Empowering Employee Advocacy with Visa
What Is Advocacy?
Advocacy is a strategic marketing initiative designed to empower employees, customers, or brand advocates to share approved content about the company on their personal social media channels. The goal is to amplify a company’s brand messaging, improve brand visibility, and build trust with broader audiences by leveraging the authentic voices of its advocates.
What’s the Impact?
Over a nine-month period, comparing LinkedIn reach with and without the advocacy program, the results spoke for themselves: the program delivered a 2.8x organic increase in reach, showcasing its undeniable value.
Increase in Reach
“Our partnership with 8th Brick Group has been instrumental in the remarkable success of our advocacy program. Their strategic expertise has enabled us to amplify our brand messaging and expand the reach of our most critical products by 2.8x. This achievement reflects the tangible impact of a focused advocacy initiative, driving meaningful growth across global markets.”
Why Bring in 8th Brick?
The advocacy program initially faced significant challenges. Teams with limited resources and oversight struggled to align the program with the company’s overall goals. Recognizing the need for a strategic partner, the company brought in 8th Brick to realign the program and unlock its potential for measurable success.
How 8th Brick Delivered Results
8th Brick provided comprehensive management and strategic support to optimize and scale the advocacy program. Key services included:
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Program Gamification
Designed and managed an incentive program to encourage active participation.
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Strategic Communications
Developed tailored plans for different stakeholder groups. Published monthly newsletters for users, bi-weekly updates for team admins, and executive-level status reports.
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Admin Support
Delivered operational guidance, how-to resources, and communication scheduling to streamline day-to-day operations.
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Data-Driven Reporting
Standardized dashboards to track program metrics, individual performance, and overall impact. Provided insights into top content drivers and team comparisons.
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Event and Content Promotion
Created mechanisms to highlight marquee events and key content within the program.
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New Team Onboarding
Designed toolkits, delivered admin/user training, and seamlessly onboarded global teams.
The Transformation: Before & After
Before
The advocacy program faced challenges such as limited support, underperforming gamification mechanisms, and a lack of alignment with broader organizational goals. These issues hampered its potential to effectively amplify brand messaging.
After
With 8th Brick’s partnership, the advocacy program was revitalized. Gamification was refocused on driving LinkedIn engagement, and the program successfully expanded to additional teams across the globe. As a result, organic LinkedIn impressions increased from 524K in April 2024 to 1.94 million in December 2024—a dramatic transformation and proof of the program’s value.
“Following the successful pilot of several programs, we are now scaling our global advocacy initiative in collaboration with 8th Brick Group as our trusted managed services partner. Their proven ability to implement, scale, and manage the day-to-day operations of this program has been instrumental in aligning with our sales and product goals. Their partnership has been critical to our success, and we are confident in their capacity to support our continued growth.”
Ready to supercharge your Advocacy Program?
Discover how 8th Brick can help you develop and elevate your employee advocacy initiatives. Contact Wes Sieker at Wes@8thbrickgroup.com to learn more.