Understanding LinkedIn Employee Advocacy
LinkedIn Employee Advocacy is a program aimed at empowering employees to share their company’s message on LinkedIn. By leveraging the combined influence of employees’ individual networks, companies can dramatically increase their reach, cultivate brand ambassadors, and drive recruitment efforts. Crucially, an employee advocacy program is essentially about harnessing the power of word-of-mouth marketing and employee influence to reach a broader audience.
How LinkedIn Employee Advocacy Works
LinkedIn Employee Advocacy, under the LinkedIn Elevate product, provides employees with pre-approved, company-branded content that they can easily share to their LinkedIn networks. Once shared, this content can help to boost the company’s brand visibility, promote its culture, showcase its thought leadership, and attract top talent.
The Employee Advocacy program breaks the traditional social media marketing boundaries by making employees an integral part of a company’s promotional strategy. Instead of solely relying on corporate social media accounts to disseminate information, the program engages employees to share the company’s story in their own words. Because humans naturally trust other humans, messages delivered through personal connections are much more likely to resonate and make an impact.
Here’s a look at the benefits of LinkedIn Employee Advocacy:
1. Enhanced Brand Visibility: Employees at an organization have 10 times more first-degree connections on LinkedIn than their company does. Therefore, when your employees share content, you can reach many more people than you would with your company’s account alone.
2. Increased Trust: According to research conducted by LinkedIn, employees’ posts generate twice the click-through rate of their employers’ posts. After all, people are more likely to trust a company when recommendations come from someone they know.
3. Thought Leadership: Sharing curated thought leadership content through employees helps reinforce the idea that your company is an industry leader.
4. Recruitment: LinkedIn statistics indicate that an employee advocacy program can significantly boost referral hires. The more the employees share job opportunities and other company information with their networks, the faster the company can attract top talent.
Implementing an Effective LinkedIn Employee Advocacy Program
Implementing a LinkedIn Employee Advocacy program can lead to increased reach and growth for your brand. However, without careful planning and effective strategies, you may not fully realize the potential of this program. Here are some tips to roll out a successful LinkedIn Employee Advocacy program:
Enabling Employee Participation: Prepare a concise and simple guide for your employees about what kind of content to share, how to share it and why it’s helpful. Make it easy for your team to engage with ready-to-share content and well-defined guidelines.
Ensure Consistent Messaging: Consistency is key to optimizing your brand’s presence on LinkedIn. Make sure that the content your employees are sharing aligns well with your company’s values, goals, and overall messaging.
Recognize Encourage Participation: Recognize your top advocates and create a rewarding system to give them the motivation to participate. Encouraging employees and showing appreciation for their efforts goes a long way in making your advocacy program successful.
Employing LinkedIn Employee Advocacy is a strategic business move that can dramatically enhance your brand’s visibility, positioning your organization as a trusted industry leader.