Employee Advocacy on Social Media

Today's guest is one of the most creative minds I have ever known. She's the director and head of Asia at Sociible, which is the coolest company and you will find out why. She was awarded 40 under 40 Exemplary 6 Most Disruptive Minds by Agency Reporter in 2020 and winner of Social Media Superwoman 2021. She has lived the Emily in Paris life and she started working with the current company. If you're already impressed. Wait, there's more. She's the author of two books, both of which are available on Amazon and have fantastic ratings. One of her story, alongside 24 other writers was featured in a book published by Penguin Random House India and Ramani. Now she also runs Pink Thread along with her co founder where they celebrate stories and drive change for the women of corporate India. I'm super pumped for this one as we discuss an interesting topic, employee advocacy. She's got a long name. Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Krusha Sejwani Malkhani.

Come on.

So welcome to 16th episode of Sales Spin. I can't believe it's been four months already and today we have no one. We have Krusha Kusha Sahajmani. Did I take your last name right?

Yes, that's right. I have one more, but that'll do.

You have a middle name, right?

No, I'm just. I'm married so I not replaced my surname, just added it.

Sajwani is not your name, which Sajwani.

Is my surname and Malka N is my husband's surname. So really long full name.

Yeah, I mean that'd be kms.

You can just say Krisha. We can leave it at that and leave out the last names.

That's pretty interesting. So Krishna, I think I did some. I spent some time reading about your company, reading about you, reading about your background. However, that's something which I know I would. I'm sure listeners and viewers would both probably want to hear, you know, what's your background before we actually jump onto the real topic.

Sure. So, okay, couple of things, I guess. So I'm from Bombay, born and brought up here, lived here most of my life except I studied in Singapore for a bit and I worked in Paris for a bit. Actually where I worked in Paris was with the company. I still am with sociable. So I worked with them for a couple of months there and then brought the company to India ever since. So it's been a couple of years and it's still what I do. So. So I'm the director and head of Asia For Sociible, which is an employee advocacy and communication platform. And outside of that, I guess I write. I write a lot, every time I can. So LinkedIn, Instagram stories, fiction, and I run the pink thread with Kimaya, which is just an initiative to have conversations about women in corporate India.

Wow. That was something I wanted to talk to you about. And I had kept that for the last. But thank you for bringing that up. So let's start from the beginning. So you said you were in Paris, so can we probably have a thumbnail which might say Krishna in Paris? Like Paris?

So in fact, when that show came out, everyone who knew me asked me if I'd seen that show and told me they thought of me when they saw it. I mean, of course it's exaggerated, but I had the issue as well. I had the drainage issue as well. It's true. And I had a really troubling landlady with the. With the drainage issue. So there was a little bit of relatability. I just didn't have the hot neighbor.

But yeah, okay. I hope your husband doesn't watch it. But yeah, no, I think I also felt it was, like, very exaggerated. I mean. I mean, we all have traveled, right? And we all have seen the lives. And you have lived there, right, for two months, you said, and it was nothing.

Seven.

Yeah, seven months. Oh, wow.

Yeah, seven months.

Wow. Okay. See, it was nothing like what we have seen the city as. So, yeah, totally exaggerated.

I love the city, to be honest.

Of course. That's my favorite city.

Amazing, amazing city. Yeah. That's good to hear.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like, the only city I would want to travel again. You were in Singapore, right? You would finish your master's from there?

Yes, exactly. So I studied at a French university, but at the Singapore campus.

Wow. Okay, so tell me. Tell me something about your masters. Like, what's your major in?

So that's actually interesting. I majored in international business, which, ironically, is what I'm doing today, which is not the case with most people, but I didn't know if I'm being honest at that time. The only reason I did international business was I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do next. I'd already done. I had work experience in social media and in public relations, but I didn't know what came next. So I didn't want to restrict myself to an MBA in marketing or in finance, because. So I just didn't want to specialize if I'm being completely honest. And I wanted international exposure. So those were the only two things I had in mind. And that's why I chose the mib, the Masters in International Business.

That's pretty cool.

I mean, worked out, so I'm lucky. But I have to be honest that it wasn't planned.

Most best things are not planned. Right?

Yeah.

So I wanted to ask you again since you said, you know, you finished your major in International business. Is that something which people can, let's say, pursue in India if they want to, or is that something only, you know, because it is international, you have to really go out.

So I mean, I'm sure we have a lot of courses here as well now where you get. So for me. So there are two parts to the studying international business. One is studying the subjects which I think you can definitely do from here as well. Like we studied things like negotiation and culture and things like that. But the second part, which maybe is more important is just studying with different people from different countries. So that's something I got there. I'm sure you can still find it in courses in India as well. But I would say to just make sure you do have candidates coming in from elsewhere here in that case so that you can get that exposure.

Makes sense. I mean, it's international business. So you travel internationally.

Yeah, if you can. Definitely. I definitely have to say I came with the privilege of, you know, I didn't have to take loans to do that. I had my family could, could pay for my education abroad. So it was, it's a privilege I'm very aware of and hold very, very dearly to me. So I don't recommend like, not my school of thought to like, you know, put yourself under loans. There's today with the Internet, just lots of ways to learn and network even internationally without doing that.

But there's still a charm to, you know, live outside the country.

You know, it's a great experience. Like if you can do it, do it. I will not take any of it back. But I that I understand that not everyone can and there are different ways. I wouldn't do it at the expense of a loan, but if you can do it, do it.

Exactly. So I think there was a time when my parents would push me for mba and I said if I want to do mb, I want to probably travel outside the country and I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to actually study. I mean, the last thing I want to do is study more.

A lot of the studying happens off the classroom. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. Nice. I think I've been following you on instagram for a while. I really, really love the way you write. So tell us something how you got into writing and maybe if you could give us some tips like how anybody can better their writing.

Firstly, thank you. So I have to say I don't cross promote my platforms a lot. Like if you see my LinkedIn, not a lot of people who follow me on LinkedIn follow me on Instagram. So you're in niche. So I appreciate it. I think writing to me actually is one of the first things it's not something I had to find. Like it's not, you know, something I had to sit down and decide I want to work at or decide I want to pursue. So even as a kid I would always write a diary. I would write things to make it rhyme when I had a thought. So every time I thought I wrote it was just. It's just how my brain processes information even outside of what I post. I think as I kept growing up, you know, when I was lucky to have people around me who every time they read anything I wrote, even without me putting it on a public platform, you know, they always said things like you should be a writer and you know, your writing should be out there. I'm quite a practical person, I guess, if I have to put it that way. So unfortunately I'd say, you know, for writing to pay the way it should because it takes a lot of work. If you really write books and things like that, it, it's a one off shot. So I think in my head I never had the idea that I would grow up to only be a writer also because I like doing multiple things. But I did decide that I, I pursue writing. So I never stopped writing. Ironically it was when I was in Paris. I think the city does that to you. Was the first time I submitted like some blog work. So my first I think advice would be that if you think you can write, just write and submit it if you want anywhere. Because what's the worst that can happen? So that got accepted. Whatever I put in, I think thought catalog was the blog at that time. So it was just, you know, articles on life. And then I think it's over the last two years that I took place, you know, to part in these short story contests and things like that. And that's where fiction writing came into place. And so I started my Instagram page to just write thoughts that are not business at all. They're just purely thoughts on observation of Life. And my LinkedIn writing actually came from Sociible because employee advocacy, right is the idea of putting your employees on social media and letting them speak for your company and your product, your industry. So I was always pushed to do that of course because that's the idea behind what we sell. So I started doing it through resharing of sociable content and then slowly I was encouraged to write my own articles in the industry. And then now LinkedIn's become a place where you can talk about things even beyond what you do, I guess. So that made space for more writing.

That is pretty interesting. Yeah. I think you're being modest here, Krish. I correct me if I'm wrong. Aren't you like a published author on Amazon? You have published like one or two.

Books so I'd say so. I'm not being modest. I'm genuinely. I've published like a novella which is like an ebook. So it's not a novel. It was a short book which was actually published. I'd written it in just three weeks and I published it for a contest that Amazon was running. I didn't win, but I was in the upper running and that actually pushed me to start writing an actual novel. So I finished writing a novel right now. Actually haven't said that anywhere on a public forum yet. But I'm in the process of figuring out what the publishing looks like for it. But outside of that I have published short stories. So I have a short story with Penguin and one with a chapter and a Harper's book but that's within a collection of other authors stories and all of that is a big deal last.

Year that is a big deal. I mean publishing with Penguin, I mean I used to. I remember. I think I probably have few books like somewhere I don't know. Yeah, I think I suck at writing so I don't leave a chance to learn from anybody and everything.

I would not say so. I mean I've read your LinkedIn posts. I don't.

I would say, I would say. I wouldn't say. Those are great. I mean I know people like you. I know people like there's another guy I really admire. I mean your writing is like leaps and bounds ahead of me. So yeah, give us like one one point or probably one teaching, you know, how people can better their writing. I've tried everything but maybe, maybe the bar I'm setting up too is too high.

No, yeah. I have to say one, I think you're being hard on yourself because your writing is good. I read your recent post on mental health and I loved it. But if I honestly, if I have to give an advice, it's going to sound maybe not intellectual, but the best advice is write. A lot of people think they can write, and so then they write a little and then they stop writing. But like everything else, you get better at something when you keep doing it. So write is one the others read. So if you feel like your writing is not good enough, when you read other people's writing that inspires you, it helps you get better. And the third is edit. So I don't do that. I have to confess, I don't edit a lot when it comes to my social media posts, but that's also because I've been writing for long. But when it comes to stories or anything I'm writing, the first draft is awful. So I really depend on the versions of editing. So that would be my third advice.

Got it. I think I've been writing a lot. I've been reading, like I would say not as much as other people do, and I know other people, but I'm sure editing is definitely one thing I'm probably suck at. So, yeah, that's a good advice. And yeah, let's move on to the actual topic for today. So today's topic is employee advocacy. If I'm being honest, I think I've heard the term numerous times, but I never spent any time in really learning about it. So tell us everything about employee advocacy. Why should we know about it? And why haven't all of us heard about it ever?

Sure. So yeah, I think employee advocacy, like I explained, you know, employee advocacy is just basically your employees becoming your advocates on social media to become your voice for you. So employees who are your advocates. It's as simple as that. If I have to go back though, when, when I was looking and looking for a job at Sociable, I came across it. I read, you know, interesting interviews and I didn't know what employee advocacy was as well. That time I kind of stumbled upon it. I just found the concept really interesting. I just wondered why we weren't doing this already. And this at this time, it was even nascent in global, like in the west, it was still not big in the west as well in 2015. So that's where I saw the company grow from. I brought it to India in 2017, where at that time even a lot of digital marketers themselves didn't know what employee advocacy was in India. So it wasn't a term that was being thrown around a lot. I think then in 2018 or towards the end of 2018, the term started being thrown around. But again, people, it wasn't an urgency. It wasn't always a priority. People didn't really understand why to do it or how to do it. And I think now in India, we're in a position where we're getting in sales terms, you know, more inbound, where over the last year, I've seen companies themselves realizing, you know, that, okay, this is something we need to do, we have to do. Let's reach out to the people who know how to do it. And it's become part of marketing plans, which I think was only in an exploratory stage before this.

Got it. So from what I understand, let's say I work for a company X and company X is doing, or let's say promoting a blog on LinkedIn, for example. So what I'm understanding is I'm promoting that bland brand. I'm promoting that blog or let's say any post or anything right on. On my social media. And they're taking advantage of it like the brand. Everybody went. So that what the idea is.

Yeah, the idea is, you know, as a company, you produce so much content, right? You produce today, you produce content every time you want to recruit, to build your employer brand. You produce content to market your product or your service. You produce content that's, you know, supportive in the sense of W papers or webinars that you're hosting, events that you're doing. There's just so much that you're trying to talk about. And I think if I have to explain this in an easy way, everyone today knows influencer marketing, right? Which is the idea that you reach out to influencers to talk about your brand on social. So I think what employee advocacy and what we try to say is that your best influencers are actually in house. These are people, you know, you don't have to pay a lot of money to talk about one thing that now looks like an ad. Because even influencer marketing, marketing is slowly starting to look like everyone knows what's paid for, right, and what's an ad. Whereas with your employees, if they really believe in what you're doing, it's authentic. So the idea is you make that content available to them, to your employees, every time you have something new that's going out and make it easy for them with a click to share that content, of course, with their choice, when they want, what they want to their pages, like their personal LinkedIn, their personal Instagram or wherever else they want, and become the voice, because they are probably the people who are connected to the people you want to hire. They're Connected to the people you want to sell to, your sales teams, you know, they're connected to your clients who you want to be hearing more about you. So I think it's just a great digital word of mouth.

Wow, this is actually getting interesting. I'll tell you why. Think about. I mean, I have a large network and let's say if I were to, you know, negotiate with a future employer, I can always say, hey, I bring it. I bring like, you know, real estate, digital real estate, which you probably would not have with other, other people you hire. Right. And this, this could actually work for everybody, you know, who has. Probably has a strong influence on LinkedIn or any of the social media. So that, that can actually work in their favor.

This is, that's actually a great point because. So I actually hadn't looked at it that way. That's a great point. But, but you're right, you know what you said, in fact, you. And maybe I would call you maybe a super ambassador at the company. Right? So even when you're so there's so many nuances at advocacy program, also, you know, you're gonna have people who are already great at social, so you want them to obviously be your voice on social and you want to groom the others as well so that they can get there. And the good thing with, with what's happening today is, and you know this, if you're on LinkedIn, you know, personal branding is kind of, I think I can't go onto LinkedIn without seeing a topic on like a post on personal branding as every third post. It's so big right now, right. Everyone's talking about it. So of course your employees are feeling it too, right? They're feeling the pressure of having to be on social. And there are two reasons. So we, we've been probably hearing about personal brand like, okay, you need to have a good personal brand because it helps you get a better job. It helps you, you know, retain your job in a way if you want to, for whatever, you know, for your social media, if that's something your company looks at and that's one part of it. But, but what we don't talk about enough is it's also not just something that's good to have, but a necessity soon sales. If we just take sales as a function. Cold calling is dying. Even in a country like India, where it'll probably die last. It's still dying in the sense we still have a Gen Z and millennial generation who don't want to pick up your phone and talk to a Stranger and listen to what you want to sell. So how are you going to get my attention today? If someone wants to. And I'm being completely transparent, if someone is trying to sell something to me, the likelihood of them being able to sell that to me by picking up their phone and giving me a call is close to zilch because I'm on the phone and I'm on like conversations and things every day. I don't want to talk to something that's not scheduled into my calendar. So how do you get to me? You get to me where I am, right. I'm on LinkedIn. You drop me a message and maybe I find what you're saying interesting. And now think about how I'm more likely to respond to that message. I'm more likely to respond to your message if you, if I've seen you talking about what you're telling me about already on LinkedIn, I've seen other people comment on it. Maybe you've been commenting on my post. You know, we've had some kind of digital interaction that builds your credibility for the message you've sent me and now increases your likelihood that I'm going to reply to you. Maybe you set up a call and maybe you eventually even make a sale. So I think employees, we need to understand that employee advocacy has gone from a good to have to a must have. Yeah. Because if your sales teams and your recruiters, you know, marketing teams, are not on social media today and they're not your voice on social media today, then there's a problem. And even if you don't see it today, you're going to see it soon, in the coming years.

Got it. So I think I totally get that from an employer prospective perspective. Right. I'll be very honest. While I understand some aspect of it benefiting the employee, for example, since your platform is kind of built on it, where do you see this benefits the employee as much as it benefits the employer?

That's actually a great question. So it's one I generally always hope that my clients ask me, prospects ask me, because it's the best way your program will work long term as well. You have to think about what's in it for the employee. So I'd say there are a few short term things and there are a few long term things. So when I'm talking short term, you know, when you have an employee advocacy program, of course the best way to do it is having the right platform to do it. And your good platforms are going to have, you know, equip you with tools such as gamification and things like that, wherein, you know, you can encourage your employees through a point system, through badges, through, you know, different kind of we, what we do through gamification. Also, because I think this might be a question that might come up. If not, it's come up to me, so I'll put it out. There is, I've got questions saying, but is it, is it interesting to reward employees to share content? Right? Like, should we be rewarding employees to share content? And I'd say my answer is yes, because it's not. Of course, your employee advocacy program shouldn't be built on, okay, you share, you get a reward, right? It can't be you only share when you get a reward. But if you're sharing enough and you can get rewarded for it, it serves as a short term incentive and your reward need not be monetary. Like what we do at Sociible is a lot of our clients gift their employees trees that are actually planted in the world. So how nice is it that if you are becoming an advocate for your company or saving the world by planting trees, it's something that's working with the current generation especially. So that's one part of it. You know, short term, things like gamification badges, like a good gamification framework can help in the short term, and what helps in the long term is something deeper. So it's understanding that you and me today, maybe I like writing, so it comes easy to me to share content on LinkedIn. Correct? Because I can, I can create content and it's not as difficult for me as maybe it would be for someone else who's trying to build a personal brand who's not a writer. And not everyone who has a personal brand should be a writer. Just an unfair advantage, right? So maybe this person wants to do it and they often don't know what to share. There's also, you know, a lot of hesitation. For example, if you are an employee and you, you really are keen on talking about your company or talking about your industry because maybe you are proud of the company you work at or you're actually interested in the industry you're in and that's what you want to talk about. But there are questions like, okay, do I have the time to find the right content? There are questions like, if I'm talking about my company, am I going to get in trouble? Like, am I saying the right thing? If I'm talking about my industry, have I wetted what I've said? You know, there could be a hesitation and where do I find this content and is this the right content to share? So first by, you know, building an advocacy program as a company, you're also making this convenient for your employees. You're giving them the content already and then they get to, you know, add their voice to it or choose what they want to share, when they want to share, where they want to share, but you're giving them the base so they know this is vetted content, this is good content. And I'm taking this out and adding my voice and I don't need to spend that much time and effort making this happen. Right. So I think that's a big one. And also when you have this content that you're making available to your employees through the advocacy program on your platform, I tell all my clients that don't only give company content.

So that is a good one.

Another way to sustain this is today, if I was only sharing social content on my LinkedIn, I don't think I would get the traction on my social content that I get because I also share the content. So it's important for you to understand that you also don't as a company have a short term view saying, I just want my advocate to talk about my company. And that's all. So let them spam. Spam doesn't work on social. The reason employee advocacy work better than your digital ads and you know, paid promotions today is because the consumer is smart. They know that what is an ad and they know when an employee sharing it, it's coming from a person's profile and I trust it more. That's why my engagement with it is higher. So the moment you mess that up and you start, you know, spamming it, then you lose what makes employee advocacy special. You lose what makes employee advocacy work.

Got it. I do have a follow up question on that, Krishna. So I think what I've seen with most of the organizations, and I work with plenty in the past four years, is that, you know, most of the time what happens is there would be someone from the marketing team who would share the content which is going live, let's say on company's website, and they would ask everybody to share, you know, on their social media through Slack. Right. That's how it happens.

Yeah.

So I want to understand why is that process, process broken and where does your tool kind of come into picture? Like why do companies need your tool?

So it's a couple of things. I'll start with one that I think is most obvious, which is measurability. So today, if your if your marketing team is sending you a message about a new post and simply on WhatsApp or on Slack, and you're sharing it, they have no way to know if you've viewed it, if you've shared it, how many of you have shared it. Once you've shared it, what happened to that content? So I think it's very interesting for companies. See, at the end of the day, everything for a company boils down to business. So to match your business objectives and to know why employee advocacy is working and how it's working, you need to be able to measure things like, okay, if my, If I have 4,000 employees, how many of them are actively sharing, who are the ones who have, you know, high reach? Like, you mentioned yourself, right? With one view, I should be able to see who are my, you know, top advocates. And you have top advocates in different ways. You want to be able to see who are the people sharing a lot, who are the people with a high reach, who are the ones getting a lot of external clicks from their audience. And it need not be the same. The people who share the most may not get the most clicks and vice versa. So you can encourage them in different ways, support them in different ways. You want to be able to take that ahead and say, okay, I know that my employees are viewing my content. I know now that they're sharing my content, but what happens after they share? Is it getting a lot of external clicks? Am I saving on paid media? How much am I saving? Is it generating website traffic? For me, the ones coming on my website through the advocacy program, is it leading to conversion? So you can really go deeper with your employee advocacy program? It's more than just content and share. It leads to measurability and what that means for your business. So I think that's the biggest one. And then the second one is just, you know, like I said, having an exciting platform built in with like, challenges and gamification, all the content in one place, easy searchability for your employees. It just also makes it a lot easier for them to want to do this because see the message on, you know, WhatsApp or somewhere in the middle of their day, they're not sure which is the most important content. You send them one today and you send them another one three days ago. Is this a campaign? Posts, you know, they don't have context and they don't have that, that platform where they can talk to each other, comment on posts internally as well, win points when they do something, win badges, create content themselves, like make them part of the process Today, so many employees are creating such good content if you give them a chance. Like on sociible, employees can also suggest their own content to the administration and if it's approved, then other colleagues can also share that. So why won't the employee want a way for their own post to be advocated by their colleagues? Right? So it's another. You can just find a lot of these. Why would my employee do it if you have a platform to organize all of that?

I think this is all very interesting, although it's a little new. But at the same time I think I can totally see this difference. You know, this can create in one's brand and I'll tell you where I'm coming from. And I think this is something which I've already shared in on LinkedIn sometime back. So I use a tool to measure how my LinkedIn posts perform. So it's like, it's like a similar tool, you know what, what you, what you guys have for the whole company, I use something for my own, my own self. So I can see, hey, for example, last year I had, let's say close to a million views in the year. This year I can already see where I am. Am I on track? I mean, let's say if I had a target of let's say 1.5 or 2 million, am I on the track? At the same time I can also see which posts are performing. I think based on the plan I have, I probably don't see everything. But yeah, there are posts where there, there are plans where it can also suggest, you know, this proposal, let's say performing better than the others, which helps me understand what did I do different in that particular post so that I can do more of it. Right? So I'm guessing that something on the same line. So I can totally join a lot of those thoughts.

So tell me, that's a good point. Sorry to know. I just want to say that even on sociable, just like, like the admins have access to this so much data, right? About what's working. And not even employees have their own data. So even employees can see on social itself like okay, if from the tool I've shared 10 posts in the last 15 days, which are the posts that got me how many clicks. So how did each perform? Where have I been sharing things like that? So everyone has their own set of statistics as well. So, so that's another like what's in it for the employee?

This is actually becoming interesting because so far, and it is something which I almost deal on A daily basis. Because I speak to a lot of SDRs when I'm interviewing them, right? And I ask them, hey, I don't see that you're actually active on LinkedIn. How are you generating meetings from. And they're saying, you know what? I'm actually posting my company's content. And then my first question to them is, hey, I see one of your posts from the company's blog was three weeks ago, and it got like, one like that, too, from the employee. How do you justify that? Right? And that happens a lot. So let's talk about this. Like, is there a particular stage of the company when companies should look for employee advocacy? Or is that something which companies can start irrespective of what stage they are in?

That's a very interesting question. I'd say there's. I mean, I, you know, have. We work with companies with even less than 50 or less than 100 employees. So I'd say you don't have to really wait to become, you know, a company with thousands of employees to start employee advocacy. There are two things that I'd say, though. So the platform stays the same, right? You just can cater what features you turn on and off. That's the beauty of SaaS. But the platform stays the same. I'd say what changes is strategy. So, yeah, so, I mean, we work with companies even with less than 50 or less than 100 employees. So I'd say you don't have to wait to be a really large company to start an employee advocacy program. Also, the platform stays the same. So the beauty of SAS is that, you know, you can turn features on and off, ad licenses, things like that. So it's very easy and flexible. Right. But what changes is strategy. So I won't deploy the platform to 100 people the same way I would to 100,000 people. Because if we start looking at. If I'm deploying for a company with 100,000 employees based in multiple countries, who speak multiple languages across different departments, Maybe some. Some people work in the office, some work at home, some work in the factory. Right? So these are all things that would add layers to your program, let's say. So even on the tool, like, for example, you'd be able to make sure certain content is reaching certain employees and not reaching others. And also just maybe you decide to deploy it in waves, right? So those kind of things change, let's say, in terms of strategy. And of course, at the end of the day, anything is a numbers game. So obviously, if you have more employees, your voice is Louder on social, that's normal. But that doesn't mean again that's the case overall with a 50% company or 100,000 person company, they have more budgets, they have more people, they have just larger numbers. But I'd like to say that in fact in a smaller company your impact, even though when you're comparing the numbers might be smaller but if you're talking about just within your company, the impact might actually be really. Because you're going to have, you know, people easy. You know, you have 50 people who are probably really committed to the company. You can, you have a lot of bandwidth to see who's doing what. There's only one admin and it's just quicker maybe, I'd say. And the impact personally from you might be really large. Like you might start seeing, you know, lead gen website traffic, which is bigger for a bigger company, but within your bandwidth that's gonna feel large. If that makes sense.

Totally does. I think this is becoming interesting because so far I think employees would be a little lethargic in terms of hey, I don't want to share or you know, I mean, I mean they don't understand the purpose beside you know, somebody like pointing them, hey, can you share? Can you share? And all that. But I think now this, this can actually, with the gamification. Yeah, this could actually take. Go to another level.

Yeah, we need to stop that. Can you share? You know, because that's what I also mean by having like a proper organized platform which is dropping a message that seems incessant or annoying to the employee. Right. They need to understand from the beginning that there's a lot in it for them and it's great for the company, but it's also really interesting for them.

Yeah. I think even without a tool, I think what companies of realize have kind of failed to do is making the employees understand what's in it for them. Them. And no matter how much we can say, hey, I'm committed to the company, which a lot of people are, it does not mean that they would actually be committed that they actually go and share. A lot of people on LinkedIn are not even active. So sometimes, you know, I mean you can, you can have this product thing right where you are sharing this like once in a lifetime. It has to be done on a regular basis. Just like you said, if you're, if you suck at writing, keep writing. Right, right. More.

Right. Yeah. Consistency is big. And I think to that I have to say this, that it's also top down. Right. If you just plug in an employee advocacy program by the marketing team, and they simply send out an email for you to join. Even a platform, it's not going to work long term. You have to have a strategy, a communication plan to make this happen. Your top management needs to be involved. Better yet, they need to be active themselves, right on the platform, have the right profile to be sharing. So. So those are also things that we need to understand. That's important. And also a lot of times, I think, you know, like you said, if you're talking to SDRs, you're talking to maybe employees who you're feeling to understand why they are not getting active when the benefits are so clear in your head, like this is so clear why you're doing it. So sometimes it's about, of course, making sure they know the benefits, but then the second part is also guiding them. And that's what with, like, with the tool and with the strategy. It helps. Right. They don't know where to start often and how to keep up. So make their life easy. Give. Give them an easy way to do it.

Yeah, absolutely. I think we are approaching toward the last leg of the interview, so I think I'd like you to talk a little bit more about the pink thread. I actually could just had a glance at it, so I have no idea what it does.

Sure. So it's a passion project, really. It's actually something that I started with, with. With Kimaya. She works at Upgrad. We actually not. We weren't friends or colleagues. We just met at a lot of events pre Covid, of course, and we got to talking at these events and both of us had. Had worked studied abroad for a while, like for stints, and we were kind of both, of course, finding our way in in the corporate world in India with our. With our jobs. We were fairly young at it, right. And we were just feeling like when we were abroad, we used to listen to these podcasts or, you know, read these articles about women in corporate and, you know, the subjects, and it was inspiring. But we just felt like we wanted to hear that in India in the sense, you know, Indian women have their own set of pros and cons. I don't want to say, like, it's not just cons. We have maybe sometimes a better support system, sometimes worse, whatever it is. But our challenges and our opportunities are unique as a market, and we felt like we wanted to hear those stories. So I think it was a selfish motive in the beginning. We wanted to talk to more women leaders in corporate India and understand their stories, get Advice, you know, things like that. And we just thought if we are doing it anyway, might as well, like, make content out of it and let it reach more women probably like us, who want to hear that too. So we started right before the pandemic last year. We didn't know it was going to hit, so luckily we were able to meet and talk about it before it launched. And what we've been doing over the last year is every time we have time on the weekends, we just cover stories of interesting women leaders like Radhika Gupta and so many others on the platform who shared their story, shared tips. We try to cover different topics. Like this week we had Swati who covered the topic of side hustles and, you know, how to do it right since she's done it right. So, yeah, that's what it is. And we try to share blog articles about things that are pertinent, I'd say, to women in the industry. So period leave or maternity leave, for example, without going too much into detail, there are so many women who actually don't think the maternity leave has done them good. Good in the sense that they, of course, need the leave. But it's created hiring bias, it's created promotion bias, especially in smaller companies who I understand can't afford to, you know, hire someone who's going to just get paid for six months. They can't afford it as a company. So there's so many nuances and just so many interesting subjects to talk about there. So, yeah, that's. That's being thread in a nutshell.

Wow, this is actually awesome. Yeah. I'm going to check this out in and probably try to promote it in my way if I can. All right, let's move on to the. You're welcome. Let's move on to the last and final part, which is the rapid fire. It's pretty easy for you.

Oh, okay.

Okay. So I think this helps me get to know the real person. Yeah.

Do I get a basket at the end?

Am I competing with someone?

No.

It'S not for the money. I. I'll plant a tree for you.

Give me a basket of trees.

Yeah, I'll plant a tree for you.

Okay, I'll take that.

All right. Your favorite color, pink. Your favorite pastime.

Writing, reading.

Your favorite city other than Mumbai and Paris.

So it's this small Caribbean island called St. Lucia.

Oh, where is that?

Not a city, but it's in the US It's a Caribbean island. I had gone there for one of the places I went during my honeymoon, and it Was really nice.

My geography is pretty bad, so pardon me. Your favorite author.

That's really hard. And I'm really bad at names, but I'll say Paulo Coelho, like, Alchemist has stayed with me. Yeah. For a while.

Your favorite book, other than Alchemist.

Hopefully the one I'm gonna write.

Awesome. Okay. One thing you don't like about social media, that's the last one.

Two things. I think it's addictive, so I try to take as much time off it when I'm not working on it. So it's not my time to do just, you know, for time pass. I don't. I'm not there for that. And it's also. I hate the comparison. I hate that it makes people think that their lives are worse than everyone else.

Yeah, I think I can. I can imagine how it can do to certain people. Especially. Especially when people start, you know, forming an opinion of somebody based on what they see or based on what they read.

And the filters. The filters need to stop. I make it a point, for example, on my Instagram page, for my writing page as well, when I go live or if I'm. I really try to, you know, not have makeup on. I mean, not that it's a bad thing, but if. Or, you know, at least not if I make. If you, you know, if you like makeup, that's great, but at least not put the artificial filters on. That makes everyone else feel like, oh, you're the only one who doesn't have clear skin. Or, you know, you're the only one who doesn't own all the fancy bags or is always on holiday. So, yeah, I think we. It's responsibility on all of us to make sure it's. It's a nicer place for everyone else.

Absolutely. Yeah. I think. I think that could be actually one of the topic we can discuss maybe at some point of time. But yeah, this has been simply interesting. Thank you so much for coming on the show and I truly appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me and for covering a lot of different things.

Thanks for watching this video. If you like the video a teeny tiny bit. Would you like the video? Subscribe to the channel and tell me what you like. Throw your best insult at me. If you do not like any part and you would want me to improve, I promise you will not offend me. Seems like too much work. Right, let's start with subscribing and let me know in the comments what I should cover next. Thanks again.