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Are you including your employees in your marketing strategy? If not, now is a great time to start. After all, your employees are some of the most loyal supporters of your brand.
Not convinced? Challenge accepted.
We’ve got some hot employee advocacy statistics that prove why you need to be making use of your team to build support, enthusiasm, and momentum—and give your marketing strategy a serious boost.
What is employee advocacy?
Employee advocacy is a strategic approach to marketing where employees take an active role in promoting their employer to their own social networks online. By positioning employees as digital brand ambassadors, companies can leverage the fact that their followers and prospects trust other people more than they trust logos.
It’s a powerful way to connect with leads and engage your team in a meaningful way. When employees share your brand’s content with their own networks of thousands, you land in front of new prospects that already have a connection to your company.
That’s why social media posts shared by employees get eight times more engagement than posts shared on company profiles.
When you implement an employee advocacy program, you’re essentially delegating part of your social media strategy to your employees while also encouraging them to act as thought leaders in their social circles. It’s a win-win!
Is employee advocacy effective for marketing?
Employees are excellent digital advocates because they have a personal connection with your brand.
When you come across a new product or service, do you trust claims that come from the brand itself, or those that are based on an individual’s personal experience with the brand? Chances are, you’ll gravitate toward posts from personal profiles instead of business pages.
Personal recommendations matter more to 84% of consumers value recommendations from people than any other form of advertising and primarily influence 77% of people to buy.
This principle is at the heart of employee advocacy. That's why it's the foundation of an effective digital marketing strategy.
When your employees share your company’s content on their personal pages, you’re not just getting a wider reach. You’re establishing a baseline of trust. Someone who might ignore your paid ad may slow their scroll and read a personal post with similar information—just because it comes from a friend or family member who also happens to be your employee.
Want these benefits?
⚡Watch Transforming Employees into Social Media Champions: Building a Strong Advocacy Program to learn how to get team buy-in and turn employees into enthusiastic brand ambassadors.
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Statistics show employee advocacy drives real ROI
Companies like Starbucks, Dell, Salesforce, and Adobe have famously created successful employee advocacy strategies that drive positive sentiment, marketing reach comparable to advertising, and a more engaged workforce. The impact is measurable:
- Dell saw 20% more social media engagement
- Starbucks unlocked 25% higher customer satisfaction ratings after implementing employee advocacy initiatives
But the benefits aren’t just for brands at the enterprise level. Check out employee advocacy statistics to see how these programs can make a difference in brand trust, reach, and profitability.
Leads from employee advocacy content posted on personal profiles are seven times more likely to convert than other content types.
Employees are real people—they’re friends, family members, colleagues, and mutual acquaintances with the thousands of social media connections they have. That means their posts and words carry enough weight with their networks to supercharge lead generation and conversions.
Employee advocacy can boost brand reach by up to 561% and increase engagement by 800% compared to results from a brand account alone.
In one case study we conducted, a firm with 50 users adopting an employee advocacy program generated over 3,850 clicks and 4,000 shares on social media. The Earned Media Value (EMV)—the dollar amount the firm would’ve paid to get these impressions through paid ads—totaled nearly $17,400 at the time of the case study. It’s a testament to how employee shares drive real value and maximize the reach of every branded post.
On LinkedIn, 30% of a company’s engagement comes from employee-generated content.
Since LinkedIn is a powerful network for professional and personal brand-building, team members who are active on this social platform may be more likely to share company content and positively promote your brand by creating their own content about the workplace.
Socially engaged sales representatives are 51% more likely to reach their sales quotas and create 45% more selling opportunities.
Sales leaders know the power of social selling, but employee advocacy is the driving force behind it. Roughly 78% of brands whose sales teams use social media to connect with leads and close deals outperform those who don’t. It all comes back to empowering your team members to promote and position your company in a positive light on social networks.
Need that engagement lift?
📘Download our free guide on training your employees to use LinkedIn for business and boost your team’s social media skills with ease.
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Employee advocacy benefits your team and customers, too
When your employees and their followers are actively engaged, it has a ripple effect on satisfaction. From the way team members view their workplace and role within the organization to how customers see your brand, the benefits go far beyond conversions and sales.
About 87% of employees who participate in advocacy programs believe it expands their professional network and positively impacts their career.
By taking an active role in your company’s marketing strategy, your team members can grow their professional networks on different social platforms and share consistent, on-brand content with their followers to cement their reputation of excellence online.
Having happy employees sends a powerful positive message. 77% of Gen Z customers are more likely to purchase from a brand who treats employees well.
Customers notice and care whether the company they’re purchasing from treats their employees well. The message comes across authentically if it comes from your people. As they say, “show, don’t tell.”
What these stats mean for your brand
These statistics and case studies don’t just show that there’s value in getting employees to share, promote, and amplify your content. They prove that employee advocacy is a real, ROI-driving strategy that benefits your company, your team, and your bottom line.
It’s not just about creating feel-good vibes, making your team a bigger part of your strategy, or being more authentic on social media.
It’s about putting your people at the center of what you’re building and reaping all the benefits that come with it.
From securing more sales on social media to showing new hires that your company culture is worth joining, taking steps to set up a program of your own opens the door to a brighter future for your brand.
Why employee advocacy isn’t optional anymore
Without an employee advocacy program, brands run into a number of the same hurdles while marketing on social media. You can probably relate to a few of them—these are the reasons employee advocacy is an essential strategy, not just a nice-to-have.
1. Social networks limit brand account reach
Social algorithms can keep brand accounts from reaching as many people as personal profiles can. With these reach limitations in place, only a small percentage of your total followers may see your content unless individuals engage meaningfully with your posts (and your team is a great place to start).
2. Users don’t engage with brands as readily
Posts from corporate or brand pages can feel impersonal or overly promotional, both of which repel meaningful engagement like comments, likes, and shares. Without human connection driving engagement through authenticity, your pages can easily fall silent.
3. Paid social advertising is costly
If you rely on ads to boost your reach, engagement, and website traffic, your results are directly limited by your budget. But with employee advocates increasing your reach and traffic naturally, you get results comparable to ads and don’t pay for clicks.
4. It’s getting harder to attract talent
Social media is where candidates do their research on company culture after applying for a job. Without real employees posting about their work experience, mission, or team wins, your brand looks less dynamic and attractive as an employer.
5. Customers want to see real, behind-the-scenes content
Your audience wants to see the reality of your company and what makes you different with insider content, photos, videos, and the voices of your team. Without employee advocacy, you’re limited to doing it all from your company page—and it’s not as effective at building trust and connections as your team’s personal profiles.
When your team members are your most vocal supporters on social media, you get past all those barriers and get straight to what matters most in any marketing strategy: authentically connecting with buyers and clients.
How to get started with an employee advocacy program
If your employees don't share company content, it may not be because they don’t want to—perhaps they just don’t know what to share. With a robust employee advocacy program, you can provide your employees with ready-to-post content that helps to establish them as thought leaders on social media while also promoting your brand.
The easiest way to build employee advocacy into your company culture is with a core group of effective employee engagement tools. Employee advocacy software is a great shortcut to starting one of these programs in your workplace.
The right employee advocacy platform can provide your team with a roundup of ready-to-post content that they can share in just a few clicks, track engagement metrics, and offer social media AI and automation tools for post scheduling, sharing, and generating content.
Other tools to consider are communication platforms that keep your team connected and recognition tools that make it easy to reward your top performers and social media superchargers.
Elevate your employee advocacy strategy with Clearview Social
We built Clearview Social to take the hassle out of employee advocacy and simplify your strategy. It's easy to get your whole team sharing with AI and automation features like one-click sharing, our Shuffle Content AI caption generator, and PeakTime™ scheduler to share posts at the right time for maximum engagement.
Your employee advocacy strategy is built in with the power to click, select, and send pre-approved content straight to your team’s inbox. With Clearview Social, your employees can share your brand’s content with thousands on their personal networks in seconds.
Our analytics dashboard shows you what content actually drives clicks, likes, and conversations—so you can do more of what works and none of what doesn’t. And because a little friendly competition is a powerful motivator, use our integrated Contests and Leaderboard to track and reward your top performers for sharing.
Want to make social sharing a no-brainer for your team? Watch what our platform can do for you and schedule a demo with Clearview today.
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