Beginners Guide to Employee-Generated Content (EGC)
Contents:
What is EGC?
A brand doing EGC well
What not to do
The risks
How your brand can use EGC
Welcome to the EGC Era:
The concept isn’t new, but the brand bandwagon certainly has fresh wheels with major names like Gap and Starbucks re-upping their employee-generated content programs this year.
In the past, companies would clamour to shut down sanctioned accounts. Now they’re formally requesting employees start posting.
This follows the shift toward authentic content we’ve been seeing for half a decade – people trust people. According to Sprout Social the same holds true for employees – 72% of consumers report feeling more connected to a brand when employees are the ones sharing the information.
Here’s what EGC looks like and how to do it well.
What is EGC?
EGC refers to any social content created by employees of your company. It can be posted on their own social media channels or posted directly to a brand-owned channel.
It combines an unpolished, authentic style with the knowledge base of your most enthusiastic employees. It earns your brand trust and credibility while humanizing the people behind the product.
A brand doing it well:
Meet Staples Baddie.
Kaeden Rowland made office supplies fun again. She quickly drew a massive audience highlighting her favorite products and demonstrating Staples lesser known services. All in her own voice, with her own style, and no corporate approvals.
Comment sections exploded with calls for Staples to support her and expressed renewed interest in a dying brand.
What Staples did right was…nothing (almost). They let her cook. They sent her a care package, thanked her for her dedication, and stayed out of it. By avoiding a formal collaboration, Kaeden’s content remained authentic and it allowed some distance between the brand and the content.
What not to do:
Long before the term EGC entered our lexicon, enthusiastic employees have taken to social to share their work. In 2020, Tony Piloseno did just that while working part-time at Sherwin Williams.
His viral posts featured ultra-satisfying videos of mixing unique paint colors. Instead of celebrating his success, the company fired him for making videos on company time using company materials.
Audiences rallied against the brand and shortly after, he opened his own paint company Tonester (which has 2.3M TikTok followers right now).
The lesson? Learn how and when to loosen your grip – and don’t sabotage a lucky break.
The risks:
You have to let go of control.
The reason EGC works is because it’s authentic, unpolished, and direct from the source. People trust people more than they trust corporations – users can sniff out corporate-ified versions of good content and when they do, they’ll swipe away.
That’s scary! No approvals, no training, just a charismatic 15 minutes on your audience’s FYP.
We’ve yet to see a major scandal centering EGC, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. A bad day, a contrasting political view, or misinformed product information while sporting your brand’s logo could certainly go sideways.
Even without a major upset, letting someone outside of your marketing team bring your brand voice to life is the ultimate litmus test. Is your brand persona strong enough to stand on its own (without approvals, pitches, and moodboards)?
How your brand can use EGC:
There are three primary ways to engage with EGC:
Nurture existing viral employee content
Formalize a program that encourages employees to post more
Own an EGC asset bank for your brand to post
Nurture existing viral employee content
When you see chatter around an employee’s content, let them cook. Your job is to develop a supportive relationship and go along for the ride.
Best for:
Bold, brave brands that don’t offer a high liability product/service.
Pros:
They take off because audiences are naturally engaged. You’ll get supercharged brand good will if handled correctly.
Cons:
These kismet lightning strikes are impossible to replicate. You can’t plan for these, so you’re at the whim of your employees. They’re also delicate – too much corporate support and the balloon deflates.
What you need:
An open mind and strong social listening tools. Educate your leadership teams in advance so they’re ready to greenlight engagement as soon as it happens and update employee handbooks to allow for creativity.
Formalize a program that encourages employees to post
Empower your employees to become brand advocates with incentives. Offer prompts to help guide the content they put out and decide what your threshold is for creative license.
Best for:
Brands with big resources and great employee programs.
Pros:
You increase your odds of scoring big when you invite your employees to take their shot. In the past, employees were reprimanded for using company time or featuring company logos, so formalizing the program gives permission that might bring a star out of the woodwork.
Cons:
This approach has two major hurdles. The first is massive infrastructure to facilitate vetting, creative briefing, and training for these employees. The second is that they live in a gray area – sanctioned by the company, but not professionally trained to be the face of your brand. Their missteps may feel more closely tied to the brand and you’ll need a tight approval workflow that could take some of the joy out of their content.
What you need:
A clearly outlined process and expectations. A platform for employee training and communication. Tangible incentives like cash, perks, or prizes. Enthusiastic employees (aka people who feel taken care of an informed).
Own an EGC database for brand-owned social.
Enlist your most charismatic, quirky, or knowledgeable employees to share their brand love. Support them with scripts, training, and filming assistance to get content made, then trust your social team to deploy it when the time is right.
Best for:
Smaller brands with a tight-knit team or brands that require accuracy and legal or industry compliance.
Pros:
You regain control when you own the database. Content is approved before it goes live and all engagement spotlights brand channels rather than an individual’s account. You still get the cred of a real person talking about you and it can humanize your brand to see the people behind it.
Cons:
You lose the magic of spontaneous EGC. Users recognize that they’re rallying behind a whole company, not just an individual. This method also requires some heavy lifting from your marketing team, too: scripting, asset management, and a whooooole lot of training.
What you need:
Bandwidth on your marketing team, charismatic employees, and planning. Start with group trainings for the employees who will be in front of the camera, then plan for internal video shoots, editing timelines, and thoughtful briefs.
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EGC is a powerful tool that comes with some risk and incredible reward when done right. A good social media strategy incorporates EGC as one piece of your content plan and a good consultant can help you identify which path supports your strategy and your risk threshold.