Employee-generated content: why it’s the next big thing

Article topics

1. What is employee-generated content?
2. What are the benefits of employee-generated content?
3. How can I monitor EGC?
4. How to create great EGC
5. Ready to showcase your business on social media?

Employee-generated content: why it’s the next big thing

Want to spread the word about your business?

One of the best ways to grow your reach is to encourage other people to talk about the products and services you offer.

If you don’t have the time or resources to hire influencers to big up your brand, you might want to consider the people who handle your products and services every day – your employees.

Employee-generated content is a fantastic way to promote not only your business but your company culture.

In this article we’ll discuss the advantages of using employee-generated content, how to track what your employees post, and how to help them create content that drives engagement.

What is employee-generated content?

Employee-generated content (EGC) is content created by your company’s employees.

This type of content has been around for a long time, but it’s only become prominent over the past few years. This is because it’s easier than ever for employees to create, upload, and promote their own content.

Employees can post content on their own accounts or through your company’s official marketing channels.

Types of employee-generated content include:

• Posts on social media (for example, ‘a day in the life’ posts)
• Blog posts
• Photos and videos
• Case studies and testimonials
• Reviews on platforms like Glassdoor

Want to know more about user-generated content instead? Check out this guide to content created by your customers!

What are the benefits of employee-generated content?

It’s all very well saying that your brand is brilliant. But it means a lot more when it comes from the people who work for your business.

Only 33% of consumers trust what brands say, while a staggering 90% trust recommendations from people they know.

Authentic, genuine insights from your employees build trust with customers and encourage them to buy.

EGC can also improve your reach. On average, employees have ten times as many followers than a brand’s official social media accounts, which means employee-generated content can help you reach new customers.

Employee-generated content can also boost morale within the workplace. By showing that you trust staff to create content, you’re building a workforce of happy employees who are willing to advocate for your company.

How can I monitor EGC?

There are a couple of ways you can monitor what employee-generated content goes out. You can:

• Use Google Alerts to identify when your brand is mentioned online
• Encourage employees to use a specific hashtag when posting on social media
• Use social media monitoring to identify mentions of your brand
• Use dedicated EGC tracking software to monitor likes, comments, and shares

How to create great EGC

While it might be tempting to dive straight in and get your staff to create content right away, it’s best to take your time and develop a strategy first.

This ensures your employees create high-quality, consistent content that aligns with your brand’s goals.

Here are our top tips for getting started with employee-generated content.

1. Determine what you want to achieve

Before you begin, you need to know what you want to achieve through your EGC.

This helps you understand what type of content you want your employees to create and how you can help them develop it.

Your goals might be to:

• Attract top talent to your business
• Increase employee engagement and morale
• Reach a wider audience
• Boost engagement
• Raise brand awareness

When you have your goals in place, you can identify the metrics you will measure to check if your EGC strategy is successful.

For example, in the case of attracting talent to your business, you can measure the number of visits to your careers page, job applications, and successful hires.

2. Encourage buy-in

It’s vital that you don’t force employees to create content. This can lead to low-quality, inauthentic content and may lead to staff potentially sharing their negative experiences with prospective customers.

Instead, it’s better to encourage staff to create content. You can do this by discussing the benefits of creating EGC as well as offering advice, training, and support (we’ll talk more about this later.)

You may even choose to offer incentives and rewards for employees who post. We once worked with a company that gave a monthly prize to the employee who created the social media post that generated the most reach.

Getting board members and directors to create content can encourage other employees to follow suit.

3. Establish a comprehensive social media policy

Creating good EGC is a balancing act. You want to give your staff the freedom to create content in their own unique style, but you don’t want them to post anything that could bring your company into disrepute.

A thorough social media policy will help employees understand what they should and shouldn’t post online. It also ensures that all posts are consistent with your brand identity.

You can cover:

• What content they can and can’t post about (for example, anything confidential or under embargo)
• The marketing channels you want employees to use (think about your target audience and where they post)
• Your branding guidelines (for example, which hashtags to cover). A style guide can help here too
• How to respond to negative or inappropriate comments
• Who to contact if employees have any questions or need support
• Examples of good and bad content

It’s essential that your marketing team support those who want to create content. They can do this by:

• Suggesting relevant and appropriate content ideas
• Recommending appropriate graphic design and editing software to use
• Running workshops and training courses
• Providing assets employees can use, like photos, videos, and logos
• Reviewing content before it goes out
• Sharing content on the company’s official marketing channels

While some of your employees will find creating EGC easy, others may need a little bit of help.

Ready to showcase your business on social media?

Employee-generated content offers a personal, authentic perspective on what it’s like to work for your business. If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to build trust with customers, it’s a great addition to your marketing strategy.

Don’t forget to regularly monitor EGC to see what’s working well for your business. Measure engagement rate, reach, click-through rate, and the number of conversions you receive to get a well-rounded view of how your strategy is doing and which type of posts get the best response.

You can share the results with your employees too, so they can see how their content is driving your business forward!

Want more insights into how to use digital marketing to grow your business? Check out more of our insights!