The Four C’s to Building Employee Advocacy Through Storytelling

Empowering Employees With Story

The front line between your brand and your customers is your employees. It pays to create an environment they enjoy and one in which they feel supported. Simply put, happy employees create a higher ROI.
WalmartOne is a revolutionary employee platform that has become a hub for one of the largest organizations in the country. And the whole thing has been designed and maintained by a small team delivering experiences to help associates grow and thrive with Walmart. As a part of this team, Shane McLaughlin’s specialty lies in inner communications, which boils down to listening to employees to give them what they need to succeed.
When employees believe in your brand story, they organically become powerful and invaluable advocates for your brand.
Shane talks about developing a strong company culture, the four C’s of building associate advocacy, and his tactics to improve employee engagement. He also discusses how to foster an inner network of resources for your employees and how to wrangle with the unpredictable nature of social.

In This Episode

• Why employee engagement is the base for a healthy organization
• How to listen to your audience to create impactful content
• Why it’s a wonderful thing that social is so unpredictable
• How the four C’s of content can help you create stronger content
• Why employees truly make the best brand advocates
• How to build advocacy by sharing personal stories within your organization

Quotes From This Episode

“All of us have something to offer to an audience that’s hungry for ways to improve and evolve.” —@ShaneMcLaughlin
“There’s a dual role of not only connection to the audience, but learning from the audience and telling their story as we go.” —@ShaneMcLaughlin
“The goal is to create ambassadors in our workforce and to help connect them to the content that is valuable to them.” —@ShaneMcLaughlin

“The best part about social is you can’t plan for it. It’s so wonderful to see how an associate in a store just posts something to a local Facebook page, and it goes viral like that. In my mind, that’s successful customer service. That’s giving your audience what they want, not telling them what they need to buy. You’re having a conversation about what they want, and they respond.” —@ShaneMcLaughlin

“Content, of course, is still king because great content gets people to your site. It gets people to engage and click. It gets people to take action.”
“If it’s not interesting or engaging to them, it’s not going to be anything. It’s going to fall on deaf ears.” —@ShaneMcLaughlin
“We all know we can improve no matter where we are, and that process of improvement and knowing that we’re becoming better at our professional and our business lives is really motivating.” —@ShaneMcLaughlin

Resources

• Shane McLaughlin
• Shane McLaughlin on Twitter, @ShaneMcLaughlin
• Walmart
• Social Media Marketing World
• Rob and Melani Walton Foundation
• Inc. Magazine
• Power Wheel Princess Carriage
• “The Hero’s Journey,” by Joseph Campbell
• “Your DIY Guide to Crafting and Telling Compelling Brand Stories that Sell,” by Park Howell
• BusinessofStory.com
• Park@BusinessOfStory.com