Government

How Innovate UK turned their employees into brand advocates and grew their reach by 20x

Innovate UK assigned Camilla Barnes—Senior Digital Communications Executive—to lead the Amplify program. With a senior team member responsible for the program, Innovate UK ensured there was always content available for colleagues to share. This kept the content on-brand, relevant, and strategically aligned with broader marketing campaigns

Colleagues could easily share content based on their interests and preferences. With preapproved content loaded into Amplify, team members simply selected the posts that interested them, then share them with their network with a few clicks. It created a win-win situation: employees could share relevant content with minimal effort and in nearly no time, and Innovate UK grew the number of people viewing their content incrementally with every share.With a solution in place that helps time-strapped or less confident employees share social content, employee advocacy has become second nature at Innovate UK. That advocacy continues to grow each employee’s online presence, increasing their reach and influence as they share high-quality, engaging, and relevant content. 

An unexpected and valuable benefit of the Amplify program was the growth in team members’ sophistication and confidence using social media. As they grew comfortable sharing pre-approved Innovate UK posts, colleagues found their voice and started customizing content to resonate more with their individual networks, evolving and maturing their presence online and their influence in their industry.

Using Amplify to complement their social media plan, Innovate UK grew their audience size by an additional two million people. And people weren’t just seeing content that Innovate UK colleagues were posting—they were taking action, with Amplify content seeing a 70 percent engagement rate.

Beyond seeing the number of Amplify users and their audience grow, Innovate UK used the insights from Amplify’s reporting features to help educate and empower their team. Through tracking active sharers and identifying less avid posters, Innovate UK has been able to train and support colleagues less engaged in sharing on social, and help convert them into active advocates.