With Great Brand Culture Comes Great Employee Advocacy

During a visit to the NASA space centre in 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said, “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?” “Well, Mr. President,” the janitor responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” 

To most people, this janitor was just cleaning the building. But in the more mythic, larger story unfolding around him, he was helping to make history.

That a janitor is so well-aligned with the mission and vision of NASA is the result of a great brand culture.

What is a brand culture?

The e-book Telling Your Brand Story from Zoho Academy states:

Your brand’s story is much more than your “company bio.” It’s everything from the colors on your website to your packaging materials to the way your employees answer the phone and banter with your customers on social media. It includes your origins, your goals, your inspiration, your challenges, your target audience and their experiences with your company. It’s even the stuff you don’t have control over, including how your prospects and customers perceive what you do and interpret what you say. In short, it’s the sum total of who you are, all you do, and everything people believe about you based on the signals you send.

When your brand story is consistent and has been owned by every stakeholder of your company, it creates a solid brand culture.

Zappos is a good example of a brand that is very proud of its culture. Even the interview and hiring process at Zappos are designed to learn about the candidate's compatibility to fit in Zappo's organizational culture (50% weightage).

If a candidate is hired by Zappos, they can expect to spend their first three to four weeks manning phones in their call center learning how to respond to customer needs. This, in a way, is an introduction to the soul of the business. Upon completion of their time in the call center, Zappos employees are offered $3,000 to leave the company. If you haven't become a Zappos insider, committed to the goals and the culture, the company really prefers that you leave. Take the money, though, and you can never come back.

What happens when your employees are aligned with your brand culture?

They tell your story to the world.

When your employees share your story widely, it gives your brand a word of mouth boost, which is better than any form of marketing. [A report from Pew Research Centre found that word of mouth was the top point of influence for buyers.]

Let's do some quick math. I'll try to calculate the organic reach of your social media post with some assumptions. Say your brand has 300K fans on facebook while you have 200 employees who are active on social media and can share positively about your brand from their profile.

When you post from your brand page, your organic reach is this:

300,000 X 6.4% (average organic reach of an FB post) = 19,200 impressions

When your employees post about you:

200 advocates X 338 friends each (avg. number of friends) X 33% of friends seeing the post = 22,308 impressions

Remember, the average organic reach of a Facebook post is declining every year, so the posts from your brand page are going to fetch you less and less views in coming years.

Employee advocacy will be your positive word-of-mouth marketing that helps create a favorable brand image with larger organic reach. It will also help you fetch the right talent when you have a job opening.

How to convert employees into brand advocates

Sending a memo asking employees to be your brand advocates is a bad idea. Asking someone to write positively about you in public will always prompt a "what's-in-it-for-me?" attitude from the employee. Instead, win over them and trust them to post naturally.

Some employees will already be posting more about your business than others or have a more engaged audience. Identify your top socially active employees and give them the opportunity to build their thought leadership further by including them in your social media strategy.

Here are few actionable tips:

1. Brand culture: Like how the janitor at NASA, your employees—no matter their department—should own your brand's vision. Cultivate this by re-iterating the vision and goal in meetings, emails to employees, your own social media posts, posters around the office, and through your actions. For example, start office yoga classes if your vision is related to health or fitness. Don't let your folks forget what you're working to achieve.
   
2. SWAG: Who doesn't like a cool swag? Give your employees a t-shirt, a coffee mug, or even a cool hat with your logo on it. If they love your swag, there are two advantages: one, they will advocate about it in their social media space, and two, when they wear the swag in public, it's free advertising for you. Plus, swag increases the bonding between companies and employees.
   
3. Celebrations: Celebrate days like Employee Appreciation Day, which falls on the first Friday of every March. Make your team members feel important and appreciated.
   
4. Indirect campaign: Start a social media campaign with a hashtag and send a mailer inviting employees to participate. For example, "Best Selfie with colleague wins a prize. Use hashtag #(YourBrandName)Fun." You could also have them host a Twitter chat around a topic in your industry or perhaps help them create a longer piece of content like a blog post or video that you can then promote on both the employee’s Twitter account and on your brand account.
   
5. Surprises: Surprise and delight your employees by sending them gifts on their birthdays or anniversaries. They might spread the word. Worth a shot!
   

Once you organically convert your employees into brand advocates, they will begin posting positive things they experience in the workplace—whether morning yoga, team lunch, employee appreciation gifts, or an employee awards function. As they start sharing their experiences with the world, your brand will get the right kind of exposure—and hopefully increased traffic via genuine word-of-mouth marketing.

• Topic Participants

• Vinit Tibrewal

  

• Sticky Posts

• 10 simple e-commerce marketing tips to boost sales

  Congratulations! You've finally set up that e-commerce store you've been thinking about for a long time. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult. Even if it was, the effort will be totally worth it when you start seeing some orders come through. Now that the store is live, let's take a look at some marketing tips you can apply for sales growth. 1. Avoid cart abandonment If you've ever shopped online, you might have added a product to the cart but then decided not to purchase it. This is known as cart abandonment.

• Marketing in a post COVID-19 world!

  Consumers across countries are increasingly spending more time on a wide variety of digital activities, right from online grocery shopping, to video conferencing, to tele-medicine. There is a good chance that you performed one or more of the following activities during this lockdown, thanks to COVID 19: Cooked a meal Made a TikTok Video Signed up for a remote learning session Consulted a doctor online (or ordered medicines online) Shopped for groceries online A study by Hunter, a food and beverage

• Inbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy

  According to a behaviour survey, 68% of the buyers use sources such as blogs to evaluate the product even before considering it. Before buying a product, we do a lot of research to learn more about the product through communities, blogs, social media,

• How Zylker doubled their webinar registrations!

  Webinars are good educational resources to gather qualified leads for your product. But what if your visitors are dropping off from your webinar landing page without signing up? What more could you do to convert visitors into registrants? This is the

• The ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell

  Do you think there's any truth to this? Do features only tell, and benefits sell?  Well, let's see why we should focus on benefits rather than features as the great marketing wizards, David Ogilvy and Steve Jobs proved to be the best examples leveraging

• Recent Topics

• Batch Tracking Enhancements In Zoho Inventory

  Hello users, We’re excited to announce that we’ve taken batch tracking to a whole new level in Zoho Inventory! We’ve made it more accessible and easier to use than ever. Here’s a quick look at the improvements: 1) A New Way To Create or Modify Batches

• Zoho Desk Mobile App Year-End Roundup - 2024

  Hello Everyone, Greetings! As you gear up for the festive season, we are excited to share a quick journey into all that is released in 2024! Availability of each feature in iOS and Android released in 2024 are as follows: For more information on the above

• Task Completion vs Estimated Time

  I need to represent the Estimated Date vs Actual Completion Date for multiple Tasks. How Can I Do this in Zoho Analytics.

• Upload Field - cannot be checked in rules configuration.

  We wanted to create a process to verify whether the upload fields are empty or not. If empty, then it should deny during submission. We don't want to use the mandatory field setting because in a 10 pager form, some upload field located in page 1 will

• Is it possible to hide Developer Space for all user in Zoho Projects

  Hello! I am Zoho admin in a company and we want to use Zoho Project to manage projects, but after a few days of testing we are not able to "hide" the Developer Space from all kind of users except the admin. To sum up, I want to hide this for all users.

• Chat function not working properly

  Ever since upgrading to plus, the chat is all messed up. it is coming up behind the web page so that I cannot see what I'm typing and cannot read replies. I can only see the bottom of the text box at the bottom of the page, and then it is blocked. I've

• Wrong Time on Exported Records

  Hello, All records in my exported Notes .csv file have the incorrect time for Created Time. They are all 8 hours ahead. I've already verified that my time zone is correct in both Personal Settings and Company Settings. Is there any way to fix this?

• Sync workspace - table

  I have connected two workspaces and I have imported two different query tables from one workspace to the other one, that was a succes. But now I want to import another query table from the same workspace to the other but I get an error. Why is that? (there

• Subir o Preço Unitário já acrescido de um valor

  To com um desafio grande, e se alguém conseguir me ajudar, seria ótimo! O que eu preciso é que o na hora de adicionar um item no subformulário dos itens cotados do módulo Orçamentos, o preço de lista do item venha acrescido de 20% automaticamente e de

• Ring in the New Year with Guided Conversations for Smooth Offline Support

  As we step into the new year, it’s time to refocus, re-energize, and gear up for fresh opportunities. But what about your customers as they begin the year with their own set of challenges or queries to resolve? With Zoho Desk’s Guided Conversations (GC),

• Exploring SalesIQ's Top Features of 2024: An Insider's Look 🔍

  As we wrap up another year at Zoho SalesIQ, it's time to reflect on how far we've come. This year has been incredible for us in our journey to build a more powerful, flexible, and customer-centric engagement platform. We've introduced several features

• updateTask Zoho Connect API

  When I do POST request by https://connect.zoho.com/pulse/api/updateTask with parameters scopeID, taskId, title, status and with header Zoho-oauthtoken, I got next response: {'updateTask': {'reason': 'You are not authorized to do this action.', 'result':

• Alert for Back Navigation in Zoho Creator Widgets on Mobile Apps

  In Zoho Creator widgets, when a user navigates back on mobile devices, the data within the widget is reset. This leads to a loss of any unsaved changes or inputs, causing frustration for users. To enhance user experience, we need to implement a confirmation

• Can Creator integrate with a CRM Sandbox

  zoho & Creator Noob -  I would like to build a Creator App and integrate it to the CRM Sandbox.  Then, when I have the bugs worked out integrate it to the production CRM account.  Can Creator do this ?  I built a test Creator App and integrated it to the CRM in a test zoho account fairly easily.  

• Allow Multiple Scheduled Appointments with Zoho Support

  Dear Zoho Team, I hope you're doing well. First, thank you for introducing the option to schedule support calls via the Zoho CRM booking link. This has been a fantastic enhancement, eliminating the need for back-and-forth coordination when scheduling

• Zia Call Intelligence only up 10 License

  I have been trying to install Call Intelligence for two days now, but strangely, the button is missing at this point. The documentation could be better, but most importantly, someone should inform small businesses like us that they don’t even bother enabling

• Accrue Leave by Hours Worked?

  My locality (Michigan, US) has enacted a law that requires that 1 hour of sick leave be accrued for every 30 hours worked. I cannot see how to implement this policy in Zoho People. There does not appear to be a mechanism for accruing leave proportional

• Fixed assets recording

  Hello there, I recorded a bill for a vendor contain (Computer) so the PC is a fixed assets, do I need to do a manual journal to include this PC under the fixed assets category (furniture & equipment)? If yes, please take me through the manual journal

• error in importing customers

  get this error message while importing customers, there is no column for COUNTRY CODE in sample excel file

• Workflow Based on Manual Journal

  Manual journal entries are one of the few areas that cannot kick off a workflow automation in Zoho Books currently. I would propose considering adding that. My use case is that the payroll provider I use (a flavor of SurePayroll) has a Zoho Books automation

• Digest Décembre - Un résumé de ce qui s'est passé le mois dernier sur Community

  Bonjour chers utilisateurs, Toute l'équipe Zoho france vous souhaite une année remplie de joie, de réussite et de prospérité. Alors que nous débutons cette nouvelle année avec des projets innovants, des astuces, des produits et bien d'autres choses encore,

• New Year Wishes to the Zoho Finance Developer Community!

  Hello developers, Happy New Year! As we step into 2025, we wish you a journey filled with growth, success, and exciting opportunities ahead. We’re thrilled to announce that we have something exciting in store for you. Welcome to the Zoho Finance Developer

• Button Display Conditions

  Hi Guys, Is it at all possible to have extra button conditions? Context: We have data in our deals module which has a custom button which converts the deal into contacts + set up relationships between them. At the end of the conversion we set a field

• Ayuda con zoho creator x zoho Crm

  Hola a todos, Estoy teniendo dificultades al sincronizar datos entre Zoho Creator y Zoho CRM. Mi objetivo es lo siguiente: Busque un registro en el módulo Contactsde Zoho CRM utilizando el correo electrónico del registro de Zoho Creator. Si se encuentra

• How to Replace an Assessment in a Job Opening on Zoho Recruit

  Hi everyone, I’m currently using Zoho Recruit and would like to replace the assessment linked to a specific job opening. I want to remove the existing assessment and add a new one. What is the best way to do this without losing any important data or affecting

• Fixed asset management

  I want to know if there is any individual module for fixed assets management

• Input GST Reversal for damaged goods

  In our line of business, some items are damaged and we are doing inventory adjustments to remove them from stock. However, as per GST guidelines, there is a specific rule that we have to reverse Input GST availed for such items and needs to be reported

• Introducing Record Summary: smarter insights at your fingertips

  Hello everyone, Building on the recent launch of Zoho's in-house Zia Large Language Model (Zia LLM)—a major milestone in Zoho CRM’s AI capabilities—we’re excited to introduce the Record Summary feature. This powerful addition makes use of Zia LLM to simplify

• No longer get Cliq notifications on phone if app not started

  On Android, I used to get notifications on my phone whether I was in the app, or it was started. Then about a month ago, I stopped seeing notifications on my phone UNLESS I had already started the app. So if I reboot my phone, and never start the app,

• Error AS101 when adding new email alias

  Hi, I am trying to add apple@(mydomain).com The error AS101 is shown while I try to add the alias.

• Deluge script to add Mail Task

  Has anyone out there created a custom function to create a Zoho Mail task? I'd be interested in hearing how you accomplished it. Sample code is appreciated!

• Tags with Zapier

  Maybe I'm missing something....I hope so... Using tags for triggers is a key need.  This prevents us from having a ton of different lists. I am trying to find out how to add a tag using zapier when someone makes a purchase....but it doesn't seem to be

• Send Supervisor Rule Emails Within Ticket Context in Zoho Desk

  Dear Zoho Desk Team, I hope this message finds you well. Currently, emails sent via Supervisor Rules in Zoho Desk are sent outside of the ticket context. As a result, if a client replies to such emails, their response creates a new ticket instead of appending

• How to apply blueprint on tickets that created from IM module

  Hello, I have an issue applying blueprint on tickets that created from WhatsApp conversation, the tickets matches with the blueprint criteria but still we are not able to put these tickets into the blueprint. I've tried with deferent type of tickets and

• Function #4: Schedule Customer Statements

  Regularly sending statements to customers is an imperative part of many business processes as it helps foster strong customer relationships and provides timely guidance on payments. While you can generate the statement of accounts and have it sent over

• Zoho Mail POP & IMAP Server Details

  Hello all! We have been receiving a number of requests regarding the errors while configuring or using Zoho Mail account in POP/ IMAP clients. The server details vary based on your account type and the Datacenter in which your account is setup. Ensure

• Remove 30-Day Client Reply Restriction on Supervisor Rules in Zoho Desk

  Dear Zoho Desk Team, I hope you're doing well. Currently, Supervisor Rules in Zoho Desk run once every hour but only apply to tickets that have received a customer response within the past 30 days. This restriction creates challenges for us, as we have

• Paid Support Plans with Automated Billing

  We (like many others, I'm sure) are designing or have paid support plans. Our design involves a given number of support hours in each plan. Here are my questions: 1) Are there any plans to add time-based plans in the Zoho Desk Support Plans feature? The

• Contacts Don't Always Populate

  I've noticed that some contacts can easily be added to an email when I type their name. Other times, a contact doesn't appear even though I KNOW it is in my contact list. It is possible the ones I loaded from a spreadsheet are not an issue and the ones

• How to get NSE/BSE Stock Prices in Zoho sheets?

  I've been looking for a function that provides me with the NSE/BSE listed stocks price in Zoho Sheets like GOOGLEFINANCE in Google sheets, but I found none. Please help if there is any way to het stock prices?

• Next Page