What do top companies like Apple, IBM, Tesla, and Amazon have in common?
Of course, they are a big tech giant.
But their employees have established themselves as top LinkedIn influencers.
You can take a leaf from their book by encouraging your people to become opinion leaders over LinkedIn, the largest professional networking platform in the world. Not only does it benefit them as a professional, but it also builds your company’s credibility and transparency, and adds a human touch to it. After all, your people are your best brand ambassadors. They are the ones who represent you, share their achievement, talk about internal company actions, and generate conversations and engagement.
In fact, LinkedIn has admitted that employee-generated posts generate 2X more engagement than corporate posts. Another key finding revealed that companies with active employee advocates can experience up to 300% boost in engagement.
Let’s walk through this essential guide to understand employee advocacy, its benefits and how you can make the most of it.
What is Employee-Driven Brand Influence?
The employee-driven brand influence happens when employees actively act as the ambassadors and advocates of their company, using their own voice. This can include sharing company posts, writing original thoughts, talking about work experiences, celebrating team wins, or offering industry insights related to their job.
Rather than having a brand page as the source of marketing messages, the message is delivered by individual professionals. These messages are more personal, more human and more credible.
It is not about forcing employees to promote the organisation they work for. Rather, it is encouraging them to share their real experiences and perspectives naturally.
Why Employee Voices Matter More Than Brand Pages
Brand pages are important for your marketing health. But they are likely to be formal and promotional. In fact, they are created with an aim to benefit the bottom line of their company. This may not be the case when employees speak positively about their company. Their feedback or opinion introduces emotion, honesty and personality to the discussion.
Here is a quick overview to understand why employee voices are more effective on LinkedIn.
- Human beings have more trust in their peers than in companies.
- Brand pages do not provide as strong a network as employees.
- There is increased engagement with employee posts.
- People relate better to human narratives than to marketing text.
When someone sees a real person talking about their job or sharing knowledge, it feels genuine. This helps build trust not just with potential customers, but also with prospective employees, partners, and industry peers.
The Power of Reach through Employees
Reach is one of the greatest opportunities for employee-driven brand influence. Employees’ LinkedIn networks are 10 times larger than a company’s followers. No wonder the content shared by your employees is likely to achieve over 500% more reach than company posts.
Every employee possesses his or her circle of acquaintances. When the workers interact or share the content, it reaches to the individuals who might not be following the company page. This generates natural visibility without advertising expenditure. According to one study, companies with a high number of employees sharing content are over 50% more likely to attract talent.
Even the simplest steps, such as liking, commenting, or reposting updates of companies, can contribute to the further spread of the content on LinkedIn.
Building Trust through Authentic Content
Trust is the foundation of influence. LinkedIn users are smart. They can notice forced and fake content easily.
Personal and honest content is most effective when it is employee-driven. This could include:
- Suggesting one of the lessons learned in a project.
- Discussing a problem and the way it was solved.
- Team success celebration.
- Defining what an average workday would be like.
- Giving credit to colleagues
Such posts reveal the real side of the company. They help people understand the values, culture, and mindset of the brand.
Employee Advocacy vs Employee Influence
Employee advocacy and employee influence are not the same.
Typically refers to the act of employees sharing content that is approved by the company. This may be product updates, blogs or announcements.
Employee influence goes a step further. It conveys original thoughts, opinions and stories that are in line with the brand but are created in the personal voice of the employee.
Advocacy spreads awareness. Influence develops power and trust. The best LinkedIn strategies combine both.
How Employee Influence Helps Employer Branding
Employer branding is how people perceive a company as a place to work. LinkedIn has a significant influence on this perception.
Employees will be attracted to work with a company naturally when they see positive work experiences, growth stories, or moments of company culture shared by its employees. Before applying, job seekers tend to browse the employee profiles. They prefer to see actual persons and not job descriptions only. Jobs shared by employees attract 30% more job applications with 37% lower initial attrition rate for hires.
Employee-driven brand influence helps answer questions like:
- Is this company supportive?
- Do employees grow here?
- Is the culture healthy?
- Are there people who are proud to work here?
The genuine employee content may help a company shine in a competitive job market.
Effects on Sales and Business Development.
Employee influence on LinkedIn is not limited to hiring. It also affects business development and sales.
Sales professionals who share insights instead of pitches establish better relationships. For example, salespeople who regularly post thought-leadership content on LinkedIn are more than 40% more likely to exceed their sales goals.
As soon as the prospects observe a steady stream of useful materials posted by the employees, trust is built even prior to the initial contact. Customers will tend to deal with a familiar and respected person. Employee-driven influence shortens sales cycles and improves connection quality.
In many cases, people prefer doing business with people rather than companies.
Developing a Culture of Sharing.
Employee-driven brand influence cannot be forced. It grows in a favourable and open culture. Companies should encourage sharing, not demand it. Employees need to feel safe expressing themselves without fear of making mistakes.
The following are some of the means of developing that culture:
- Lead by example from leadership
- Celebrate employee posts internally
- Give freedom to share personal views
- Avoid strict posting rules
- Recognise effort, not just results
Employees are more confident to do the same when leaders are active on LinkedIn and post and engage.
Giving Advice and Not Control.
Although freedom is valuable, mentorship is beneficial as well. There are a lot of employees who would like to share something, but they do not know what to post or how to begin.
Companies may help them by providing:
- Content ideas and themes
- Simple LinkedIn best practices.
- Optional training sessions
- Examples of good posts
- Clearly defined brand values to match.
The key is to guide, not control. Employees should never feel like they are reading from a company script.
Helping Employees Build Their Personal Brands
Keep in mind that LinkedIn is a personal branding platform as much as a company branding platform.
As workers establish their own reputation, it also brings a good image to the organisation.
The companies should motivate employees to:
- Share industry knowledge
- Discuss their developing skills.
- Engage with others’ content
- Comment thoughtfully
- Always post, but not in a hurry.
The Effect of the Employee Influence.
Employee-driven brand influence cannot be measured by likes and comments only. Although the engagement is important, the actual value is usually reflected in the long-term outcomes.
Certain signs to observe are:
- Growth in the number of profile views among employees.
- Increased engagement in company posts.
- Additional incoming messages and requests.
- Improved hiring quality
- Stronger brand recognition
Over to You…
When your employee says nice things about your company, it matters a lot. It sounds more authentic, engaging, and above all, human than corporate content. Encourage your people to share their own unique stories, from their small wins to big lessons they have learned on the job. Not only does it help them establish themselves as a thought leader, but it also transforms your business into a living, breathing community. It is a kind of social proof that money cannot buy. This will be a win-win scenario.
