The Definitive Handbook to Employee Advocacy (Strategy, Launch, Software, ROI)

Your employees influence your brand, whether you realise it or not. The only question is: are you empowering them to shape the conversation in your favor?

By tapping into the collective power of your most valuable asset, your employees, you can amplify your message, boost engagement, and distribute authentic content that resonates with your target audience.

Whether you’re just beginning to explore employee advocacy, aiming to turn your team into in-house influencers, or need a helping hand through launching a program, this guide will help you every step of the way!

We will cover:

• What is employee advocacy, and what are employee influencers?
• The key benefits of employee advocacy.
• The future of influencer marketing.
• The business case for an employee advocacy program.
• A step-by-step guide to ensuring success from your program.
• Plus, a masterclass from Dropbox on the first 60 days of launching a program.

So, let’s get started, shall we?

First, let’s clear up the key definitions you’ll need to know:

Employee advocacy is the promotion of an organization or its products/services by its employees.

An employee advocate creates positive exposure for your company by sharing content on social media, “advocating” for your products or services. This typically occurs on the platform known for professional networking: LinkedIn.

In a nutshell, employee advocacy is word-of-mouth marketing by employees on social media.

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing that involves the promotion of a product, service, or company by an influencer: someone with a significant social media presence.

Influence can be on a macro scale, like MrBeast (the world’s biggest YouTuber with 366 million subscribers), or on a micro level, e.g., 10,000 followers in a niche community.

Anyone with internet access can build a following, and their content can influence purchase decisions and audience behavior.

Employee influencers are exactly what their name suggests: influencers, but employees.

They can be considered employee advocates or ambassadors, but they go beyond simply sharing brand-approved content. An employee influencer also creates their own original social media content.

The other key element here, of course, is influence. An employee content creator is more likely to have grown a larger professional network of followers and connections than their peers who only share pre-approved posts.

There’s one simple reason for this: creating original content is more likely to resonate on social media because it feels genuine.

Even simply rewording pre-approved content into your own tone of voice will make it more engaging and less ‘corporate’.

As with any marketing initiative, working with social media influencers comes with pros and cons. Let’s explore some of them:

Collaborating with social media influencers helps build a brand’s credibility beyond traditional advertising.

Let’s say, for example, a well-known beauty influencer endorses a new product on their Instagram or TikTok.

People follow these creators because they believe they can learn from them – their content provides value. A product recommendation is, therefore, likely to be trusted, leading to sales for the brand.

A 2024 study revealed that a huge 74% of consumers have made a purchase as a direct result of an influencer’s endorsement.

When influencers promote products or services, it doesn’t come across as pushy or as ‘in-your-face’ as brand advertising.

The audience has chosen to follow the influencer and their content, and so are less likely to be annoyed and ‘tune out’ when they share branded or sponsored posts.

Influencers aren’t a monolith; there are many different kinds!

These are the types most likely to be effective at boosting your brand, beyond the macro influencers with millions of followers:

1. Monogamous Influencers:

A monogamous influencer represents only one brand per industry to maintain authenticity. By limiting brand collaborations and focusing on long-term partnerships, influencers build credibility, ensuring consistency and trust.

2. Micro-Influencers:

A micro-influencer has a strong social media presence with a smaller, niche following. Their highly engaged audience trusts their expertise, making their recommendations more relatable, impactful, and trustworthy.

3. Employee Influencers:

Employee influencers, as the name suggests, promote the companies they work for. When employees thrive in a strong company culture, they naturally share their experiences, often before official advocacy programs launch.

In 2019, LinkedIn found that employee-shared content drove a 30% engagement increase, outperforming branded content.

With an advocacy platform, this impact scales. 72% of companies now use one to manage their programs, according to The Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report 2025.

It’s not always plain sailing with influencer marketing.

There have been many widely publicized instances of poorly executed influencer marketing campaigns, not to mention the potential for fake or ‘bot’ followers 😬

In the UK, the ASA sets out guidelines for influencer marketing, which ensure all sponsorships are disclosed as advertisements, even if the campaign involves gifted or ‘PR’ products without payment. Similar rules are enforced by the FTC in the United States.

Over the past decade, traditional influencer marketing has evolved from celebrity endorsements to smaller-scale social media influencers.

However, this growth is slowing as shifting consumer attitudes make brands rethink who their most impactful advocates are.

Stricter guidelines on sponsored content, driven by missteps in influencer marketing, have led to consequences for even reputable influencers.

Meanwhile, rising consumer awareness of data tracking and the use of ad blockers (used by 31.5% of users) is diminishing the effectiveness of traditional ads.

Here’s the thing all marketers should keep in mind: not every employee will make the ideal advocate or influencer.

Some of your team might not use social media, and others may not be interested in building a public personal brand.

The first people you call on should be the ones who are already active.

If they’re talking about your company, their work, or posting on LinkedIn… they’re the ideal candidate for an employee advocacy program! Search your company name or campaign hashtags to find them.

You’re also likely to have a bunch of creative folk amongst your ranks. Uncover the talented writers, photographers, or content creators in your team.

Finally, look to your senior leaders, especially your CEO. Executives are likely to have built large networks throughout their careers and wield significant influence both inside your company and externally.

Our study of 11,107 employee LinkedIn posts revealed that CEOs can achieve the same level of engagement as a company page, even with 98% fewer followers.

Use our Pyramid of Employee Influence to help guide you when planning who to invite:

Employee advocacy isn’t a buzzword; it’s a powerful tool for brands.

While engagement and communication have long been corporate priorities, we see leveraging employees’ voices externally as the natural next step in brand strategy.

Authentic employee advocates and influencers drive sales, boost retention, and attract top talent.

So, why is everyone talking about this now? Here are eight trends putting employee advocacy in the spotlight.

A staggering 92% of buyers trust peer content over brand messaging, according to research by Nielsen.

Activating your team on social media builds personal brands, positions employees as thought leaders, and strengthens marketing efforts.

The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed that trust brands is fleeting, while authenticity matters more than ever, especially for Millennials and Gen Z consumers.

Brands turned to influencer marketing to address this, but rising costs and declining trust have made buyers skeptical of sponsored content.

Now, companies are cultivating in-house influencers for a cost-effective, credible alternative.

This also increases content control, ensuring that the creator isn’t recommending your product/service one week and your competitor’s the next.

Social media favors people over brands.

LinkedIn posts written by employees outperformed pre-written shares by over 9x, from our analysis of 500,000 posts made in 2025.

Smart brands are maximizing reach by having their leaders share key strategic content and getting employees to amplify it.

Sales pros know social selling, but here’s a refresher: it’s using social media to engage prospects and stay top of mind. Employee advocates excel at this.

By sharing helpful and relevant content, your sales team will build personal brands and industry credibility. In turn, this reflects positively on you.

In 2024, Edelman found that 9/10 executives preferred outreach from brands regularly sharing thought leadership content.

Employer branding and employee advocacy go hand in hand.

With 96% of companies linking employer brands to revenue and LinkedIn reporting a 50% boost in qualified candidates, perception of your culture is key.

In the social media age, the best way to showcase company culture? Let employees tell the story.

Employee advocacy tools are becoming an invaluable asset for companies looking to reduce paid media and production budgets and amplify existing marketing content.

As influencer fees rise and impact declines, many brands are shifting focus to in-house creators. This supports scaling content while keeping budgets in check.

Employees are a company’s most valuable asset, and investing in them drives productivity and growth.

In fact, the 2025 Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report shows that 61% of organizations now view employee advocacy as crucial.

Clear, curated content boosts employees’ confidence in sharing on social media, making them effective brand ambassadors. Providing the right support and tools is key.

Creating content at scale is a major challenge for companies of all sizes.

Even large companies with dedicated teams often struggle to drive engagement and ROI.

Employee advocacy platforms like DSMN8 help scale content distribution without sacrificing quality.

By adding multiple preview images, titles, and captions, employees can share unique variations of the same post.

We’ve covered how employee advocacy benefits brands, but why would employees want to participate?

Well, building a professional presence on LinkedIn helps support career growth, positioning yourself as an expert in your sector, and can even lead to exciting opportunities like awards!

And of course, it’ll increase internal visibility with senior leadership, and shows that you’re a team player who wants the company to thrive.

Let’s break down the main benefits for employees:

Ready to launch your own advocacy program?

Gaining senior management’s approval can be daunting and time-consuming. Before pitching, ensure you have the data and strategy to make a strong case.

An employee advocacy program offers many advantages, but six key benefits stand out:

1. Amplified content distribution.
2. Enhanced social selling opportunities.
3. Crowdsourced content creation.
4. A stronger employer brand.
5. Empowering employees.
6. Performance marketing.

Your marketing team creates great content, so why not give it the reach it deserves?

Consumers trust people they know over traditional ads, making employee advocacy more credible and impactful than corporate pages or influencers.

• 79% say user-generated content influences their purchases.
• 88% trust recommendations from peers most.
• Just 3% of employees sharing content boosts LinkedIn engagement by 30%.

Social selling helps salespeople engage with prospects on social media, ensuring they’re top of mind when buyers are ready.

An employee advocacy program simplifies content sharing, positioning sales teams as industry experts.

LinkedIn reports that 78% of social sellers outsell peers who aren’t active online.

Creating authentic content at scale is challenging.

Social media managers can’t be everywhere, and freelance writers often lack industry insight.

Employee advocacy platforms let employees capture and share behind-the-scenes moments, enabling marketing teams to crowdsource high-quality content while saving time and budget.

Employers gain authentic content, while employees build their personal brands and industry credibility 🤝

Empowering employees to create content fosters a sense of belonging and a strong company culture.

In the age of social media, employer branding is crucial for attracting top talent and shaping public perception. Employees are the most authentic advocates for your brand.

In 2024, 77% of U.S. HR professionals struggled to find candidates, yet in 2023, Forbes reported that referrals made up just 7% of applicants but 45% of hires.

Encouraging employees to share job opportunities is a cost-effective way to recruit top talent while strengthening your employer brand.

Many companies see employee advocacy as just a marketing tool, but it also boosts employees’ careers.

Advocacy programs enhance personal branding, open doors to networking and speaking opportunities, and improve professional growth.

A huge 96% of advocates in our 2025 Benchmark Report said social media positively impacted their careers.

Platforms also serve as training tools, offering pre-approved content to boost product knowledge and ease social media concerns, helping onboard new hires efficiently.

A great example is Krauthammer, a Swiss training consultancy, which launched an advocacy program with DSMN8. Clear guidelines and support empowered employees to share confidently, benefiting both them and the company.

An employee advocacy program can significantly reduce paid media costs.

On LinkedIn, the average cost per click (CPC) was $5.26, while companies using DSMN8 see < $1 CPC. AWIN achieved a CPC of just $0.23.

Employee advocates drive high engagement and website referrals at a fraction of traditional marketing costs.

• 96% of employees believe posting on social media has positively influenced their careers (The Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report 2025).
• LinkedIn posts written by employees outperformed pre-written shares by over 9x, from our analysis of 500,000 posts made in 2025.
• 23% of employee advocacy programs are generating a cost-per-click of under $1 from employee shares (DSMN8 Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report 2025).
• A CEO with 5,000 followers on LinkedIn reaches the same amount of engagement as a company page with 300,000 followers (DSMN8 study of 11,107 LinkedIn posts).
• 73% of employee advocacy program managers are planning to get leadership involved as a top priority in the coming year (Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report 2025).

Download the executive summary PDF to share with your leadership team to support gaining buy-in for a program:

We’ll admit, we’re a little biased. But if you’re searching for the ultimate employee advocacy platform, DSMN8 is the name to know. That said, let’s put our bias aside.

To ensure your chosen vendor will set you up for success, we highly recommend following this buyer’s guide. You can also download our vendors’ must-have checklist to help you evaluate essential features for your program.

Gamification elements like competitive leaderboards, rewards, and prizes make employee advocacy fun and engaging.

Tapping into their competitive nature is a strong motivator for many employees and will encourage signups and consistent participation.

One brand that championed this with DSMN8 is Chinese tech titan Huawei.

Recognizing the power of their employees to support business objectives, they offered up their latest smartphones, shopping vouchers, and exercise tech as rewards for top performers. Read the case study.

A one–size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work for employee advocacy.

Would your organization’s product development team want to share the same content as a salesperson? Probably not.

Segmenting users ensures they see relevant, localized content.

This engages both employees and their networks more effectively.

In multinational companies, regional leaders should curate content to suit different languages and cultures, preventing overload on one admin.

Unique, authentic-looking content is a must-have for any employee advocacy program.

Top platform vendors will allow admin users to include multiple images and post captions for every curated piece. This prevents your employees from sharing identical posts, which won’t appear original to their networks (or the algorithm).

Take a Netflix-style approach to engaging your audience. Rather than using the original poster artwork, they source high-quality images from their films and TV shows. Netflix then changes its preview artwork, aiming to entice users who were not attracted to the old images with new ones.

Top vendors typically offer both desktop and mobile apps, but always double-check. If you’re onboarding non-desk-based employees, a mobile app is essential!

With mobile access, your employees can engage anytime, anywhere, driving higher participation. A seamless mobile experience makes advocacy accessible and convenient for your team.

Push notifications further boost engagement by instantly alerting employees when new content is available to share.

Before you launch an employee advocacy program, it’s vital that you have a strategy in place to ensure it’s a success.

Without proper guidance, this can be a tricky process. A great vendor will guide you through the process from inception to post-launch, and you will typically have a dedicated customer success manager to help you along the journey.

Single Sign-On (SSO) simplifies employee access by allowing a single username and password to log into multiple products that your organization uses.

This enhances security while streamlining the login process.

Look for SSO as a key feature to drive adoption, improve user experience, and ensure security compliance!

Notifications play a crucial role in sustaining user engagement.

By alerting employees when they’re tagged or mentioned, notifications serve as gentle prompts to return to the platform. This keeps participation high.

Email newsletters are another great way to let advocates know about fresh content.

This is a feature we’ve come to expect from any software, yet surprisingly, many companies fall short.

While your program may launch in the U.S. today, ensure your vendor can support future expansion into non-English-speaking markets.

Employee advocacy isn’t all about sharing content. Engaging is important, too!

Make sure your platform includes a feature like DSMN8’s ‘boost post’. This makes it easy for employees to like or share LinkedIn posts by your executive influencers (e.g. the CEO) and your company page in one click.

This helps distribute the content further without your team needing to rely on the feed algorithm to show the freshest posts.

Top platform providers like DSMN8 offer a fully managed service.

Our team takes on tasks such as curating content and managing users so you can focus your efforts elsewhere.

In other words, customer success will do all the “heavy lifting” so that you can refine your strategy and focus on the more important tasks like performance analysis and content planning.

Before implementing an employee advocacy program, ensure these key factors are checked off. A program’s success often hinges on these elements!

The key to getting employees to create and share brand content is a strong company culture.

Company culture (essentially your brand’s personality) shapes the work environment and drives engagement.

Employees are unlikely to advocate for a company they don’t enjoy working for!

Before launching an advocacy program, assess your culture. It takes time to build a positive, productive environment, so don’t skip this step.

Start by reviewing Glassdoor feedback and your CEO’s approval rating to gauge how people really feel about your organization.

For employee advocacy to succeed, you need a steady flow of engaging, valuable content to share.

This includes blogs, press releases, videos, podcasts, and thought leadership posts. Audit your content sources and how often they’re updated.

Or perhaps you’re starting an influencer program to increase your content output in a more cost-effective, organic way.

In this case, equip employee influencers with creation tools and social media training to help them produce authentic content and grow their personal brands.

Have you decided on a name for your advocacy platform? Naming it will help build early buzz and reinforce your program’s purpose.

Aim for something that reflects your brand while clearly communicating the initiative’s goals.

Your goal is to position it as a company-wide movement, not just another tool.

PMI nailed this with their Inside Out program, turning employees into brand champions with a full identity and branded merch.

Planning a pilot before launch? Choose your first advocates wisely.

Finding ideal advocates can seem daunting, especially if you’re an enterprise company with thousands of employees.

Start by searching your company name and relevant hashtags on LinkedIn, X, or Threads to find employees already sharing content.

Use our Ideal Advocate Profiles worksheet to plan out your approach:

Getting senior leadership involved early gives your program instant credibility. When employees see your C-Suite leading by example, they’re more likely to join in.

Or for a more representative view of how your platform will perform company-wide, consider using traditional sampling methods instead.

Pre-launch communications are your chance to spark excitement and curiosity ahead of rollout.

Use email campaigns or internal comms channels to build awareness, especially if messages come from senior leaders or the CEO. Their buy-in adds credibility and boosts adoption.

Make sure to connect with department heads to highlight how their teams will benefit from the program.

The way you choose to launch your program is important to consider because it can significantly influence user adoption and employee enthusiasm.

Reflect on how your company has previously introduced and announced initiatives. What has been successful for you in the past?

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. Traditional communication methods, such as placing posters around the office can raise awareness. Similarly, hosting lunch-and-learn events can be equally effective.

5 Ways to Promote Your Advocacy Program Internally:

You’ve checked every box, now it’s time to launch!

This moment sets the tone for how your program will run and gives employees a clear roadmap for what’s next.

At DSMN8, we’ve found that admins may spend up to an hour per week on the platform early on, but this quickly decreases, so don’t worry if it feels time-intensive at first!

When employees sign up, they’ll likely dive in and want to share content right away.

Make sure the platform is well-stocked. Nothing kills momentum like logging in to find just two blog posts!

Include plenty of relevant third-party content from trusted industry sources to help employees build credibility and avoid sounding overly promotional.

If your company operates globally or has diverse departments or business units, consider assigning team leaders to specific regions or divisions.

This ensures users receive localized, relevant content while evenly distributing the workload, preventing the platform from becoming an overwhelming task for one person.

Not all advocacy programs have a dedicated manager, but having one can make a big difference.

They help track progress, report success to leadership, and keep everyone aligned.

In larger companies with multiple teams, appointing a program manager is especially valuable.

Treat it like any other marketing or comms channel: consistent oversight ensures efficiency and long-term success.

Gamification is a powerful way to boost participation. Leaderboards and rewards create friendly competition and keep teams engaged.

Incentives also help attract hesitant employees and generate buzz, especially during launch.

Prizes could range from merch to charitable donations, offering motivation while aligning with your company’s values.

The brilliant Katherine Keenan, leader of Dropbox’s employee advocacy program, joined us for a special episode of our podcast.

She shared excellent tips on how to launch your program effectively.

Here’s a summary of the episode:

• Remember that different employee groups use advocacy tools for different reasons.
• Tailor your messaging and outreach depending on the department or role.

• Highly engaged employees on LinkedIn: Offer them early access as they’re already active and need less convincing.
• Sales teams: Frame the tool as the method for promoting key launches and emphasize analytics features.
• People/HR teams: Equip them with up-to-date, pre-written content to share with potential candidates.

• Don’t try to launch everything at once.
• Run small onboarding sessions, use feedback to improve, and tailor future sessions.
• Katherine added a 30-minute session on advocacy into all new hire onboarding.
• Doing a live demo and encouraging their first post reinforces that advocacy is part of the company culture from day one.

• Connect with employees on LinkedIn after onboarding sessions.
• Like and comment on employee posts. This small gesture amplifies reach and shows real-time support.
• Leading by example (posting authentically yourself) encourages others to follow.

• Plan how you’ll keep recruiting users after the initial rollout.
• Focus on sustainable growth, e.g., regularly onboarding new hires.

Sustaining an employee advocacy program requires ongoing management and a steady supply of content. Without this, employee engagement will decline.

Think of it like managing a CRM, social community, or loyalty program: consistent nurturing and oversight are essential to maximizing results.

Consistent content availability is the critical component to program success.

You don’t need daily updates, but regular curation is essential, ideally including a healthy amount of third-party and employee-generated content.

To keep advocates engaged, continue incentivizing participation and aim for DSMN8’s “Holy Trinity” of content, a mix of:

• Company-centered content.
• Employee-centered content.
• Third-party educational content.

Additional best practices we recommend following when curating content for employee advocacy programs:

1. Write posts to sound like a person, not a company.
2. Create multiple captions and images for every piece.
3. Consider different personas, e.g., sales vs executives.
4. Use AI to streamline your approach.
5. Consider different social media platform requirements, e.g,. short posts for X or Threads.

Senior leadership plays a vital role in shaping content-sharing habits and setting the tone.

When execs lead by example, employees follow!

Plus, executives often have broad networks, making their participation especially valuable for reaching key decision-makers in both B2B and B2C spaces.

If employees notice a decline in engagement from senior staff, they may perceive the initiative as losing momentum, so make sure they consistently engage.

73% of program managers are prioritizing getting leadership involved in 2025. – The Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report 2025.

At DSMN8, we recently launched new executive influencer features to make this easy. Key features include content approval workflows and delegate access for admins to act on behalf of executives.

Watch the short video below to find out how it works:

If your platform includes internal communication tools, using them will help keep employees engaged.

Features like comments, likes, internal posts, and polls foster interaction and create a more dynamic experience.

Leaders and program managers should actively show appreciation for advocates, whether within the platform or on social media. This strengthens company culture but also humanizes leadership, making them more approachable and connected.

Additionally, these tools encourage employees to return to the platform regularly, as notifications will trigger a natural desire to stay informed.

Have you noticed an employee driving significant engagement on social media?

Maybe they’re sharing photos from company events or even creating original thought leadership articles.

Recognize their impact by creating a case study that highlights their contributions and the engagement they’ve generated.

Showcasing these super users will make them feel good while inspiring others to participate.

Encouraging employees to share industry news and company content positions them as thought leaders, boosting credibility and social selling.

This is especially helpful for sales teams. In fact, 98% of tech executives in 2024 said personal branding on social media improves business outcomes.

Showcasing your company culture is just as important as promoting your brand when attracting top talent.

Many candidates prioritize culture in their decision-making. So lean into this and empower all employees or your super users to create authentic and original content.

Social media managers can’t be everywhere, so get your team to capture moments at events, away days, and charity initiatives. Your social media manager will thank you!

Our week-long company channel takeover by Customer Success Manager Pablo was a huge success! It even led to a press feature.

Use your platform’s analytics tools frequently.

These insights help you identify the top-performing content amongst employees within the platform and which pieces are most popular with their networks on social media.

This will enable you to refine your strategy and laser-focus on creating content that truly resonates with your audience.

We spoke with Brad Nevin, Nissan’s Editor-in-Chief of Global Digital Communications about the future of employee advocacy. Here’s what he had to say:

“I see EA taking over paid social promotion. Boosting your company posts has its place, but having people reach out to people produces better results.

I also see companies that lean into EA hiring more than a few people to manage it – with tasks of adding users, putting in a variety of content, producing reports to show results to the powers-that-be, and countless more jobs tied to managing a successful program. It’s not a one-person job if done right.

I even see EA being so valuable that it deserves its own group within a company’s comms department.”

“Users and content. None of this works without users, and getting employees on board to become an ambassador for a company can be more challenging than you may think.

Add users in batches and then host small meetings (30 mins-ish) to explain the benefits. Then, keep users engaged with lots of fresh content.

Taking content a step further, in your EA tool, put in a wide variety of topics so people can pick the posts they like, making their social profile a better reflection of themselves.”

“Make it clear to the suits that employees love it. Sharing on social makes employees feel connected to the company, empowered and in-the-know.

They feel informed about company news on a level they’ve never experienced before.

Plus, employees sharing about your company gets all your company’s bragging points on the minds of millions more people than if you didn’t have an employee advocacy program. This s*** works!”

Ready to dive into the nitty-gritty of employee advocacy tactics and strategy?

Sign up for our free on-demand video course.

You’ll become certified in employee advocacy (something you can add to your LinkedIn profile!)

You can also request a free copy of DSMN8 co-founder and CEO Bradley Keenan’s book, Employee Advocacy: 101 Cheat Codes.

From his years of experience, Bradley shares over a hundred insightful tips for starting, managing, and scaling your program, whether you’re using a platform or not.

For now, let’s jump into some advanced strategies & ways to measure success 👇

To maximize your CEO’s impact on LinkedIn, tailored, original content is essential.

But C-Suite time is limited, so it can be helpful to streamline the process with our 5-step framework.

It’ll help you capture their insights without demanding too much of their time:

1. Insight Collection:

Capture quick thoughts via Slack, voice notes, or AI transcripts from meetings. No extra effort needed.

2. Refine Thoughts:

Extra one or two strong content ideas from a short, structured conversation. 30 minutes.

3. Content Creation:

Craft a clear, engaging LinkedIn post in a suitable tone with valuable insights. 45 minutes.

4. CEO Polish:

A quick review. Approve, tweak or refine, but no overthinking! 10 minutes.

5. Publish & Boost:

Post content, ask colleagues to ‘boost’, engage in the comments. 5 minutes.

Most companies start seeing ROI from employee advocacy within the first month, but let’s break it down with real numbers.

Let’s say your company has 200,000 combined followers across LinkedIn, X, and Facebook. That’s your Total Potential Reach (TPR) from official channels.

Now, consider this: the average LinkedIn user has 1,180 connections. If just 170 employees get involved, the Total Employee Reach (TER) would be 200,600, surpassing your company page reach.

If you have 10,000 employees, the TER jumps to 11.8 million. Even with only 15% participation (1,500 employees), the reach is 1.77 million. That’s 785% more than your brand’s social channels alone.

Most companies with advocacy programs see 20-30% employee participation. And on average, employees share 2.2 pieces of content per week, generating 5 clicks per share.

Let’s do the math:

If 1,500 employees each share 8 pieces of content per month, that’s 12,000 shares. At 5 clicks per share, that’s 60,000 clicks per month, or 720,000 per year.

Now, compare that to paid advertising:

LinkedIn ads cost $4-$7 per click. At $4 per click, those 60,000 clicks would cost $240,000 per month.

With employee advocacy, the average cost per click is just $0.50-$0.90, up to 88% cheaper than LinkedIn ads.

According to our 2025 Benchmark Report, 23% of organizations using employee advocacy see a CPC under $1.

Try our ROI Calculator to see what your company could achieve.

1. Adoption Rate

One of the clearest ways to measure success is by tracking employee adoption rates.

On average, companies see 20–30% of employees join their advocacy platform, but why stop there? Some DSMN8 clients have achieved adoption rates as high as 65%.

The more employees you onboard, the greater your social reach and engagement, and the lower your cost-per-click.

2. Active Users

Adoption is just the beginning. The real value comes from sustained participation. That’s why it’s crucial to track active users, not just sign-ups.

To keep engagement high, incentivize participation with leadership support, gamification, and by celebrating individual contributions both internally and externally.

For more tips on driving long-term engagement, download our User Adoption Playbook.

3. Content Uploads

If your platform allows employees to upload content and images, be sure to track how much is being contributed.

Start by reviewing your current content output across your blog and social channels. This baseline helps you set clear goals for increasing production through employee contributions.

Also, compare engagement rates between employee-generated content and posts from your corporate pages. This is a great way to see what truly resonates with your audience.

4. Share Rates

Another key metric to monitor is how many pieces of content are being shared per week.

As always, we say aim high: we believe that users should be encouraged to share as much content as the company sees fit (within reason – no one likes a spammer!)

The average seen with the DSMN8 platform is 2.2 pieces of content per employee per week.

5. Earned Media Value & CPC

We’ve covered potential cost-per-click savings, but tracking CPC is key for maintaining leadership support and securing buy-in to grow your program.

The same goes for earned media value. This metric estimates the monetary value of organic exposure from third-party mentions, like employee shares.

Good news: the DSMN8 platform tracks both for you.

6. Key Business Results

And finally, the metrics that matter most to leadership: leads, conversions, and sales.

Use UTM tracking to monitor these results in Google Analytics (DSMN8 handles this automatically), and listen out for prospects who mention finding you through employee posts.

Pro tip: add an open “How did you hear about us?” field to your website forms to capture valuable first-party data.

1. Users

Understand how engaged employees are and identify key influencers.

Key Metrics:

• Total Users
• Engaged Users
• New Sign-Ups
• Top Users

2. Content

Discover top-performing content formats & topics.

Key Metrics:

• Shares
• Reach
• Engagement

3. ROI

Maintain leadership buy-in and demonstrate impact.

Key Metrics:

• Earned media value
• Cost-per-click
• Business results (conversions, sales)

You’ve got the strategy. Now, how do you manage and scale it efficiently?

To make implementing the strategies in this handbook easy, scalable, and highly measurable, you need a dedicated, all-in-one platform.

In short, we make it easy for employees to become brand ambassadors, social sellers, content creators, and even influencers.

Our innovative platform empowers companies to unlock the full potential of their employees with the #1 user-rated employee advocacy solution on G2.

DSMN8’s employee advocacy platform helps you stay ahead of algorithm changes, cut ad spend, and get your content seen.

With desktop and mobile access, employees can easily find and share content across social media, messenger, email, and SMS.

Powered by AI, automation, and a built-in gamification engine, plus a full analytics suite, DSMN8 makes it simple for employees to grow their personal brands while boosting yours.

Check out the 90 second demo video below for a brief overview of what you can expect:

Don’t forget to download the Ultimate Guide to Employee Advocacy for a PDF version of this handbook, in case you need to refer to it later!

More resources you’ll find helpful for launching, scaling, and driving results from an employee advocacy program:

• The Employee Advocacy Certification (Free Course).
• Employee Advocacy: 101 Cheat Codes by Bradley Keenan.
• The World’s Biggest Employee Advocacy Study (Data from half a million LinkedIn posts).

The data in this handbook is supported by original studies conducted by DSMN8, the #1 user-rated employee advocacy platform.

Download the full studies and research reports referenced here:

• The World’s Biggest Employee Advocacy Study (Half a Million LinkedIn Posts from 2025).
• 11,107 Employee LinkedIn Posts Analysis.
• The Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report 2025.
• Does LinkedIn Organic Reach Still Exist? A Data-Driven Investigation.
• The Impact of Executive Social Media Presence.

Want early access to the 2026 Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report? Take part in the survey!