SoLocal Group Drives its Brand Visibility through a Complete Employee Advocacy Program

The SoLocal Group, which includes PagesJaunes, Mappy, A Vendre A Louer and Ooreka, set itself the objective to reinforce brand awareness in 2016, most notably through the diffusion of brand messages on social media. And who better to share these messages than employees themselves?

In order to make this ambition a reality, SoLocal organized a series of workshops designed to bring everyone up to speed on social networks, and launched the Sociabble platform to empower employees as brand advocates.

Sociabble: Amplifying Brand Messages through the Voice of Employees

The Sociabble employee advocacy platform aggregates brand content from social media and RSS feeds, and organizes it onto themed channels from which users can share directly on their own social network accounts.

Employees win points for their sharing activity, allowing them to compete against colleagues for the top leaderboard spots. SoLocal began with a three-month pilot for 40 users; individuals from all areas of the company, in multiple locations, with different levels of maturity on social media. The benefits of Sociabble soon became clear.

“We really found it to be a win-win initiative”

explained Anne-Laure Faou, Community Manager at SoLocal, “Our employees were able to develop an image of expertise online, while the company benefited from the additional visibility generated by their sharing activity.” 

“The selected employees got involved straight away,” added Carole Andriamadison, HR Social Media Manager at SoLocal. “They particularly appreciated having easy access to content that is organized and that is ready for them to share on their own accounts.

We really found it to be a win-win initiative. Our employees were able to develop an image of expertise online, while the company benefited from the additional visibility generated by their sharing activity.

Anne-Laure Faou Community Manager SoLocal

Social Media Day: Dedicated Training on LinkedIn and Twitter

SoLocal also organized a Social Media Day, which took place in July 2016 at the group’s new headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris.

The event, which involved workshops focused on Twitter and LinkedIn, gave all employees the opportunity to develop their social media and personal branding skills, and to discover the Sociabble platform. For those already on Sociabble, a challenge was launched in order to promote content relating to the Social Media Day, with prizes up for grabs for those who obtained the most points.

“Far more people attended the first Social Media Day than were expected, it was a great success,” noted Faou. “It confirmed the relevance of the initiative for all involved.” The combined success of the Social Media Day and the Sociabble platform reinforced the engagement of SoLocal’s employee advocates, convincing top management of the initiative’s potential, and of the need to deploy employee advocacy throughout the company.

SoLocal took a strategic approach, rolling the Sociabble platform out for around 50 new users each quarter because, as Faou and Andriamadison explained, “providing the necessary training for employees is reflective of our desire, as a company, to embrace social media and integrate it into their daily workflow.”

The support provided by the Sociabble Customer Success team has helped us to identify what works and what doesn’t, and to carry out the necessary adjustments on the platform.

Anne-Laure Faou Community Manager SoLocal

Promoting Corporate, Employer Brand and User-Generated Content

On the Sociabble platform SoLocal content was organized with user preferences in mind, with dedicated channels for brand social media accounts, as well as for corporate, HR and employer brand content. And with a native application available for Android, iOS and Huawei HarmonyOS, employees were able to view and share the latest company content wherever they were, on any device.

Despite the principal objective being to amplify content and drive brand awareness, SoLocal also used the Sociabble platform to promote job offers. “Employees’ insights really enhance our employer brand,” noted Andriamadison. “By sharing recruitment opportunities with their own networks, they help us to identify and connect with potential candidates.”

Meanwhile, employees embraced the user generated content (UGC) functionality, which allowed them to pull in content using existing URLs, or create new posts from scratch. These posts were published on the platform automatically and were available for all to share.

Customer Success Support

The 40 individuals who took part in the initial pilot became Sociabble ambassadors and, together with program leaders, continued to share their knowledge and expertise with others as the platform was rolled out. The SoLocal group also benefited from dedicated support provided by the Sociabble Customer Success team.

In addition to rich analytics on the platform itself, administrators received a monthly KPI dashboard, along with insights and recommendations in terms of user engagement, platform structure and gamification strategy. “The support provided by the Customer Success team has helped us to identify what works and what doesn’t, and to carry out the necessary adjustments on the platform,” explained Faou.

With over 5, 600 actions since the Sociabble platform was launched and an average of 43 sharing actions per user per month, the ROI of SoLocal’s employee advocacy program was felt externally on social media. “There has been a clear increase in the number of likes and shares generated by brand content,” added Faou, “and we have a far greater reach than we did beforehand.”

The Sociabble employee advocacy platform became part of “Digital Makers,” a transformation initiative designed to train SoLocal employees on social media, and encourage them to develop their own thought leadership.

Following the initial success, the company’s main objectives were to organize more Social Media Days, in a number of locations, and to provide dedicated social selling training for sales teams – two projects in which the Sociabble employee advocacy platform would play a crucial role.