How Ernest's rebrand succeeded with employee empowerment

In his book "Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us", Daniel Pink explains that people aren’t only motivated by rewards and recognition. Their real, lasting motivators are Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose – and it’s influenced the path we’re taking at SocialKred. Because people want to feel trusted. They want to get better at what they do. And they want their work to matter. That’s exactly what we empower with our tech: Autonomy - Employees can create and share content in their own voice, in a way that reflects their company’s brand, but also themselves. Mastery - As people share, post, and advocate, they build confidence, communication skills, and a stronger personal brand. Purpose - When they speak on behalf of the companies they work for, they feel more connected to its mission, and their place in it. When it’s done right, employee advocacy connects us, inspires us, and motivates us from the inside out. #EmployeeAdvocacy #EmployeeGeneratedContent #EmployerBranding #BrandAdvocacy #SocialKred

CEO: "We need to come up with some values for our new corporate identity..." Your heart sinks, because you know what's coming: - A long process that takes several months - Endless sessions round the board table conuslting and then reaching agreement - So many agendas it starts to feel like the houses of parliament. And for what? 4-7 words, most of which are taken from a pool of 15 or so that are used by 99% of other businesses across the world. And then once they're launched, most people who work there have no idea what they are, let alone enact them in their work and behaviour. I've been loving Matthew Burton on S2 of Educating Yorkshire Most of all, as a strategic marketer, I love the school motto of 'Be Nice, Work Hard'. The staff and teachers have a giggle about the incredible consistency at which its applied, and the syntax may be jumbled at times, but the culture, brand, communication and stakeholder experience all hang off it. And that's all that matters. There's a beautiful simplicity to it. We need to learn from this. It's not a marketing tagline, which has values that sit behind it. It's the values and tagline in a beautifully simple, plain english one liner. And real talk, wouldn't business and society be in a much better place right now if we just Work Hard and Be Nice? So next time you're planning an away day at a Spa Hotel and are tempted to break out the felt tips as the start of a 12 month process that will churn out Innovative, Caring, Sustainable and Inclusive as your 'new' company values - stop! Is there are another way? A simpler way, and a more effective way to affect organisational behaviour and brand? Will leave with a fantastic one liner from the show: "Your Values aren't your Values if you need to print them on the side of your cups".

As more brands move towards closed reviews, we’re seeing the impact of choosing a ‘relationship reset’ rather than a total restart. It’s about rediscovering the value in long-term partnerships - being honest about what’s working, what’s not, and where change can make the biggest difference. Our Founder Angus Crowther shared thoughts with Campaign UK this week on how this shift is helping brands and agencies rebuild stronger, more creative relationships. Because sometimes, it’s not about starting over, it’s about asking, Can we fix this first? That’s where some of the most powerful work of the year has come from: the opportunity to help brands and agencies reignite the magic, together.

What's in it for me? After 10+ years in employee advocacy, the thing that bugs me about so many EA tools is they're all primarily designed from the company point of view. HR dashboards and marketing metrics... this was their start point. And then marketers wonder why they struggle to get people using them in the long term. Or to get authentic content out of them. The tools try to force motivation with points and leadersboards and make it easy with pre-written posts. But it just doesn't work long term. I get it - no company is going to buy a tool if it doesn't serve their business needs. But this doesn't mean it should built like that. It's why after launching many employee advocacy programmes for major brands we decided to do things differently. We've built a new tool from the employee up - this is where we started. Our aim is to build a tool that was so useful to employees they would want to use anyway - whether the company was involved or not. The company admin tools - they're coming shortly in phase 2. Ghostart is currently in beta - let me know if you want to check it out. #employeeadvocacy

Here’s a stat that should wake marketing teams up: Posts personally authored by employees generate 9× more engagement than pre-written or templated company posts. What’s even more interesting? Slight edits to captions (just a small personalization) can 3× the engagement vs exact copy-paste. Bottom line: more content doesn’t win. More authenticity does. Where to start? Here’s an excellent guide on employee-generated content by Lewis Gray ⚡️: https://lnkd.in/eAjGHdis #ContentInsight #LinkedInTips #EmployeeAdvocacy

💡 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝, 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬. Lara Sophie Bothur’s story, recently featured in Business Insider, is more than an inspiring career journey. --> 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘺𝘦𝘦 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘤𝘺. <-- What began as a simple conversation with her 101-year-old grandfather about carsharing sparked an idea:👉 technology only becomes meaningful when it feels human and emotional. That realization turned Lara from a Tech Consultant at Deloitte into one of the world’s first #CorporateInfluencers, someone who brought innovation to life through authentic storytelling. One viral LinkedIn post later, she wasn’t just representing a company. She was embodying its voice, values and vision. And that’s the essence of modern #EmployerBranding. It’s not about polished campaigns or corporate slogans. It’s about empowering people like Lara, those who can translate your company’s purpose into stories that others feel linked and connected to. ✨ When organizations create space for authenticity, they don’t just attract talent. They inspire belonging, trust, and advocacy that no marketing budget can buy. Because every company has a Lara — the real question is: 🔹 Do you give them the platform / resources / freedom to be heard? Read her full story in the article in the first comment! #EmployerBrand #EmployeeAdvocacy #Leadership #HRStrategy #PeopleCulture #Storytelling

There’s a growing shift in how we think about employer branding. Instead of seeing employees as extensions of the company, we start to see them as micro-brands Each with their own voice, credibility, and audience. The company then becomes a brand portfolio, made up of the people within it. Humans have an innate desire to be seen, to create, to build reputation. So rather than suppressing that, forward-thinking companies harness it. That means building "Employee-as-Brand" systems that: → Support content creation and storytelling → Reward advocacy and visibility → Offer training in media and communication → Provide creative resources and IP clarity In these systems the employees' innate desires are amplified and rewarded - and channeled in to the brand. Whose workplace is already doing this? #employerbrand #employeeasbrand

Superbranding. Grammarly acquired Superhuman. Then changed their name to Superhuman. This is the first time I’ve heard of an acquiring company adopting their target’s brand. The case study for the rebrand has some beautiful details: https://lnkd.in/e6apGTfe

Here’s a stat that should wake marketing teams up: Posts personally authored by employees generate 9× more engagement than pre-written or templated company posts. What’s even more interesting? Slight edits to captions (just a small personalization) can 3× the engagement vs exact copy-paste. Bottom line: more content doesn’t win. More authenticity does. Where to start? Here’s an excellent guide on employee-generated content by Lewis Gray ⚡️: https://lnkd.in/gGVQqkJ9 #ContentInsight #LinkedInTips #EmployeeAdvocacy

What if getting employee videos were no longer a nightmare? Scaling up videos for employer brand used to be impossible for most companies. But authentic employee videos are now within reach. Real employees sharing authentic stories can now be collected without the usual production headaches.