Warning this goes against the common advice and narrative that big employee advocacy platforms are pushing out, and for a damn good reason.
When it comes to promoting your brand, LinkedIn often sits at the top of the social media platform totem pole. Yet many companies struggle to get the one ingredient that can truly make or break their LinkedIn presence: active employee participation.
Employee content will amplify your message to networks you may not otherwise reach, and its far more powerful than company page content.
So, how exactly do you inspire and help your team to become active content creators? In this guide, we’ll uncover seven strategies to encourage employee engagement—without feeling like you’re twisting anyone’s arm. By the end, you’ll see how employee content can elevate brand awareness and support your broader marketing strategy.
Let’s dive in.
The Importance of Employee Engagement on LinkedIn
Why It Matters
Before we jump into the tactics of building an employee advocacy program, it’s important to establish why you should care about content from employees on LinkedIn. The short answer: credibility and reach.
While brand pages on LinkedIn serve their purpose, it’s your employees who add a layer of genuine authenticity to your organization’s online presence. When potential clients or partners see that real people champion your brand, it builds a level of trust that no paid ad can replicate.
Don'ts of Encouraging Employee Social Media Engagement: Don't push employees to simply share corporate updates. When employees share company updates it feels like a re-share mafia who got pushed by the marketing team to re-share the company post. "Hey everyone, new company page post is up, everyone go like, comment, share.... or else".
A better employee advocacy strategy is to help employees create content that reflects stories and experiences they've had, lessons they've learned, and advice they can give. True personal brand building—not company parrot. Thats real LinkedIn marketing.
One, this will help increase more visibility to the company compared to the boring re-share. Two, this benefits employees because it will actually help them build a real personal brand. Win-win.
When you look at the company page following compared to the total following of your employees, its usually a landslide—meaning your content can reach a wider audience and possibly go viral in niche circles.
Now, employee advocacy was coined a long, long time ago in the social media marketing world. But as current marketing strategies are diminishing in results and cost effectiveness, many have found employee content is having its hay-day NOW!
Benefits of Employee Advocacy
- Brand Awareness: The more often your employees post, the more familiar your company becomes in the LinkedIn community. It's trust building at scale.
- Talent Attraction: Prospective hires get a glimpse of your company culture through employees’ authentic voices.
- Lead Generation: Employees are often connected to potential clients, partners, or collaborators. Their endorsements and perspectives hold more weight than impersonal marketing messages.
Understanding the Impact on Brand Visibility
Going Beyond the Company Page
Many business owners and marketers assume that building up a LinkedIn Company Page is enough. While it’s a great starting point, a page by itself can only do so much, as LinkedIns algorithm doesn't exactly push content from company pages.
Employee engagement can drive traffic to that page and spark meaningful conversations in places you can’t directly control.
LinkedIn’s Algorithm
LinkedIn’s feed algorithm favours content that generates engagement—comments, reactions, and shares. But let's back up, content that gets engagement is content that the LinkedIn community found interesting. Key word Interesting.
This is why by simply having employees share more boring company page content massive results aren't seen. And don't get fooled by the results massive companies get with simple employee advocacy programs, i.e the re-share mafia.
I think it's one of the biggest employee advocacy mistakes. It's easy for these companies to hack engagement. When you have thousands or tens of thousands of employees rushing to a new post to like/comment/share it creates artificial engagement. The vanity metrics look great. In some cases, for huge companies, this can work.
But if your employee head count isn't in the thousands, this strategy wont work. Instead, the emphasis is on creating actually good content. Not driving an army to go engage. Alternatively, you can join an engagement pod, which now seem to exist on every street corner, but that will bite you in the rear end long term.
Examples of Companies Nailing Their Employee Content Strategy
- Gong: Their team shares insights, data, and thought leadership that dominate conversations in the sales tech space.
- Lavender: By aligning their executive and employee voices, they consistently engage their target audience with practical advice and relatable content.
- Beehiiv: Known for helping creators and companies grow newsletters, Beehiiv’s team uses LinkedIn to share valuable insights on content marketing and community growth.
- Refine Labs: Their leadership team, including Chris Walker, has built a massive following by consistently sharing actionable industry insights on demand generation and marketing strategies.
- Pavilion: Their executives and community members contribute quality content in the revenue space.
- ColdIQ: Most of their team is active in creating content, sharing the latest trends and tools in outbound, the problems they solve, the results their team has achieved, etc.
- Champify: Their CEO and Head of Growth are killing it on LinkedIn sharing perspectives, advice, and lived experiences.
Go check out these companies to see what a 10/10 social media strategy looks like. All of these companies are experiencing the massive impact of employee engagement.
Strategies for Encouraging Content Sharing
The two biggest hurdles we see with Content for employees is lack of time, and measuring ROI. Here are a few ways to ease the time burden and create an employee advocacy solution:
- Sales Calls
- Why: Sales calls surface objections, questions, or “light-bulb” moments that reveal what prospective customers really want to know and what they are currently struggling with. Use this to craft content that addresses common pain points, questions or clarifies industry misconceptions. This is great content specifically for the sales team to be posting
- Customer Success Calls
- Why: These calls are filled with real-life success stories, offering tangible examples of how your product or service delivers value. Tap into these testimonials to share compelling, trust-building narratives on LinkedIn
- Customer Support Tickets
- Why: Support inquiries highlight recurring issues and frequently asked questions. It's like my teacher told me growing up, "If one person has a question, it's likely someone else has the same question". Use these questions as content ideas for LinkedIn content.
- Exec Strategy Calls
- Why: High-level conversations shed light on future goals, perspectives and overarching trends. Translating these executive insights into forward-thinking content gives your audience a peek behind the curtain, showcasing both vision and thought leadership.
- Podcasts
- Why: Podcasts are brimming with expert interviews, trending topics, and industry predictions. Repurpose key quotes or takeaways for social posts or blog summaries to keep your audience in the loop on the latest developments.
- News in the Media
- Why: Timely events and industry news offer a chance to stay current and relevant. Whether you provide commentary, a quick explainer, or an opinion piece, tying your brand to trending stories can generate buzz and prompt conversations.
Inboundr Helps Teams With This
- First, tell Inboundr your content pillars and send it your LinkedIn URL - it will take note of your writing style and what you like to post about.
- Second, send Inboundr all of your transcripts, it will comb through them to find the "content worthy" moments I listed above and suggest topics and potential drafts to you.
- Third, based on your content pillars Inboundr will search the web and notify you of the latest news thats aligned with what you like to post about.
- Fourth, it tracks how your entire teams LinkedIn content is performing.
Offer Guidance and Training
Not everyone is a natural marketing hero or the JK Rowling of LinkedIn content, and that’s okay. Provide a brief training session or a employee advocacy guide to help employees understand best practices and achieve social media success:
- Optimizing Personal Profiles.
- Structuring Posts.
- Writing Hooks.
- Coming Up With Ideas.
- Setting Content Pillars.
The Role of Leadership in Driving Engagement
Leading by Example
Executive buy-in is crucial for a successful LinkedIn engagement strategy. Employee led-marketing needs to start with a top down approach. When managers and leaders are visibly active—creating content, commenting on posts, sharing updates, congratulating team wins—it signals to employees that it’s not just “another corporate memo.”
If the CEO is actively posting, it encourages the efforts of employees. This will start to build employee advocacy momentum.
Implementing Gamification Techniques
Making Engagement Fun
If you want to kick employee participation into high gear, consider gamification and employee advocacy metrics. For example, ColdIQ hands out a quarterly monetary prize of $2,500 to the winner with the most impressions and engagement, $1,000 to second place, and $500 to third place.
Whether it’s a friendly competition for the most-engaged LinkedIn post or a fun weekly challenge to see who can generate the most discussion, adding an element of play can stimulate interest.
Reward Systems
While not everyone needs a big prize to stay motivated, small perks—like a gift card or a free lunch—can keep the momentum going. Recognizing employee efforts and top performers in company newsletters or town halls also fosters a sense of accomplishment. And will only increase effort from employees.
The Importance of Recognition and Incentives
Developing a Recognition Program
In addition to gamification, a formal recognition program can cement the notion that LinkedIn activity is genuinely appreciated. Perhaps you spotlight an “Employee Advocate of the Month” to highlight the champions among employees.
Aligning Incentives with Engagement Goals
If you’re rolling out a new product, for instance, you might want employees to share their personal experiences or behind-the-scenes photos. Tie a reward—whether monetary or just public recognition—directly to participation in that specific campaign. This ensures employees see a clear link between the behaviours you want (LinkedIn engagement) and the benefits they receive.
Measuring Employee Engagement Success
Key Metrics to Track
To gauge the effectiveness of your LinkedIn engagement strategy, keep an eye on:
- Number of Employee Posts: Are more employees posting regularly?
- Engagement Rate: How many likes, shares, and comments do those posts generate?
- Profile Views & Company Page Follows: Are your employees getting more profile views and connecting with more people? Is your company page seeing a spike in follows?
- Referral Traffic: Are you seeing more website visits from LinkedIn?
- CPM: Compare LinkedIn impressions against CPM to gauge earned media value.
Cultivating a Thriving LinkedIn Community
Building a vibrant LinkedIn culture isn’t just about company updates or trying to “look good” online. It’s a holistic approach that fosters trust, highlights authenticity, and encourages employees to become proud ambassadors of your brand.
By leading with strong company culture, offering training, tools, and motivating employees through recognition and incentives, you’ll spark the kind of social-media engagement that benefits everyone.
When done right, each employee post acts like a mini-billboard for your brand—helping you reach new audiences, attract top talent, and showcase what makes your organization truly special. And the best part? The more your employees feel included in the process, the more genuine and effective your brand presence becomes.
If you’re looking to supercharge your LinkedIn strategy and foster an engaged online community, Inboundr is here to help. Our all-in-one solution provides the tools and guidance you need to empower your workforce, measure success, and drive sustainable growth.
Ready to get started? Visit Inboundr today and discover how to transform your team into passionate LinkedIn content creators!