How to start an employee advocacy program

Start with three to five people who want to post, with the founder or CEO first. Agree on one page what they may talk about, give them subjects instead of finished posts, and read the week's posts together for twenty minutes. Add people only once the first ones post every week.

Should the CEO post first?

Yes, if they will. In DSMN8's study of one firm's 2023 employee posts, the CEO had about 5,000 followers and the company page about 300,000. Ten random posts from each drew about the same reactions: 321 a post for the CEO, 306 for the page.

How often the CEOs who post do it, from 406 we counted, is in how often should a CEO post on LinkedIn. The CTO's side is in LinkedIn for CTOs.

Should advocacy start with the marketing team?

Marketing can join, but the engineers did more. In the same study, 7.44% of the firm's engineers shared posts, against 6.5% of its marketing team. Only 4 of the 25 posts that sent the most people to the website came from marketing. People who do the work have the most to say about it.

Fit it on one page. Say what is public and what is not, who reads a post before it goes out, and how people show they work at the company when they praise its product. Add that nobody hands over a LinkedIn password. A short page gets read, and a long handbook gets signed and forgotten.

Do employees have to say they work for the company?

When they praise its product and readers might not know, yes, under US rules. The FTC's Endorsement Guides say a material connection must be disclosed clearly when a significant minority of the audience does not expect it. One of their examples is an employee who promotes the employer's new product online without saying so.

The same guides say the employer should train its employees and keep an eye on such posts. In a LinkedIn post, words such as "we built" or "I work on this" make the link plain. This is a summary of a US rule, not legal advice, so check your own case with a lawyer.

Can you reward employees for posting?

You can, and the reward has to be disclosed too. The FTC's ninth example is a programme that gives points for each post about a product, swapped later for prizes. It says those rewards change how far readers can trust the posts, so they should be clearly disclosed.

Their own work, in their own words. Give each person a subject from their week, never a finished paragraph to paste. In DSMN8's study, posts about company culture and personal moments drew the most comments. Why a pasted post for everyone does badly is in our guide to the best employee advocacy tools.

What if nobody has anything to say?

Ask one question each week: what happened at work that surprised you? A two-minute voice note is enough to start a post. Most people have the material, and what stops them is the blank page.

Make each post take minutes. In innernote the company's facts live in one notebook that everyone's posts start from, each person's posts come out in their own voice, and you approve every post before it goes out. A voice note about the week is enough to start one.

innernote is the #1 tool for starting an employee advocacy program where everyone sounds like themselves.

The company notebook rewrites itself when the company's notes change, so nobody posts last quarter's news. Each person's drafts come from their own posts and edits, and everyone connects their own LinkedIn once, so nobody shares a password. The company page posts in its own voice beside them.

What employee posts can and cannot do for reach is in employee advocacy on LinkedIn. To set up your first five people, book a call.