Your employees
are your best
ambassadors.

Employee Advocacy is when employees voluntarily share their own perspectives on the company, their work and everyday working life. By sharing these experiences through their personal networks and social media profiles, they become authentic voices for the employer brand.

Unlike traditional corporate communications, Employee Advocacy puts people and their individual perspectives at the centre. That’s what makes it so powerful: people tend to trust personal experiences and opinions more than corporate messaging.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to Employee Advocacy. What works depends on your company culture, objectives, employees and target audiences.

Corporate Influencers are employees who use their personal social media profiles to communicate publicly about their work, area of expertise and company. They share their own experiences, knowledge and perspectives, thereby becoming visible and credible voices for their employer.

The difference lies primarily in scale and commitment. Employee Advocacy is a programme involving a larger number of employees who share content occasionally. A Corporate Influencer is an individual with a defined role who continuously creates their own content and is given dedicated time and resources to do so.

Employee Advocacy focuses on breadth and credibility through many voices. Corporate Influencing focuses on depth and reach through a smaller number of strong profiles.

The two approaches can also be combined: a Corporate Influencer programme focuses on a select number of people with clearly defined roles, while Employee Advocacy activates a larger number of employees.

Employer branding and Employee Advocacy address different aspects of employer communication. Employer branding focuses on how a company is perceived as an employer and how this employer brand is strategically shaped and made visible.

Employee Advocacy, on the other hand, uses the personal voices and networks of employees to share content and perspectives from within the company with the outside world.

The key difference is therefore the sender: with employer branding, the company communicates about itself as an employer. With Employee Advocacy, employees speak from their personal perspectives about their work, experiences and company.

Employee Advocacy can be part of an employer branding strategy, but it is not limited to it.

Employee Advocacy can support recruitment where traditional corporate communication reaches its limits: in terms of reach, credibility and personal connection.

• Personal reach: Employees use their own networks to reach people that the company channel may not reach, including professionals who are not currently actively looking for a new job.
• Credible insights: When employees talk about their everyday work, projects or experiences, they provide a more tangible picture of the company as an employer. Potential candidates gain first-hand insights and can better assess whether the employer is a good fit for them.
• Less distance from the employer brand: People are more likely to engage with people than with companies. Personal voices make the employer brand more tangible and can build trust and interest before a specific application is even being considered.

Employee Advocacy is therefore particularly valuable for companies looking to build long-term relationships with potential employees. Especially when it comes to hard-to-reach target groups, the personal connection provided by employees can make a decisive difference.

The best platform for Employee Advocacy is the one where employees and relevant target groups are genuinely active. There is therefore no universal answer.

LinkedIn is a natural choice for many companies, particularly when the focus is on professionals, B2B communication, recruitment or professional positioning. Depending on the target audience, however, other platforms may also be appropriate.

• LinkedIn: Professionals and executives, B2B, specialist topics, employer branding and recruitment.
• Instagram: Visual insights into everyday working life, younger target groups and industries such as hospitality, retail or healthcare.
• TikTok: Particularly younger target groups, early-career and apprenticeship recruitment, as well as accessible insights into everyday working life.

The key is not to be present on as many platforms as possible. The right platforms should be assessed before launching an Employee Advocacy programme based on the target audience, employees, communication objectives and available resources.

Employee Advocacy does not work on an «everyone participates» basis. Employees have different needs, comfort zones and motivations – and not everyone wants to speak publicly about their employer using their personal profile.

Typical reasons why employees do not participate include:

• Uncertainty: They are unsure what they are allowed to share, how they can talk about the company or what is expected of them.
• No desire for public visibility: Not everyone wants to use their name and personal profile to position themselves professionally on social media.
• Lack of time: If Employee Advocacy is not given a place in employees’ everyday work, it can quickly become an additional task that gets pushed aside.
• No personal benefit: Employees may not see what active participation offers them – for example in terms of professional visibility, networking or personal positioning.

Employee Advocacy should therefore always remain voluntary.

How successful Employee Advocacy is depends on what you want to achieve with it. Clear objectives should therefore be defined first, followed by appropriate KPIs. Only then can you assess whether Employee Advocacy is actually delivering results.

Depending on the objective, different metrics may be relevant, for example:

• Participation: How many employees take part? How regularly do they publish or share posts? Which topics and formats are being used?
• Reach and engagement: How many people are reached through employees’ personal networks? How much engagement is generated? How does the reach compare with that of the company page?
• Employer branding: Is awareness of the company as an employer increasing among relevant target groups? Are perceptions and interest changing?
• Recruitment: How many people visit the career website or open positions via Employee Advocacy? How many applications can be attributed to social media or specific posts? How many speculative applications are generated?
• Qualitative impact: How did candidates become aware of the company? Which content or employees caught their attention? Asking these questions during the recruitment process provides valuable insights into the actual impact of Employee Advocacy.

The important thing is not to measure as many metrics as possible, but to measure the right ones.