Why Content Marketing Strategy Needs Employee-Generated Content (EGC) in 2024

Content is king in social media marketing—but authenticity reigns supreme. Grabbing your audience’s attention on social media is about good content, but what is good content?

Good content is genuine, authentic, and relatable. Good content establishes a connection with the audience it’s aimed at and nurtures a relationship of trust and loyalty.

Social media audiences are more and more skeptical when it comes to trusting brands online, and earning that trust is not easy. 

People trust people, not logos, which is why employee-generated content might be the way to cut through the noise and speak to your audience in a way that they find trustworthy. 

What Is Employee-Generated Content (EGC)?

EGC is a subcategory of user-generated content, except in this case, it’s not any user who produces content for you to embed in your content output but your employees.

Leveraging the unique perspectives and voices of your employees—the lifeblood of your organization—will give your social media content a renewed sense of authenticity and give a new face to your brand. 

Why should you incorporate Employee-Generated Content into your content marketing strategy? And, most importantly, how do you cultivate and access this powerful resource?

Why Your Content Strategy Needs EGC

Employee-Generated Content Amplifies Authenticity

Online users are constantly bombarded with endless streams of content, especially on social media. And authenticity has become the one element that guides them to trust and engage with a brand. 

EGC naturally embodies this authenticity. Employees from various departments and levels of hierarchy offer diverse viewpoints and stories that paint a comprehensive, genuine picture of the company culture, values, and mission.

They have an insider’s look and insider’s knowledge of your products and services and are able to share it through the lens of those who experience it daily. 

Of course, this resonates strongly with audiences who perceive it as fostering a deeper connection with the brand. This is because people are 3x more likely to trust company information shared by an employee than that shared by a CEO or a corporate account (Edelman Trust Barometer).

Employee-Generated Content Boosts Engagement and Reach

According to LinkedIn Business research, employee networks have 10x more connections than a company has followers. Leveraging those personal networks will effortlessly boost the reach of your content and, consequently, the engagement. 

Content shared by individuals benefits from pre-existing relationships — 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections on LinkedIn, for example — and these personal connections inherently trust and are more interested in content shared by someone they know.

As a result, this leads to higher engagement rates — likes, comments, and shares. This engagement is critical not just for its immediate impact but also for how it influences social media algorithms, making the content more likely to appear in the feeds of a broader audience.

Employee-Generated Content Taps into Diverse Audiences

Employees come from varied backgrounds and have networks that span different industries, interests, and demographics: think of someone’s ex-employer and colleagues, professional connections acquired throughout one’s career, ex-college buddies, etc. 

This diversity offers a unique advantage when your employees share company-related content.

Each share has the potential to introduce the brand to entirely new audience segments that the company’s marketing efforts might not have reached otherwise via traditional methods.

And that, in turn, can significantly increase the brand’s visibility enriching the brand’s follower base with potential market opportunities.

Employee-Generated Content Strengthens Employer Branding

EGC is not just about marketing products or services; it's also a powerful tool for showcasing your company as an ideal place to work. 

Talent acquisition can be extremely competitive, and showcasing real employee experiences and achievements can attract like-minded professionals and fresh-out-of-university candidates who align with your company's culture and values. 

This aspect of employee-generated content turns your employees into social media advocates for both your consumer brand and your employer brand.

Putting real faces behind a logo humanizes your brand and demonstrates the trust you put in your employees to advocate for you on social media.

How to Integrate EGC into Your Content Marketing Strategy

Employee-generated content is made possible only when your employees feel like they are being valued as brand voices.

That means that you encourage them to produce and share content in your company’s stead to amplify it and its image online. The easiest way for you to orchestrate these efforts is by turning your employees into social media advocates.

Employee advocacy programs are easy to set up, so to speak. However, they require some groundwork to really take off and be effective. Launching an advocacy program will allow you to successfully integrate employee-generated content into your content strategy and reap the benefits in no time.

Cultivating a Culture of Content Creation

The foundation of a successful advocacy program that encourages Employee-generated content is a company culture that simultaneously encourages and values content creation and sharing. 

Start by educating employees about the importance of EGC and how it benefits both the company and their personal brand. Create channels or rely on an employee advocacy platform where employees can easily share their content or ideas and also easily share company-related content.

Additionally, if you haven’t yet, consider establishing content creation as a recognized and rewarded activity within your organization, with reward and recognition programs to show appreciation for that extra effort.

Recognizing and Rewarding Contributions

What motivates your employees? Picking up on my previous point, recognition plays a crucial role in motivating employees to participate in Employee-generated content initiatives.

To show your employees how much you value their collaboration, you could implement an employee reward system to acknowledge and recognize outstanding contributions, whether through internal recognition programs, social shoutouts, or tangible rewards. 

Highlighting employee-generated content on your company's official channels not only rewards the contributor but also sets an example for other employees, inspiring others to do the same.

Facilitating and Curating Employee-Generate Content

While encouraging spontaneous content creation is important, providing specific prompts or campaigns can help generate targeted content that aligns with your marketing goals. 

Facilitating content creation can simply mean offering themes, challenges, or questions that employees can respond to. Once content is created, curate it to ensure it aligns with your brand standards and marketing objectives before sharing it on your official channels.

Or, alternatively, you can develop a fully-fledged advocacy program where you provide specific prompts and campaigns to guide employees in this journey.

This will allow you to maintain specific branding guidelines consistent with minimal effort and even be more conservative in how your employees generate and share company-related content.

Measuring Impact

Like any (content) marketing strategy, measuring the impact of the content your employees produce and share about your company is crucial. 

Use analytics to track engagement, reach, and conversion metrics of employee-generated content.

Solicit feedback from employees and audiences to understand what types of content resonate the most, and make sure to use these insights to refine your EGC strategy, recognizing successful practices and areas for improvement.

Conclusion

Employee-generated content is a powerful addition to any content marketing strategy, offering authenticity, engagement, and a unique perspective that traditional marketing cannot replicate. 

By empowering and encouraging your employees to share their stories and insights, you not only amplify your brand’s message but also foster a culture of advocacy and transparency.

Implementing a structured EGC program, complete with the right tools, recognition, and guidelines, can transform your employees into your most valuable content creators and brand ambassadors. 

As the social media landscape continues to evolve, integrating employee-generated content into your content marketing strategy is not just an innovative approach but it’s the only way for forward-thinking brands looking to connect with their audiences on a deeper, more authentic level.