When you hear the term brand advocate, do you think of social media influencers or employees? Your first thought is likely social media influencers, not your workers. However, employees are a powerful resource to increase brand awareness. Employees know your company best, can successfully amplify your message, and provide real testimonials. Let’s dive in to learn what employee advocacy is, how it benefits both companies and employees, and how to get started with employee advocacy now.
What is employee advocacy?
Employee advocacy is a structured initiative that empowers employees to share specific company information with their social networks to increase brand awareness. Employees function as brand ambassadors, conveying company achievements, milestones, news, events, resources, culture, products, and services. Employers can implement techniques that make it easy for employees to share content while ensuring the messaging remains positive and aligns with the brand voice, tone and hashtags.
The focus on professional networking makes LinkedIn the ideal place for employee advocacy. However, advocacy can happen on any social site. The target audience, industry and content types will help determine the best social sites for your needs. For example, photos with food, beauty and fitness products will perform best on Instagram and Facebook. If you regularly produce video content, then focus on YouTube and TikTok. Employee advocacy can even happen in communities on Slack, Reddit and Glassdoor, but make sure you carefully adhere to the community guidelines.
Why is employee advocacy essential now?
Trust in businesses continues to decline as companies are experiencing a trust deficit that drastically impacts the bottom line. The U.S. now has one of the lowest trust scores compared to the global average, with growing fears of misconduct and scandals. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2025 report reveals the full extent of the trust crisis. An atmosphere now exists of widespread grievances against the government, businesses and the wealthy. These widespread grievances erode trust and cause worry, fear and a lack of optimism for employees.
According to Firstup, 76% of people trust content shared by friends and employees more than traditional corporate messaging.” Furthermore, “93% of people are more likely to trust content shared by someone they know.”
Taking steps to rebuild trust is no longer optional; it is now essential for all businesses. The good news is that an employee advocacy program is one way to help restore trust and promote optimism.
What are the benefits of employee advocacy?
There are numerous benefits for both employees and companies from employee advocacy programs. It is truly a win-win for everyone involved.
How businesses benefit from employee advocacy
Businesses benefit from employee advocacy programs in many ways, ranging from increased engagement to expanded trust.
Increase brand awareness: When employees share your content, it will boost your brand awareness.
Boost employee engagement: The success of your program depends greatly on employee engagement.
Improve company culture: Employees will feel more valued and connected, which has a positive impact on company culture.
Extend social reach: When employees share company content on social media, more people will see and interact with the content, which increases marketing metrics.
Exhibit transparency: When real employees share what it is like to work for a company and provide a behind-the-scenes peek, it fosters transparency.
Gain trust and authentic connections: “People are 3x more likely to trust company information shared by an employee than that shared by a CEO,” according to the Edelman Trust Barometer.
Attract top talent: Enjoy a wider pool of prospective talent by tapping into your employees’ networks, especially on LinkedIn.
Generate new business leads: Traffic generated by employees is likely to convert at a higher rate than posts from the company.
How employees benefit from employee advocacy
Employee advocacy has multiple benefits for employees, resulting in positive feelings and expanded professional networks.
Experience more engagement and trust with their employer: When employees share posts about their company, they not only feel more engaged, but it also helps to foster increased employer trust.
Feel a stronger sense of pride: As employees regularly post about company news and achievements, they feel a sense of pride for being a part of it.
Enhance their professional reputation: Employee advocacy helps employees to build and expand their professional networks and establish industry expertise.
Expand their social and professional networks: As employees post more frequently about their employer, they experience a greater social reach. This also results in new connections that expand their professional network.
Boost morale and productivity: When employees start to feel more engaged in the company and have greater morale, productivity increases too.
Does employee advocacy really work?
Many successful employee advocacy posts from small businesses have been observed, proving that employee advocacy works well. On LinkedIn, high engagement and click-through rates were seen with B2B posts about speaking engagements, conferences, webinars, podcasts, whitepapers and blog posts. This content also helped to position the companies as thought leaders among industry peers. B2C posts that featured employees using the brand’s products and with new product launches received impressive engagements on multiple sites.
Sprout Social shared, “Ivanti’s employee advocacy incentive program boosted social shares by 16,000% within the first quarter.” Ivanti utilized incentives, such as gift cards and giveaways, to motivate employees to share posts.
Employee advocacy is a very low-cost way to gain exposure, trust and traffic while boosting revenue. LinkedIn’s Official Guide to Employee Advocacy e-book states that “salespeople who regularly share are 45% more likely to exceed quota.” It can also shorten the sales cycle and result in a substantial portion of new revenue streams.
Gitnux revealed numerous employee advocacy statistics in a 2025 report, showing the impact on revenue, purchasing decisions and brand awareness. “Companies with active employee advocacy programs see 20% higher revenue growth than those without, and 78% of consumers say that employee advocacy influences their purchasing decisions.”
Employee advocacy programs can even increase employee retention. According to a LinkedIn community article, “companies with employee advocacy programs see a 26% increase in employee retention and a 58% increase in employee loyalty.”
How do you empower employees to start promoting the company?
Rolling out a successful employee advocacy program is best done as a joint partnership between internal communications, human resources and marketing departments.
Start by determining which employee advocacy platform is best for your needs or if you will use your tools.
Set specific goals for the program and determine how you will measure success over time.
Identify a team leader who will be in charge of flagging content for employees to share, and figure out how it will be communicated to employees. Internal communication channels, including intranets and Slack, will help you easily get the word out.
Decide what employee incentives and rewards you will use.
Prepare documents with your guidelines and controlled messaging. From best practices on various social networks to things to avoid, employees need to know what is expected.
Now, it’s time to start communicating and launching the employee advocacy program with your employees.
Educate employees on how employee advocacy can benefit them.
Host trainings and workshops to show employees how they can participate.
Ensure employees have guidelines and best practices regarding messaging.
Identify which social sites are most desirable for your content.
Alert employees when new content is published for them to share.
Provide rewards and incentives, like branded swag and gift cards.
Show appreciation by giving an internal shout-out to participating employees.
Provide ongoing support and new content.
An effective employee advocacy program is a win-win situation for companies and employees. It takes time, continual support, and fresh content to see the effects of your program. Once your efforts pay off, the results will be valuable for everyone involved.
Table of content
Share
