What is Employee Advocacy and Does It Really Work? The Complete Guide

What is Employee Advocacy and Does It Really Work?

Looking to harness the power of your employees to boost your brand? This article delves into the benefits of employee advocacy, offering insights, strategies, and real-world examples to help you launch a successful program with Uplio.

Summary

• Employee advocacy involves promoting the brand through employees' personal and professional networks, supercharging social strategies.
• Benefits of employee advocacy for companies include increased brand awareness, improved employee performance, and controlled messaging.
• Strategies for employee advocacy include internal incentives, social media training, and the use of dedicated platforms like Uplio.
• Executive involvement is crucial for the success of employee advocacy programs. It drives higher engagement, expands reach, and ultimately delivers a greater return on investment (ROI).

Some of the best advocates for your brand are your own employees. Oftentimes, when people think about brand advocates, they may think of external people, such as social media influencers. This is true: Your employees know your company inside out and lend a unique voice to your brand’s reputation.

Employee advocacy has a lot of benefits for both the company and the employee. Chances are that your employees are already on social media and talking about their work. Why not harness that into a thoughtful employee advocacy program that gives a win-win to everyone involved?

What is Employee Advocacy?

Employee advocacy is the transformation of your workforce into authentic brand ambassadors on social media platforms. When employees share company content, promote brand messages, and engage in industry conversations through their personal networks, they create genuine connections that traditional marketing cannot replicate.

A good employee advocacy strategy will support your employees to:

• Amplify company messages and promotions, which increases brand awareness.
• Positively share about their experiences and work life, offering an “inside look.”
• Act as knowledgeable advocates who can confidently recommend the company’s products and services when it’s relevant to their networks.

What Are the Benefits of Employee Advocacy?

Both the company and the employee win in the right employee advocacy scenario. The benefits of a program cross multiple departments:

• Increased brand awareness and reach for marketing.
• Wider personal network and sales pipeline for sales teams.
• Positive workplace environment for recruiting and HR.
• Subject-matter expertise for industry thought leadership.

Benefits for the Company and Brand

Having an employee advocacy program in place offers many benefits for the company and can be used in conjunction with an employer branding program.

• Increases brand awareness and reach. One study found that company branded messages had over 5x (561%) reach when shared by employees compared to the brand’s own social media accounts. This showcases the power of this social media amplification tactic.
• Improves employee performance. The same study also found that companies that had high employee engagement outperformed those with no engagement by 202%.
• Protect core brand messaging. When you have a formal program in place (like Uplio), you provide content for your employees to redistribute. A formal program gives employees on-brand content and clear guidelines while still leaving room for their own voice and perspectives.
• Drives more qualified leads—both in your sales pipeline and talent pipeline—as audiences encounter authentic employee content before they ever talk to your brand.

Benefits for the Employee

Because a large part of this program involves continuous execution from the employees, the benefits need to be substantial. Luckily, they are.

• Easy, ready content to use. When you provide links and copy for social media via a platform like Uplio, employees either use it as-is to save time or add a personal touch.
• Supportive for non-power users. Some people aren’t on social media all the time but still want to be an advocate. Providing available, approved content is great for them, helping them become more comfortable with sharing.
• Establishes thought leadership. A 2023 study found that 89% of B2B decision-makers say thought leadership increased their perceptions of an organization. Sharing industry articles with employee commentary supports them in establishing themselves as knowledgeable professionals in the field.
• Networking opportunities. Posting on social media naturally creates networking opportunities.

How to Start an Employee Advocacy Program

If you’re starting from scratch, setting up your own employee advocacy program might seem overwhelming. Here is a checklist to take you through the essential steps.

1. Get Executives Involved

Securing executive buy-in early on is crucial for a successful program. When leaders actively support the initiative, it sends a clear message: This is a strategic priority for the entire organization.

Example: When the company President shared a recent article on CMO perspectives on social media, employees amplified it 87 times, reaching nearly 233,000 people. Genuine engagement starts at the top, inspiring employees to follow and creating a ripple effect that elevates brand visibility.

2. Incentivize Participation

To encourage participation, offer perks and incentives. In a Social Media Today study on methods of recognition, the top two most successful were company recognition (39%) and monetary incentives (19%).

In practice, that might look like:

• Shout-outs in company meetings or newsletters.
• Program gamification through points, badges, or tiers (easily tracked in Uplio’s Leaderboard).
• Gift cards or bonuses.
• Branded merchandise or exclusive company experiences.

3. Encourage Authenticity

An employee advocacy benchmark report found that social media posts from employees that were personalized generated 64% more engagement than those that didn’t. Once employees are comfortable with sharing branded content, encourage them to edit the copy and put their own touch on the post. Uplio's AI can help suggest personalized variations while keeping the core message on-brand.

4. Provide Training

If someone isn’t a "Very Online" person, they won’t be as comfortable posting. Providing social media training goes a long way in establishing confidence. Regardless of your program type, you’ll need to train employees on how to navigate it. Software like Uplio will need an introduction, but the benefit is that all the components of a successful program are in one place.

5. Set Goals & KPIs

Like any other strategy, you need to establish the “why” and “how” of your program. A benchmark study found that the average adoption rate across all industries was 53%. You’ll want to constantly evaluate how the program is performing and adjust your content and strategy as needed.

The Tactics Every Successful Employee Advocacy Program Should Include

Employee advocacy isn’t a one-and-done initiative. It requires ongoing nurturing and attention. As your program gains momentum, keep these key tactics in mind:

• AI-powered content curation: Leading programs increasingly use AI-powered content suggestions and real-time optimization. Advanced platforms like Uplio recommend the most relevant content for each employee based on their network and engagement history.
• Maintain a consistent content strategy: Establish a consistent rhythm for sharing relevant and engaging content with employees through automated distribution channels.
• Real-time performance optimization: Monitor engagement patterns and adjust content distribution timing based on when each employee’s network is most active.
• Cross-platform integration: The strongest advocacy platforms support seamless sharing across LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and other channels from a single hub.

How to Prove the Success of Your Employee Advocacy Program

Employee advocacy platforms are designed to centralize your entire program in one place, allowing you to easily curate content, distribute materials, and track analytics. This centralization is the key to unlocking crucial insights and proving your program’s Return on Investment (ROI).

Actionable KPIs for Employee Advocacy Success

When it comes to proving business value, focus on actionable KPIs that directly connect employee sharing activity to high-value business outcomes.

1. Referrals (The straightest line to ROI)

Referrals are the most direct indicator of ROI, linking employee advocacy activity directly to business outcomes. This metric covers high-value activities:

• Sales referrals: Track whether leads originated from an employee’s shared social post.
• Recruiting referrals: Document when an employee refers a potential hire, proving value in qualified candidate sourcing.
• Website traffic: Monitor increases in social media referrals directed to your website.

2. Earned Media Value (EMV)

Earned Media Value (EMV) measures the estimated financial value of the organic exposure your brand gains from employees’ social media activities. It calculates how much you would have spent on paid advertising to achieve the same organic reach.

The bottom line: A successful program should generate an EMV that exceeds the total program and platform costs. Aim for a 3x+ ROI.

3. Engagement Rate

Measured by the likes, comments, and shares on employee-generated posts, the engagement rate shows how well the content resonates and proves the authenticity of the messaging.

HubSpot’s PostBeyond benchmark found that personalized employee shares drove ~64% higher engagement vs. non-personalized posts.

4. Organic Reach

Organic reach measures the total audience reached through employee posts, clearly demonstrating the program’s amplification effectiveness. Because employee networks are more diverse and trusted, this metric is a powerful way to expand your message footprint.

MSLGroup found that brand messages shared by employees reached over 5x further than the same content shared only on brand channels.

5. Adoption Rate

The adoption rate represents the percentage of invited employees who are actively participating. Early-stage programs should target 15–25% active adoption, while broader industry benchmarks put the average around 50%+.

6. Active Participation and Top Contributors

Active participation measures the program’s true vitality. By tracking the frequency of shares and the quality of engagement, you can identify your rockstar top contributors. Remember, recognizing and rewarding these top performers is the key to sustaining momentum.

Employee Advocacy tools like Uplio do the heavy lifting by automatically generating these metrics. That means you can spend less time manually tracking data and more time making meaningful refinements.

Why You Need an Employee Advocacy Platform like Uplio

Manually tracking employee advocacy can quickly become overwhelming, especially for larger companies. That’s where an employee advocacy tool like Uplio becomes essential. These tools simplify tracking, freeing you to focus on improving your strategy.

Here’s what a comprehensive solution like Uplio should include:

Employee Advocacy with Uplio

At Uplio, we provide an advocacy tool designed to expand your social media reach while reducing awareness spend. With Uplio, teams can:

• Curate and schedule various content types, including links, original posts, and media attachments, either for yourself or on behalf of senior leaders.
• Create a variety of message options with Message Ideas by Uplio AI, powered by advanced language models.
• Tailor the Leaderboard and recognition tools to fit your unique incentive strategy and encourage employees to share content.
• Use the Reports Tab to get the data you need and connect the results of your advocacy program to valuable metrics like leads, web traffic, and earned media value.

Interested in seeing more? Request a personalized demo to see Uplio in action.

Practical Employee Advocacy Examples (Client Success)

At Uplio, we’re fortunate to support industry-leading clients with their employee advocacy programs.

Client A Doubles Employee Shares with Weekly Digests

A leading B2B company schedules a weekly email digest in order to notify employees about relevant content they can easily share on LinkedIn. As a result, their content marketing team has seen employee shares of content essentially double starting on day one of starting this initiative.

This is a great way to remind employees of the opportunities they have to further amplify your brand’s content on a consistent cadence.

Client B Achieves 7x ROI Before Rebranding

A technology company decided to get its employee advocacy program live a few months before the launch of its rebranding. This set up their new social media marketing rhythms to be in place with employee advocacy baked in from the start.

Using Uplio, they piloted the program and achieved almost $90,000 in estimated Earned Media Value (EMV) within three months.

“Our employee advocacy has returned nearly $90,000 in Earned Media Value in just three months. That means we’re already 7x our ROI. So, communicating the value of our investment in the advocacy program internally has been straightforward.”

– Director of Content, Technology Client

Client C Increases Social Shares by 16,000% within the First Quarter

A large enterprise uses contests like gift card giveaways and other special events to incentivize employee advocacy. This is a brilliant strategy to drive employee engagement.

The results speak for themselves. After launching their incentive program using Uplio, the brand went from 1,000 to 3,000 shares in the first month, and then 17,000 shares within the first quarter. Yes, that’s a 16,000% increase within the first quarter!

Time to Launch Your Employee Advocacy Program

Are you convinced yet that you need an employee advocacy program of your own? Don’t be one of those 70% of companies that don’t have a program in place. These programs offer benefits for both the brand and employee: brands enjoy increased awareness and controlled messaging, while employees earn rewards and establish themselves as thought leaders in their field.

Sign up for a demo of Uplio today for an all-in-one solution to making the most of employee advocacy.