- Brands must be disciplined in making employees the foundation of their comms strategy
- Train your employees to find stories and content within the business for both internal AND external engagement
- Encourage them to become employee influencers, delivering information to their colleagues
- Devise a campaign using your employees as case studies for the press
Introducing the ‘Empfluencer’
January 23, 2025
In 2025…
Here’s why:
Faceless brands are on the rise.
Think of an app you recently used to buy a product or deliver you a service, from shopping through to travel and information.
Now think about the human face behind it. What interaction did you have with a person?
That’s right, often none at all.
What we want is a quick, digitally smooth, perfectly practical and transactional experience. Although soulless.
Yet behind the scenes are likely to be scores of invisible employees making the magic happen.
Without seeing the people behind the curtain, the brand becomes easier to dislike, to criticise, to kick.
- Journalists we speak to every day, working in the top tier of national news titles, say they’re more likely to be favourable to brands with a shop front or a human face.
- People are more forgiving of a brand when they have a connection with someone who works there.
Simply put, human connection = more positive headlines.
It makes sense on the most instinctive level.
If someone’s just been helped with their packing at a supermarket, or been given great face-to-face customer service, or had a pleasant chat on the phone – or even (with an actual person) online – they’ll feel warmer about the brand as a whole.
Meaning they’ll be more likely to remain loyal and use it again.
- A recent campaign carried out by Goldbug for a major online retailer created a 42% increase in the way people felt about the brand just because employees were shown enjoying themselves at work.
The companies that can champion the people in their business and show them off will be the ones with the strongest brand with the highest employee engagement and external engagement.
So make this year the year of the Empfluencer.