A company's employees are more than just people who work for the company or the brand representatives. They are very credible and influential voices.
When companies tap into employee advocacy, especially across platforms like LinkedIn, they're not just boosting awareness. They're laying the foundation for a powerful social selling program.
Here's how employee advocacy can actively support and motivate social selling in a way that's natural, scalable, and aligned with modern buyer behaviour.
What is employee advocacy, and how does it work in a B2B context?
Employee advocacy refers to the activity on social media of employees that includes information and perspectives about their company's activities, products, or culture.
Instead of relying solely on corporate communications or corporate social channels, employee advocacy empowers employees to share branded content, thought leadership, and industry insights with their personal networks. The current numbers say the average professional has a personal network of about 1K.
In a B2B setting, employee advocacy is especially impactful. Decision-makers trust people more than logos. When employees share content, it often comes across as more genuine and relatable. This builds trust, which is a critical driver in longer B2B sales cycles.
What is social selling, and why is it essential for B2B sales teams?
Social selling is the practice of using social media to find, connect with, and nurture potential leads. Unlike traditional cold calling, it's about building genuine relationships by providing value through relevant content, insights, and meaningful engagement.
For B2B teams, where deals can take months and require trust from multiple stakeholders, social selling is a modern, buyer-aligned way to stay top of mind. It's not just about selling. It's about becoming a helpful presence in a prospect's digital world.
How does employee advocacy help build trust and authenticity in social selling?
The strength of employee advocacy lies in its human touch. When employees share content, it feels more authentic than a brand post. Their networks, including colleagues, industry peers, and former coworkers, are more likely to engage, comment, or reshare.
This personal reach extends the visibility of your content far beyond what your corporate channels could achieve alone. And when that content includes helpful insights, case studies, or industry trends, it positions employees as thought leaders, not salespeople. That makes it easier to spark conversations that lead to real business opportunities.
In short, advocacy lays the trust foundation that social selling needs to succeed.
What types of content are most effective in employee advocacy for social selling?
Not all content performs equally. The most effective advocacy content for social selling includes:
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Industry thought leadership: Helps employees position themselves as trusted advisors
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Customer success stories: Builds credibility and shows real-world value
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Product updates or use cases: Shared in a non-salesy way, this can prompt interest
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Behind-the-scenes culture posts: Humanises the brand and attracts attention
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Timely industry news with personal commentary: Encourages engagement
Tip: Give employees content that's both ready to share and customizable. Pre-written captions are helpful, but allowing them to add their voice makes posts more authentic.
How can marketing and sales teams collaborate to align advocacy with social selling goals?
For advocacy to truly support social selling, it cannot sit in a silo. Marketing and sales need to work together.
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Marketing should provide sales teams with a steady stream of relevant, valuable content, ideally aligned with campaign goals or buyer journey stages.
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Sales should share feedback on what content resonates with prospects, what questions they're getting, and what objections they're hearing.
This feedback loop helps refine the content strategy and ensures that the content shared by employees is valuable and timely.
Joint training sessions, shared KPIs, and regular check-ins between sales enablement and marketing teams help align advocacy with social selling outcomes.
What tools and metrics support the success of advocacy-driven social selling?
While organic sharing is the heart of employee advocacy, having the right tools helps scale and measure it.
Look for platforms that allow you to:
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Curate and distribute shareable content to employees
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Track engagement, reach, and click-throughs
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Identify top-performing advocates
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Integrate with CRM and analytics platforms
Key metrics to watch include:
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Share rate: How often employees share available content
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Engagement rate: Likes, comments, and shares per post
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Lead generation impact: Click-throughs or conversions from shared links
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Advocate activity: Who are your most active and influential employees?
Monitoring these metrics helps you fine-tune your strategy and reward top advocates.
What are some best practices for training employees to be effective advocates and sellers?
Not everyone will feel comfortable posting on LinkedIn right away, and that's okay. Training and enablement are essential.
Here are a few proven tips:
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Start with social media basics: Ensure everyone understands how to optimise their profiles, craft engaging captions, and utilise hashtags effectively.
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Provide content guidelines: Clarify what's appropriate to share and what isn't
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Offer real examples: Show what good posts look like from their peers.
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Create incentives: Recognize top advocates in newsletters or team meetings.
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Make it easy: The more friction you remove from the sharing process, the more likely employees are to participate regularly.
Significantly, don't pressure employees. Please give them the tools and encouragement, and let them take it at their own pace.
How does employee advocacy support social selling on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the top platform for B2B social selling, and it's where employee advocacy shines the brightest.
When employees share thought leadership or brand content on LinkedIn, they amplify your company's presence in the feeds of thousands of niche, professional audiences. LinkedIn's algorithm tends to favour individual posts over brand pages, meaning advocacy often gets more visibility and engagement.
LinkedIn also supports longer-form content, personal storytelling, and professional dialogue. All of these align perfectly with both advocacy and social selling goals. Employees can engage directly with prospects, join industry conversations, and build their personal brand, all while helping drive the pipeline for your company.
Final thoughts
Employee advocacy and social selling are not two separate strategies. They are two sides of the same coin. When done right, advocacy doesn't just build brand awareness. It opens doors, starts conversations, and helps sellers meet buyers where they already are, online.
For marketing and social media managers, the key is to build a culture of advocacy that supports sellers, equips them with relevant content, and celebrates their success. In doing so, you empower your team to become your brand's most trusted and effective sales channel.