Vodafone Spain setting new brand advocacy standards with Haiilo Share

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The telecommunications industry is changing and innovating seemingly faster than it takes to make a phone call. As a tech company, Vodafone Spain is heavily prioritizing employees as it aims to be a forerunner in its employee advocacy goals.

In its partnership with Haiilo, Vodafone Spain has seen a 321% return on investment (ROI).

Today, the company is on a successful quest to offer a diverse and inspiring workplace for its more than 4,000 passionate employees.

In late 2020 many of its employees were working remotely from home office locations several months into the global pandemic.

At the time, Vodafone Spain was pursuing new ways to enhance its content distribution to its staff while developing new ways to create a more solidified approach to brand advocacy.

Part of the renewed social engagement strategy meant a shift in separating itself from increased paid advertising spend to improve its bottom line while also improving its social media reach.

Building an advocacy program from the ground up

Vodafone Spain didn’t yet have a process or a dedicated platform to distribute its wholesome brand content to its employees nor for employees to share that content via their social networks.

This challenge made Haiilo the perfect partner at the right time.

Vodafone Spain required a new process and devoted platform to enable employees to receive company updates and news items. The platform would also need to act as a facilitator to allow its passionate employee base to renew themselves as brand ambassadors.

Seamless ramp-up and integration of Haiilo Share

Haiilo Share is the world’s premium platform and solution for employee advocacy, allowing employees to become true brand ambassadors with ease.

Before launching the Haiilo Share platform in late 2020, Vodafone Spain informed employees of its plans and received immediate interest and buy-in from its passionate base of employees and soon-to-be brand ambassadors.

The company instantly filled 250 user seats on the Haiilo Share platform, keeping the current 250-seat capacity filled ever since.

“We measured the interest from all of our employees, allowing them to decide if this was something they were interested in doing,” says Roberto Tamayo, Local & Global Social Media Lead at Vodafone.

Haillo Share usability has been a game-changer

One of the many benefits of the Haiilo Share platform compared to other competitors in the industry is the intuitive user experience and easy navigation.

Without the right processes and tools in place, brand ambassador and employee advocacy programs often become a job for those employees. They quickly lose interest and motivation to continue promoting for the company on their social media profiles.

Haiilo Share offers Vodafone Spain employees the ability to quickly and simply log into the platform and share content.

From an employee and usability standpoint, Vodafone Spain employees have praised Roberto and the social media team for choosing Haiilo Share, considering how easy it has been to use.

“In just 1 or 3 clicks, the content is there for colleagues to share on their LinkedIn or Twitter pages,” says Roberto.

This easy sharing by employees of relevant content to their professional social networks — many of whom will be from similar industries and backgrounds — is where the impact of Haiilo Share shines for customers.

Saving time with a more organic approach to sharing brand content

Before Haiilo Share, sharing content was a long-winded and challenging task that the Vodafone Spain team saw minimal impact from — if any.

Posting news and information single-handedly from a company’s LinkedIn or Twitter account doesn’t have nearly the impact that hundreds of passionate employees have in sharing that same content to their own relevant social networks, which is what Haiilo Share enables them to do.

“The impact we have today with 250 passionate brand ambassadors sharing content to their individual social networks is significantly larger than anything we had before because not only do we have more of our employees involved, but it feels more honest, and they’re also helping develop their own personal brands too,” says Rebeca Navarro, Global Head of Resourcing, Vodafone Group.

Relevant third-party content about Vodafone Spain or other industry-related topics relevant to the company is also simple to propose and share through Haiilo Share.

Alberto Losada Sampayo is responsible for Vodafone Spain’s technical processes and tools, including the Haiilo Share platform. He has also taken an active role in proposing content that falls outside the company’s internally-created material.

“It’s important to share not only our own material that we create in-house and put a lot of work into creating, in addition to balancing and including outside content relevant to our industry”, says Alberto.

During the first three quarters after launching Haiilo Share, Vodafone Spain saw nearly 100,000 engagements, including 39,000 reactions and 46,000 clicks.

New paths to new insights with Haiilo Share

With its AI-powered analytical platform, Haiilo Share is a differentiator offering the ability to easily ascertain new, tangible insights and valuable data that businesses like Vodafone Spain can use in developing and modifying their brand advocacy strategy.

The platform provides an easy and intuitive dashboard from automated reports to communication analytics, allowing companies to see their social reach and engagement.

In just the first nine months of joining the platform, Vodafone Spain had generated more than $200,000 in estimated earned media value (EEMV). 70% of content proposed by employees gets published on Haiilo Share – which contributes to active employee involvement and fosters a more authentic tone of voice – which is best practice for any employee advocacy program.

“These are incredible figures, and Vodafone Spain’s success with Haiilo Share this early on is a testament to their engaged employees,” says Muneet Dohil, Customer Success Director at Haiilo.

Gamifying employee advocacy with a customized spin

Gamification plays a prominent role in Vodafone Spain’s brand advocacy mission and has done so since the beginning of the journey. Gamification for Vodafone Spain has helped to sustain and nurture their approach and success with Haiilo Share.

Roberto and the team established a gamification program where their employees receive points in three different areas, including sharing content, proposing new shared content and engaging with shared content.

The team even created the program alongside employees to fully involve them and increase the level of commitment and buy-in. This included naming the employee advocacy program, where employees had proposed different names.

“The most voted name and what we’re calling our employee advocacy program is The Social Watch, which includes some parallels to The Game of Thrones,” says Roberto. “Our top performers and winners are rewarded with everything from branded hoodies and apparel to professional photograph sessions, and we’ve gotten tremendous feedback from our advocates.”

In working together with other employees, Roberto, Rebecca and Alberto feel the gamification aspect is in a good place and helping keep motivation high.

Collaborating with a solution-oriented Haiilo team

In the beginning, when their partnership commenced, Haiilo supported Vodafone Spain with the easy-to-implement platform.

In addition, the Haiilo team worked with Vodafone Spain to host an information and learning session alongside the company’s 10 channel managers, ensuring they would be able to jump right into the platform and start moderating and approving content.

“We’ve been thrilled with our collaboration alongside Haiilo so far and couldn’t be happier,” says Roberto. “The usability, data and insight factors have been excellent for us, and the Haiilo product support team has been there to support and advise us immediately anytime we’ve needed”.

Actions speak louder than words for Vodafone Spain and Haiilo

The Vodafone Spain brand and employees have all benefited, with employees building up their professional networks while promoting and advocating for Vodafone Spain.

After all, actions speak louder than words, and Vodafone Spain has delivered a successful employee advocacy strategy and implementation at a rapid pace.

“I strongly recommend Haiilo Share’s brand advocacy solution and continue to do so with my professional network,” says Roberto. “The insights we get are making a big impact for our business and the customer support is premium, which is what differentiates Haiilo from its competitors.”