A Company’s Key Social Media Advantage is its Own Employees

As social media algorithms change (seemingly by the day), and AI tools allow brands to publish content at scale, maximizing reach and engagement on LinkedIn is becoming a bigger challenge for B2B marketers. A thoughtful content strategy and engaging graphics don’t automatically produce results. Yet, companies have a powerful asset to boost their social media presence that is often overlooked: their employees. 

An employee engagement program on LinkedIn can become the backbone of a successful B2B social media strategy. These programs are meant to incentivize employees to participate, and provide easy, low-friction ways to do so. When done right, they don’t just amplify a company’s reach on LinkedIn. They humanize the brand, build trust and create an army of authentic voices who drive awareness, engagement and even revenue. 

This article explores what marketing leaders should consider when evaluating an employee social media engagement program: 

• How employee voices strengthen B2B social media marketing 
• How to help employees embrace social media 
• How to measure your employee advocacy program’s impact 
• Why now? 

HOW EMPLOYEE VOICES STRENGTHEN B2B SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 

Authenticity is Appealing 

Employees bring their own trusted social networks to the table – which don’t perfectly overlap with the company page’s followers. These personal connections from past roles, industry relationships, friendships, client interactions and more make each employee a unique distribution channel. 

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, 76% of people are more likely to trust content shared by individuals over brands. Empowering employees to share company content not only expands reach but also adds authenticity that corporate pages alone can’t achieve.  

Navigating the LinkedIn Algorithm 

An employee advocacy program also helps B2B brands work with – not against – the LinkedIn algorithm in two ways: 

• Personal pages are prioritized: LinkedIn favors content from individual users over company pages. Employees’ posts or reposts can reach a broader audience than a company’s posts alone. 
• Early engagement drives visibility: The algorithm evaluates how much engagement a post earns within its first hour to determine organic distribution. Employee advocacy programs boost post engagement and extend the reach of a company’s content. 

Put a Human Face to Your Content 

People are more inclined to engage with another human than with a brand. Encouraging employees to engage with company content – whether by reposting or commenting – sparks real conversations and gives the brand a genuine, authentic voice.  

From engineers sharing behind-the-scenes product stories, to sales reps offering helpful industry insights, to a customer success team celebrating client wins, every employee contribution adds authenticity and personality. These authentic moments build trust in ways brands alone just can’t replicate. 

HOW TO HELP EMPLOYEES EMBRACE SOCIAL MEDIA 

Educate and Empower 

Help employees understand the power of their personal social networks and how to activate them. Teach LinkedIn best practices and provide assets for updating their profiles, such as headshots and branded cover photos. 

Conduct training sessions. This will uncover the company’s brand ambassadors – the people who are already active or interested in being active on social media to promote the brand. Work with these ambassadors to boost their social media presence. Encourage them to: 

• Post their own thoughts on industry trends, company news or lessons learned  
• Like, comment on and share brand posts, ideally early to boost organic distribution 
• Follow and engage with other relevant pages (news organizations, industry thought leaders, etc.)  

The marketing team should develop and implement a clear social media policy with guardrails. This should explain what’s appropriate to post so employees can do so confidently.  

Simplify with Content Libraries and Tools 

Routinely provide employees with content direction. Then, once employee engagement starts increasing, introduce third-party content management tools.  

Content direction can be via a weekly email that includes suggested posts, talking points, graphics and links to recent brand posts. AI tools can aid in on-brand copy development, with variations for optionality. The goal is to enable the employees to do less work so their experience is frictionless. Simultaneously, enable them to infuse their own voices into their content. 

Third-party tools like EveryoneSocial and Clearview Social offer some automation for employee engagement. For example, the company can use these tools to email share-links to employees that auto-post to their LinkedIn profiles by just clicking a button. Keep in mind that these tools require marketing team oversight to ensure brand safety and voice are preserved. 

Keep in mind that third-party tools are designed to prioritize sharing brand content. Yet, the best advocacy programs go beyond employees sharing company news and insights. Encourage brand ambassadors to: 

• Comment on brand posts to boost early engagement 
• Tag colleagues, partners, and clients when relevant 
• Post their own thoughts on industry trends, company news, or lessons learned 

This turns employees from passive amplifiers into active thought leaders, building more brand awareness and credibility among their networks. 

HOW TO MEASURE YOUR EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY PROGRAM’S IMPACT 

Establish a Baseline 

Before truly kicking off an employee advocacy program, record current metrics to establish a baseline. Document the current: 

• Average monthly page reach 
• Average post impressions 
• Engagement rates (likes, comments, shares) 
• Website traffic from social channels 

Then, track these metrics on a weekly or monthly basis to analyze the program’s performance. Data like ‘mentions’ will show how much employees talk about the company. Engagement and page view spikes following an advocacy program email to employees shows their responsiveness.  

Monitor Employee Activity and Content Impact 

Companies that use an advocacy platform have access to dashboards that show who’s sharing and how their posts perform. Marketers who are not using third-party tools can use LinkedIn analytics to collect company page data and work with brand ambassadors to collect data on individual posts. 

Content shared with employees for advocacy can be tracked with the addition of UTM parameters to the URLs of links. This tracks these links’ activity, including the volume and source of clicks. 

It’s also important to educate employees on the data available to them and how to leverage it. For example, brand advocates can review the reach and engagement of their individual posts to identify what content best resonates with their networks – and use those insights to post more engaging content. 

WHY NOW? 

Employee advocacy isn’t a nice-to-have anymore. B2B buyers are spending more time on social media and doing more independent research than ever before. According to global agency Centric, 75% of B2B buyers say social media influences their purchasing decisions. And employee engagement helps get in front of more buyers. Research from WifiTalents found that employee-shared content reaches over 500% more people than brand channels.  

The bottom line: employees are a company’s biggest advantage on social media. By educating and empowering them with data and content, marketers can amplify their social media efforts, build trust through authentic voices and position their company as an industry leader on a key B2B buyer channel.