How to get started with employee generated content (EGC)

Employee generated content (EGC) is a marketing tool that allows companies to create content using their own employees. If you’re not too familiar with the concept, we suggest you check out this article about EGC first.

Often forgotten or overlooked, EGC is actually an important method to recognize as it can be a great alternative to owned, influencer generated, or user generated content (UGC). It can also have lucrative effects on company appearance, reputation and reach. Incorporating EGC into everyday business practice is also easier than you might think since you already have access to essentially the only resource you need in order to make it happen: your employees.

If you manage to establish a well-planned strategy, get people excited about participating and teach them how to do so, you’re well on your way to creating a gold mine of continuous content.

So, how do you get started? We’ve put together a checklist of our best 5 tips: ⬇️

1. Know the voice of your brand. What message are you trying to convey to your customers? If you know your audience, creating a cohesive message should be easy. Once you figure it out, your employees can use it as a blueprint.
2. Assume the “friend role”. People are constantly being exposed to new products, whether it be while browsing on various platforms and websites, or by simply engaging with their friends and family. Customers almost always prefer recommendations made by someone they trust, and by showing an authentic side of your company, aka the true words from your employees through EGC, your brand can assume the “friend role” and gain your audience’s trust.
3. Put together an EGC task force. If you have a product that can be tested by your employees, let them! Group together a few employees (preferably ones that belong to your target audience) and name them a task force. Not only can you get some valuable input that might help improve your product, but you can also use their feedback and reviews to create content = EGC. As a result, the external message will have a greater impact.
4. Decide on delivery. When you’ve got your task force and your message down, it’s time to start thinking about delivery. Where are you going to post your EGC? How often? In what way? Take a look at your statistics, like with any other marketing campaign, and figure out how, when and where your EGC will take place. EGC can be a great tool, but it also has to be executed properly. Make sure that wherever you post it, your employees (both those involved as well as the rest) can interact with the material.
5. Support your employees. Finally, encourage your employees’ creative and individual work by broadcasting it on internal channels, meetings and gatherings. Celebrate your employees for marketing on behalf of the company!

Still a bit unsure? Let us give you an example; here’s how Flowbox is doing it. Every week, we publish Instagram stories where we feature our employees and fun facts about them. These stories are then gathered in a permanent highlight in our Instagram profile. We also continuously publish team and ‘behind the scenes’ photos in our Instagram feed. Next up is a new marketing campaign called “Unmasking Our Content Heroes” where we will be publishing longer interviews with our employees on our blog to showcase who we are, what we do, and why we do it. We want to provide our clients with transparency regarding their needs and what strategies we implement to reach success for each client. In terms of EGC, we hope that this connects the clientele to the heart of Flowbox.

Interested in getting started with Flowbox? Click here to book a demo.

More information:
Madeleine Andersson, Marketing Intern, Flowbox
madeleine.andersson@getflowbox.com

or

Bianca Rior, Digital Marketing Specialist, Flowbox
bianca.rior@getflowbox.com

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