7 Essential Tips for Implementing a Winning Brand Communication Strategy

Brand communication strategy—it’s a topic that most companies know is important, but that seldom receives the attention it deserves. In this article, we’ll explain how getting your employees involved in your brand communication strategy can make the critical difference in its successful implementation.

Communication without strategy behind it is like firing shots in the dark. If you don’t define a target, take careful aim, and consider the tools to use to hit it, you’re never going to accomplish much in terms of objectives.

Brand communication strategy is a component of business success—companies need to think about what their message is, who they want to receive it, and how they’re going to disseminate it. One aspect that is often overlooked, however, is the important role that employees themselves can play in generating brand awareness.

In this article, we’ll explore what brand communication strategy really means, and give 7 tips for getting your own workforce in on the action for a successful program.

What is the definition of a brand communication strategy?

Defining brand communication strategy—what it is and why it matters—is a good place to begin. A brand communication strategy is a holistic approach that organizations use to manage and promote their brand messages and values to customers, employees, and the general public.

This holistic approach includes elements such as defining objectives, developing a message, identifying channels of communication, monitoring performance, and remaining agile in order to stay relevant. By creating this strategic plan, companies are able to ensure their messaging is consistent while also keeping up with the ever-changing needs of their customers, who, in the end, matter most of all.

Through effective brand communication strategies, companies can build trust with their target audience, create loyalty amongst their customers, and ultimately increase their sales. All of which are pretty good things!

How can employees be part of your branding comms?

It’s no secret that when creating a brand communication strategy, business professionals often focus on the message (the what), the medium (the how), and the target audience (the whom).

When building a communication strategy, especially on social media, companies usually concentrate on key influencers and customer advocates. They have the followers and the pull, after all. However, it is often forgotten that the most influential branding ambassadors and brand managers are frequently those who know the company best: its own employees. And customers do pay attention to what they have to say.

According to statistics, employees have a dramatic influence on social media. Studies from Edelman have found that 82% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand after seeing content posted by their employees.

Another study showed that 58% of people trust content posted by a company’s employees more than they trust posts from the company itself. These numbers show just how powerful employee-driven content can be in influencing potential customers and increasing loyalty among existing ones. When employees speak, the general public does listen.

The process of engaging employees in a brand communication strategy is known as “employee advocacy.” By engaging in brand-driven conversations, employees can help to spread the message of the company and reach new audiences of potential customers.

This is particularly true on social media. Employees can also establish authenticity and create relatable content that customers are more likely to interact with, allowing businesses to reach a wider target audience. They are seen as authorities simply because of the fact that they are real people, with real, authentic connections to the brand. You may also want to know more about companies with ambassador programs.

What are the 7 strategies of effective employee advocacy?

When implementing an employee advocacy program, it can be difficult to know where to start. How do you get an initiative like that off the ground, and make it a success? Here are the 7 must-know tips that you need to follow when engaging employees in your brand comms strategy.

1. Set Clear Objectives 

Outlining your business strategies and objectives through communication can provide a roadmap for all your brand marketing communication efforts. By ensuring everyone is aware of the end goal, it helps guarantee that all messages are aligned with overarching goals.

And the right employee communication platform can help. Sociabble, for example, allows businesses to inform all employees, even those who are not provided with desktop office tools—like frontline workers—thanks to its mobile application. Not only does it empower companies to inform all employees and have them aligned on their business strategies and objectives, but it also provides the possibility to customize messaging thanks to the audience segmentation feature.

In concrete terms, some audiences may need a deeper level of explanation than others. Sociabble handles several types of formats, including live video broadcasting, all of which can be tailored to a specific audience, regardless of the device they are using. With Sociabble, you will be able to inform and align your workforce on your values and business goals.

2. Train and Educate Employees

This is key: be sure that all employees understand the company’s current branding and messaging, as well as any new business initiatives or campaigns that are in progress. This will help them communicate more effectively about the organization’s products, services, and values to customers. The launch of a new product, or a special event, are great opportunities for your brand marketing communication. But how can you be sure everyone is informed and understands the importance of the information?

We have already seen how Sociabble can deliver customized messages, adapting them to the different types of employees (per type of job, position, country, department, etc). What Sociabble also allows is for employees to react to content, and comment on it, mentioning colleagues and giving feedback.

This encourages team spirit and collaboration. Moreover, it is possible to assess the understanding of the messages with fun and engaging quizzes—a built-in feature of the Sociabble platform.

3. Get Your Employees Involved

A brand is not what you say it is, it’s what they say it is.

This quote is by Marty Numeier, a world-renowned marketing author. Of course, he’s talking about consumers, but before reaching out to consumers, companies should start by getting employees involved. 

Involving employees in developing brand messages can create an excellent way to communicate your company’s identity through employee-driven content. Encourage employees to express their ideas or take part in brainstorming sessions on how best to communicate a particular message out into the market. 

To help accomplish this, Sociabble comes with a very easy survey feature that allows companies to gather ideas and feedback with just a few clicks. Surveys can be anonymous, translated immediately into over 70 languages, and targeted to specific audiences. Feedback is instant, and surveys can even be designed using your company’s logo and colors.

4. Identify Social Media Channels

When building a communication plan, marketers identify which communication channels work best for reaching desired customers, such as social media channels (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), email newsletters, or direct mail campaigns.

When it comes to employees amplifying brand marketing communication on social media, it needs to be easy for them. You don’t want the process to be complicated or involved, because this will discourage people from sharing.

Sociabble allows employees to share company content with just one click, and it’s simple for employees to choose which social media platform to share the content on. This feature is effective for employees who are already social media-savvy and have powerful networks, but it works for employees who are not so experienced as well, encouraging them to enter the social media space with a single integrated platform, to serve as a hub where content is aggregated, received, created, and shared.

Essentially, it becomes easy for all employees to get involved and share company information on social media, because content can be found in one place, and shared with just a click.

Find out how the Projectlys teams used this feature to increase their online visibility.

5. Monitor Performance 

Data can make a difference! Regularly evaluate the performance of brand communications by monitoring employee actions on social media. This will give you an understanding of what works best when it comes to engaging employees with your brand personality and core message. It will also allow you to evaluate the level of engagement of your workforce in regards to your employee advocacy program, as well as the effectiveness in terms of engagement, reach, and leads. 

Sociabble comes with a full range of analytics that provide a view of all the activities on your employee communication platform. For example, the general activity dashboard summarizes the most critical aspects of your program’s performance, and you can see how it’s doing at a glance. You can access up-to-date data at any time, 24/7, filtering the information and analysing it directly on the Sociabble platform (segmenting it by group, audience, location, channel, post, etc.). Then, simply export your results to easily share your insights.

6. Reward Your Best Ambassadors

Show them they matter! Employee recognition is an important part of any successful business positioning strategy. It helps to foster a sense of loyalty and appreciation among employees, creating a better workplace culture and boosting engagement.

Employee recognition also goes hand-in-hand with effective social media strategies, as recognized employees are more likely to be passionate about promoting the company’s mission and objectives through communication on their personal profiles. This will help to create positive word-of-mouth, increase brand awareness, and attract new customers. Ultimately, employee recognition and social media can be two powerful tools for businesses looking to improve their overall performance.

When an employee decides to promote the company mission, it is important to recognize efforts and results. With Sociabble, you can award customized badges, for example, to acknowledge an astonishing performance on social media by an employee, or a brilliant piece of content. Sociabble also provides the possibility to give trees to employees.

With Sociabble Trees, a CSR and engagement feature, you can reward employees every time they share content for the company, by offering them actual trees planted in their name, as part of more than 50 reforestation projects worldwide. At all times, companies and employees have access to their forests with a unique shareable URL, so they can monitor their performance, and the difference they’re making for the environment.

7. Remain Flexible

Flexibility and adaptability are crucial! The success of a brand depends on its ability to remain agile enough so it can embrace change whenever necessary; staying ahead of competitors requires flexible adjustments based on customer feedback and new industry trends. It is important your employees are aware of those elements, so their content can be relevant and valuable. 

Sociabble provides an engaging content hub, automatically collecting official company news, but also aggregating content streams from relevant internet sites, experts, influencers—the sources that matter. It’s also possible to organize this content into specific communication channels, for example as part of a “competitive watch” or “customer feedback” channel. This will allow your employees to stay up to date with the latest trends, keeping tabs on your position in the market, and in the end, achieving your objectives through communication.

Sociabble, the best solution to communicate your brand 

The Sociabble platform has been deemed by both clients and international analysts as one of the leading digital solutions for employee communication and employee advocacy.

Want to learn more about how Sociabble can help your company to perfect its brand communications, while empowering your employees to become more informed and engaged? We’ve already done exactly that for clients like Coca-Cola CCEP, L’Occitane en Provence, and Primark, and we’d love to add your business to the list.