Employee advocacy can help organisations strengthen their employer brand, build professional credibility and reach potential candidates. But asking employees to share every company update on LinkedIn may not be the most effective way to achieve those goals.
According to Kylie Chown, a LinkedIn strategist and founder of My Digital Brand, organisations should focus on making participation worthwhile rather than treating employee advocacy as a requirement.
Employee advocacy involves employees voluntarily sharing their organisation’s expertise, culture, achievements or job opportunities through their professional networks. For HR and marketing teams, it can extend a company’s reach beyond its official social media accounts.
However, employees may be uncomfortable using personal profiles to promote corporate content, particularly when they feel their private professional identity is being directed by their employer.
Why Employee Advocacy Should Be Voluntary
Employee participation in advocacy programmes can be limited. Research by employee advocacy platform DSMN8 found that the average proportion of employees sharing company content at large Australian-headquartered organisations was 4.92% in July 2024. Among the organisations included, Randstad Australia recorded a participation rate of 20.31%.
These figures suggest that employee advocacy can vary considerably between organisations. They do not, on their own, establish why participation rates differ.
Chown argues that employers should respect the distinction between an employee’s personal LinkedIn profile and the company’s official communication channels.
Organisations can establish appropriate social media policies and explain expected professional conduct, but requiring employees to publish promotional content raises different questions around consent, workplace expectations and individual autonomy. Whether an employer can mandate particular online activity depends on the applicable law and circumstances.
A more sustainable approach is to make participation optional while giving employees the information, guidance and confidence to take part if they choose.
How HR Can Build an Effective Employee Advocacy Programme
A successful programme needs more than a policy or a request to repost company announcements. Chown recommends making social media guidance part of the employee experience and involving staff in the content itself.
1. Introduce Social Media Guidance During Onboarding
New employees should understand how the organisation uses LinkedIn, what kinds of content they can share and where to find relevant guidance.
Clear onboarding information can help employees make informed decisions about professional social media use. Organisations should also explain how their expectations apply when employees leave the business.
2. Invite Employees to Share Their Expertise
Company announcements and marketing messages may not reflect what employees naturally want to discuss with their networks.
Instead, HR and marketing teams can invite employees to share professional insights, industry experiences, lessons from projects or perspectives on their areas of expertise.
For technical businesses, for example, employees could explain industry challenges or discuss what they are learning through their work. This creates opportunities for more useful, authentic content without requiring everyone to publish the same message.
3. Encourage Leaders to Participate
Employee advocacy is harder to establish when senior leaders expect others to be active online but do not participate themselves.
Leaders can help demonstrate how to share professional insights, engage constructively with industry discussions and represent the organisation online.
Their participation should set an example rather than become another mechanism for pressuring employees.
4. Recognise Different Levels of Participation
Not every employee will want to become active on LinkedIn, and advocacy programmes should account for those differences.
HR teams can support enthusiastic participants with content ideas, training and relevant company updates. Employees who prefer not to post should not automatically be treated as less engaged or less committed to the organisation.
A programme can still be valuable when participation is voluntary and concentrated among employees who genuinely want to contribute.
5. Create a Clear and Practical Social Media Policy
A social media policy should explain acceptable conduct, confidentiality expectations, the handling of sensitive information and how employees can raise questions.
The policy should provide clarity without implying that the organisation owns employees’ personal profiles or can automatically require them to publish company content.
HR teams should review the policy against applicable local laws and employment requirements before implementation.
6. Make Advocacy an Ongoing Conversation
Employee advocacy should not be treated as a one-time campaign launched by marketing.
Regular team discussions can help organisations gather feedback, identify barriers to participation and understand what employees feel comfortable sharing. HR and marketing teams can use that feedback to improve resources and make the programme more relevant.
What Can Employers Gain From Employee Advocacy?
A well-supported employee advocacy programme can help organisations reach professional networks that may not follow their official company pages.
Employees can offer perspectives on their work, industry knowledge and professional development that help audiences understand the people behind the business.
This can also support recruitment. Prospective candidates may want to learn about their future managers, colleagues and working environment before applying for a role. Employees’ professional profiles and contributions can provide additional context alongside a company’s careers page and employer branding materials.
The company page remains important for official updates and organisational credibility. Employee advocacy complements that presence by allowing individuals to contribute their own expertise and perspectives.
However, the benefits depend on the relevance and quality of the content, the credibility of the people sharing it and whether participation is genuine. Simply increasing the number of employee posts does not guarantee better engagement or recruitment outcomes.
Building Advocacy Through Trust
Employee advocacy is most useful when employees understand the organisation’s goals but retain control over how they present themselves professionally.
For HR teams, the focus should be on creating clear guidelines, involving employees in meaningful content and encouraging leaders to participate. Marketing teams can support the process by providing useful resources without turning personal social media profiles into compulsory advertising channels.
When employees have the choice to participate and a genuine reason to contribute, advocacy can become a more credible extension of the organisation’s employer brand.
Source: HRD Australia, reporting on insights from LinkedIn strategist Kylie Chown, alongside research cited from DSMN8 and the Australian HR Institute (AHRI).
