to share insights into the brand's culture, products, and values, effectively humanising the brand and engaging a wider audience. Her efforts not only enhanced Sailor's visibility but also demonstrated the impact of employee-driven brand advocacy in the Bangladeshi corporate landscape.

Implementing corporate influencer strategies also poses several challenges. Maintaining quality and authentic content is crucial, as audiences can detect exaggerated content, potentially damaging trust. Employees must be careful and need to understand how to share work-related content without compromising personal privacy. Measuring the return on investment (ROI) of influencer initiatives can be complex, as quantifying engagement and its direct impact on business outcomes is not always straightforward. To avoid regulatory issues, companies must ensure compliance with legal and ethical standards including transparent disclosure of sponsored content.

How to build a corporate influencer programme: Several key steps are involved in implementing a corporate influencer strategy. At first, you need to define clear objectives, i.e., increasing brand awareness, attracting new talent, and/or increasing engagement. Secondly, identify those employees who are passionate and interested in growing their careers in the company and are also active on social media. These employees can authentically represent your brand. You have to provide them with training and resources so that they can effectively communicate your message while maintaining their unique voice. You also need to create clear guidelines to ensure consistency and adherence to company values. Finally, you've to have a clear monitoring and measuring process to measure the impact of your employees' efforts and you can do it by measuring engagement metrics and feedback.

Brand authenticity and engagement can be significantly improved by incorporating corporate influencers. These influencers are changing the way brands connect with audiences. When employees share real experiences, the organisation can humanise its brand and create trust and deeper connections with audiences. In today's digital landscape, corporate influencer strategy can be a valuable asset if you can craft the plan carefully and execute it.

Rashedun Nabi is a seasoned expert in Digital Transformation and Startup Scaling, with over a decade of experience in growth strategies, investment readiness, and ecosystem development. Currently, he is working as project lead at e27 (Optimtic), spearheading Meta AI Llama initiatives in the APAC region. [email protected]