4 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Create Company Advocates

In the digital age, social media is key to building a strong company brand. With more than 722 million users as of January 2022, employee engagement on LinkedIn can help attract business, customers and future team members.

Employees are the greatest asset to successful businesses. According to LinkedIn Business, employee networks are 10 times larger than a company’s follower base, but only 13% of the global employees are engaged. Companies that build an interactive relationship with employees on LinkedIn gain more followers on their business pages, and improve both the quality and the reach of their presence as a result.

So, how do you turn employees into LinkedIn company advocates? Blair Poirier shares four ways below: 

1. Invite your employees (and their connections) to follow your page 

There are countless advantages of a LinkedIn page with a large following, and your employees are your best ambassadors. LinkedIn’s “invite” feature gives page administrators the chance to invite employees to follow the page and encourage them to do the same with their network. You can invite and search for connections to follow your page on the right-hand column of the company admin menu. Admins can invite up to 100 colleagues/month and once your invite is accepted, the credit is returned. Remember that limits are shared by all page admins and credits do not rollover. Make sure you’re sharing interesting and useful content on the page to keep these connections returning regularly.

We recommend setting a quarterly, biannual and yearly follower goal as well as regularly reminding coworkers to use the invite button to their advantage. Track and report on progress toward your established goals.

2. Notify your employees of the latest company posts

It can be challenging to get your employees to dedicate time to engage on LinkedIn. However, as a page admin, the platform makes it easy to share the latest posts internally by using the “notify employees” button, which can be accessed from the ellipsis in the top right corner. Once an employer notifies employees of a new post, they must wait 24 hours before they can send another notification. 

According to Hootsuite, employees are 14 times more likely to share their company’s content than anyone else’s. With the ease of the notify button, you can reinforce to your colleagues that content sharing and engaging on LinkedIn isn’t a time-intensive task. 

It’s important to be strategic about how often you use this feature. Overused push notifications can desensitize employees to alerts and cause them to ignore posts. We recommend using the button on a case-by-case basis for priority content. For example, send an alert about recent company awards or major announcements. 

Notify employees of recent posts using the ellipsis in the top right corner

3. Post content that features employees

Keeping a steady flow of fresh content to your feed that features your colleagues increases the visibility of your page and can tap potential followers from their networks. Ask yourself, “is this a post employees will want to share with others?” When employees engage with a post, it increases the content’s reach and shows it to a wider audience.

Ready to increase employee engagement and shares? Consider the following content ideas:

• Host a LinkedIn Live series with company executives or leaders
• Share a series of employee spotlights for work anniversaries, birthdays, etc.
• Post team member accolades, awards and community involvement 

4. Build a LinkedIn Leaders program 

Do you know employees who are already active on LinkedIn and share news about your company? Try launching a LinkedIn Leader’s program! You can position this as a leadership opportunity and get those employees involved first. By nominating a few “champions,” the rest of the company can see how the platform works and better understand why it’s a worthy investment of their time. 

We recommend building the program around incentives or recognition (i.e. the employee who shared the most photos or earned the most comments/reactions gets a prize) to motivate them to get started. A formal program can demonstrate the value of LinkedIn while educating team members on the value of engaging with content, leading to an increasing number of employee advocates online and IRL.

Blair Poirier is an Account Coordinator at Pierce Public Relations.