With Great Brand Culture Comes Great Employee Advocacy

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.


    • 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

    • Enhancements to the formula field in Zoho CRM: Auto-refresh formulas with the "Now" function, stop formula executions based on criteria, and include formulas within formulas

      Dear Customers, We hope you're well! By their nature, modern businesses rely every day on computations, whether it's to calculate the price of a product, assess ROI, evaluate the lifetime value of a customer, or even determine the age of a record. With

    • This festive season, offer discounts with coupon code support in Stripe Checkout

      Hello form builders! It’s the festive season, the perfect time to spread joy and great deals! Now, with Zoho Forms’ latest enhancement for Stripe Checkout, you can do exactly that with coupon codes! Your payment forms integrated with Stripe Checkout can

    • Cómo creo una factura negativa o de abono?

      NEcesito anular una factura y crear una nueva igual pero en negativo. El sistema no me lo permite

    • Power of Automation::Streamline log hours to work hours upon task completion.

      Hello Everyone, A Custom Function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as to when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. Requirement:-

    • Is CRM On Premise available

      Hi Zoho team, Can you please let me know that CRM Zoho is available for On Premise as well? Thanks, Devashish

    • Last activity time is acting like last modified time

      When i edit the description or any field in the potential, account, contact and lead, the Last Activity Time is being updated like the Modified Time. This is messing all workflows and reports and we are unable to track real last time of activities like

    • CRM : Function to add user name to text field

      I have a lookup field in a module that is linked to the CRM users so we can assign a Project Lead to the customer. Sadly Zoho Marketing Automation doesn't sync Lookup fields so I need to extract information from the lookup to text fields: Lookup field

    • Zoho CRM - Restrict Login based on work hours

      Hi there, I'm wondering if we can restrict users to login during works - For example the users would be able to login from 8am to 5pm. I have seen the IP address restriction - the only downfall is what if the customer has dynamic IP. thanks Jiri

    • Tips and Tricks #46: Customize themes and templates using Show's Master View

      Hi All!  Let's say you want to revamp your presentation and make changes to its visual design. You can do this easily using the Master Slide and its associated layouts. The Master Slide stores information about all the layouts used in the presentation.

    • Sheet View in CRM portal

      Hi, When will it be possible for my CRM portal users to edit/add records with Sheet View? George

    • What's New in Zoho Invoice | July - September 2025

      Hello everyone! We’re back with the latest updates and enhancements we’ve rolled out in Zoho Invoice from July to September 2025. Here’s what’s new this quarter: Introducing the Singapore Edition in Zoho Invoice Share Invoices through WhatsApp GST 2.0

    • Alert: Audio Call Support to be discontinued for Old Live Chat Widget from December 31, 2025

      Action Required: Upgrade to the New SalesIQ Live Chat Widget We're reaching out with an important update regarding the SalesIQ Live Chat Widget that requires your immediate attention. Effective December 31, 2025, audio call functionality will no longer

    • 【開催間近 - 10/17】東京 ユーザー交流会 Vol.3 参加登録 受付中！(参加無料)

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 10/17(金)に、東京・新橋で「東京 ユーザー交流会 Vol.3」を開催します！ ZOHOLICSよりも小規模なイベントですので、「リアル開催はちょっと緊張する…」という方も、安心してご参加いただけます✨ 当日は、初公開の事例を2つご紹介予定です！ なお、セッション映像のアーカイブ配信は予定していないため、会場にお越しいただいた方だけが、登壇者へ直接質問したり、リアルな声を聞いたりできる貴重な機会となっています。 ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

    • multiple contacts for one account

      We currently use Zoho CRM where each Account represents a club or organization, and each Contact represents a manager or owner. However, some of our managers own or manage multiple clubs, and Zoho only allows a contact to be linked to one account at a

    • Rich text Merge field - Not using font specified in HTML

      I have a rich text merge field in a writer template which is creating a table. I have chosen to use this method instead of a repeat region because I need to specify specific cell background colours which change every time the document is created. The

    • Can't change form's original name in URL

      Hi all, I have been duplicating + editing forms for jobs regarding the same department to maintain formatting + styling. The issue I've not run into is because I've duplicated it from an existing form, the URL doesn't seem to want to update with the new

    • ヒートマップ詳細設定について

      はじめまして マーケティング担当の浅田です。 PageSenceのヒートマップ設定について質問です。 単一ページ毎の設定は上手くできるのですが 詳細設定にて、トップページのURLを含ませ全体のヒートマップを計測できないか試したところ お知らせ：データを受信していません。と表示されてしまいます。 トップページURLで始まるページの条件も試しております。 全頁を反映させたいと思い、詳細設定を上手く設定できたらと考えております。 どなたか詳しい方がいらっしゃいましたら、教えて頂けませんでしょうか 宜

    • Automatic category assignment

      Hi, I’d like to ask if there is a way to automatically assign an expense category based on the recognized Merchant. What would be the simplest way to set up automatic category assignment? Alternatively, is there an option to first choose the category

    • Experience with Zoho Vertical Studio

      I'm considering Zoho Vertical and would love to hear from some devs who've been using it. The Zoho ecosystem is pretty solid, so I assume the experience has been pretty good, but sometimes Zoho has its quirks. Overall, has your experience been positive?

    • LinkedIn Chrome Extension

      Hello - I believe it is a known issue that the LinkedIn extension Resume Extractor has stopped working and they are working on potential fixes. Wondering how others users are finding this issue and if there are any better workarounds for this issue? It

    • Advance PDF creation from CRM data

      I'm trying to create a PDF export of data in the CRM. My problem is I want a pretty complicated format for the data. I'm trying to export multiple modules worth of data, with nested one-to-many relationships between the modules. Along with that, I want

    • Where does this report come from in the Zoho One ecosystems?

      Is this directly from MA, Analytics or ??? ???

    • Sub-Form Padding in CSV Export

      Hi, When you use the Sub-Form, and for example you have a Date Field on the Main Page, then Option 1 and Option 2 fields on the Subform, when you export this to CSV the Date column will only have the Date in 1 row, the first row, it would be nice to pad

    • More Formula Functions

      Hi, I would ike for example to be able to have a Date Field and Formula Fields, and then in the Formula Fields I would like to grab just the Month of the above Date Field or the Week Number of the above Date Field. So more "Functions" than the current

    • File upload size limits

      I am designing a contact form in Zoho Creator with File upload facility. I am not sure where and how to set the following properties for the same: Allowed File Types Maximum Size of the Attachment Number of Attachments

    • Composite Services and Account Tracking

      I am looking to garner support/request the ability to make composite services. A quick search in the forums brings up multiple requests for this feature. I fail to see why an item is mandatory while services are optional. I also would like to see the

    • All operation codes getting Not applied in WO-TT22J1025WOR0471, SR-TT22J1025PRE0423,FOR VIN-W1K6G2AB2SL005130.

      Dear Support Team, Please refer attached screenshot. All operation codes getting not applied in work order. Request you to please check and update ASAP.

    • Customer Grouping

      Hi, how can I group multiple customers into single group. So that I can have idea of accounts receivables of all the customers in single group. Like if there are multiple subsidiaries of same company we have having a business with, and want to view the

    • Bank Receipt Catagorization

      Hi, how can I match a bank deposit to multiple customer's invoices ? For e.g. A single person paid to us on behalf of different five customers. I need to keep the separated invoices for each customer

    • "Performed changes in the query is not allowed due to following reason" when adding columns or reordering data

      I'm trying to make changes to a query but every time i try to save it i get this error message.  I'm not touching the data it's flagging.  All I've tried to do is reorder a couple of fields and add a new one.  Why won't it let me do this?  It's a core

    • Exclude Segment from Campaign Recipients

      I've created two Segments in order to separate Non-Marketing Contacts from Marketing Contacts. I'd like to send an Eblast to all Marketing contacts in my lists, but when I go to select Recipients, I have two options: 1. To Choose Lists to Send to; 2.

    • Reschedule Multiple/Mass Calls at Once

      When we go into a Call record, we have the option to "Reschedule Call." How can we select multiple Calls at once from the Activities tab and Reschedule them? The big use case for us: We have many leads that our reps are supposed to call on a daily basis.

    • Option to Empty Entire Mailbox or Folder in Zoho Mail

      Hello Zoho Mail Team, How are you? We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Mail that would allow administrators and users to quickly clear out entire folders or mailboxes, including shared mailboxes. Current Limitation: At present, Zoho Mail only

    • I want to Make the due date of the project appears automatically

      hello everyone I want to know if the zoho projects app can add automatically the END DATE of the project I added the duration, start after dates of each tasks in the project template & the starting date of the project itself and the end date of it doesn't

    • Drag 'n' Drop Fields to a Sub-Form and "Move Field To" Option

      Hi, I would like to be able to move fields from the Main Page to a Sub-Form or from a Sub-Form to either the Main Page or another Sub-Form. Today if you change the design you have to delete and recreate every field, not just move them. Would be nice to

    • Get Zoho Mail API working (including DRE Connector, Oauth Token, ZUID, ZOID & ACCOUNT_ID)

      Disclaimer: I’m not a professional coder! Do you need to use Zoho Mail API? Me too. It lets you do all sorts of things — like reading the complete header of an email, or forwarding an email with its attachments — which is what I wanted to do. But setting

    • Deluge Tips & Tricks: Mastering dates and times

      Hello everyone! We're bringing back our Deluge Tips & Tricks series, where we show you how to make the most of Deluge for achieving a wide range of use cases. Working with dates and times is a fundamental part of almost any business application. Whether

    • Adding a Button in a Form in Zoho Creator App

      Hi I want to know how can I add a Button in Zoho Creator form. I have options that I select from a multiselect options and I want the button to add those selected options in a Subform. I do not want to add on a Page Builder I want it inside a specific

    • Feature Enhancement Request – Text Formatting Options in Item Description (Zoho Books/Quotes Module)

      Dear Zoho Development Team, Greetings from Radiant360 Integrated Technical Services LLC. We would like to bring to your attention a functional limitation we've encountered within the Item Table / Quote Description section of Zoho Books (and Zoho CRM Quotes).

    • Internal Exception for Creator function

      I have been running a script successfully for several days using the scheduler in my application. Now today it suddenly creates and Internal Exception error. Nothing has changed about the script. The data is still retrievable from the web service it is using. Why would this suddenly be happening for no apparent reason? Also noticed that my usage logs are not up to date. Is something changing behind the scenes?

    • Next Page