Most companies are leaving serious engagement on the table. Not because their team isn’t talented — but because the strategy is built on assumptions, not data.
Here’s where I’d start:
1. Kill the content calendar. Build a content system. A calendar tells you when to post. A system tells you what to post, why it will perform, and how to repurpose it across formats. I’d audit every post from the last 6 months, find what actually drove engagement, and build the new content plan backward from the data — not from someone’s gut feeling.
2. Move your best ideas into native documents. Right now, native documents are the highest-performing format on LinkedIn — 7% average engagement, up 14% year-over-year. If your team isn’t converting your executives’ expertise, case studies, and frameworks into downloadable carousels, you’re posting with one hand tied behind your back.
3. Put a real human voice on your brand page. The accounts growing fastest aren’t the most polished — they’re the most authentic. I’d work directly with your leadership team to surface the unfiltered perspectives, real decisions, and behind-the-scenes processes that no competitor can replicate. That’s your moat.
4. Fix your format-to-audience match. Multi-image posts drive the most likes. Polls drive the most impressions at scale. Videos are declining 36% year-over-year in views. Most companies are still treating all formats equally. I’d restructure the content mix immediately based on what actually earns reach for your specific audience size.
5. Turn your employees into a distribution channel. Your team’s networks are one of the most underutilized assets in your marketing stack. I’d build a simple employee advocacy program — not a mandate, but a system that makes it genuinely easy for your people to amplify content they’re proud of. That reach is free. Most brands never capture it.
Thirty days isn’t enough to transform everything. But it’s more than enough to stop the bleeding and build a foundation that actually compounds.
The question most CEOs should be asking isn’t “are we posting enough?” — it’s “does anyone actually care when we do?”
If you’re not sure of the answer, that’s the place to start.
How I Generated 13 Million in Organic Reach — And What It Taught Me About Employee Advocacy
Inside the program I built and why your organization can’t afford to ignore this strategy any longer.
For several years, I stood on my soap box advocating for an employee advocacy program at for the large company I worked for and made a simple argument: our employees were already our most powerful marketing channel — we just weren’t using them.
What followed was one of the most rewarding projects of my career. I championed and led the development of Corewell Health’s employee advocacy program from the ground up. By the end of the first full year with just a relatively small number of participants, the program had generated an additional 13 million impressions in organic reach — without a single dollar of paid media spend behind it.
That result didn’t happen by accident. It happened because employee advocacy, when built thoughtfully, is one of the most powerful and cost-efficient growth strategies available to any organization. Here’s what I learned — and why it matters for your business right now.
Why employee advocacy works: the trust factor
We live in an era of skepticism. Consumers scroll past branded content at lightning speed. But when a real person — a colleague, a friend, a peer — shares something, they stop. Research backs this up: 92% of B2B buyers trust recommendations from employees over brand content, and consumers are three times more likely to trust an employee over a CEO when sorting fact from fiction about a brand.[2][3]
This is the foundation of employee advocacy: authenticity at scale. Your employees are already on social media. They already have networks. An advocacy program simply gives them the tools, content, and confidence to become amplifiers for your brand in a way that feels natural — not forced.
The reach multiplier you’re leaving on the table
Based on Dunbar’s number of 150, if each employee has 150 friends who each have 150 friends, you can see the exponential reach your employees represent. Here’s a stat that is eye opening: 561% greater reach when messages are shared by employees rather than by the brand’s official social media channels.[4] Every employee who shares a piece of content is potentially putting your message in front of an entirely new audience — one that your corporate channels will never reach organically.
And it’s not just reach. Content shared by employees is reshared 24 times more frequently than when the same content is posted by a brand account, and drives a 200% increase in click-through rates.[1] The numbers from our Corewell Health program aligned perfectly with what the research shows — which is exactly why I knew the program would perform.
It’s not just a marketing strategy — it’s a talent strategy too
One of the most under appreciated benefits of employee advocacy is what it does for recruiting. Companies with a successful advocacy program are 58% more likely to attract top talent and 20% more likely to retain it.[4] Job openings shared by employees yield 30% more applicants than those posted only on company pages.[5]
For health systems, hospitals, and large employers — organizations that are constantly competing for skilled professionals — this alone can justify the investment in a program.
But there’s an internal benefit too. 86% of employees in formal advocacy programs say it positively impacted their own careers.[1] When you give employees the platform and the tools to become thought leaders in their industry, they become more engaged, more invested, and more proud of where they work.
The ROI case is undeniable
Still need to convince leadership? Consider this: earned media value from employee advocacy is worth 2x the media value of paid advertising, and for every $1 invested in an advocacy program, companies see an average return of $6.50 in sales pipeline value.[1]
Companies with active advocacy programs also report 20% higher revenue growth and 400% higher social selling success rates compared to those without.[2] Nearly 45% of advocates in formal programs have credited employee advocacy with generating new revenue streams.[6]
These aren’t theoretical projections. They are documented outcomes from organizations that made the commitment to build a real program — with structure, training, leadership buy-in, and the right technology behind it.
What makes a program actually work
The biggest mistake I see organizations make is treating employee advocacy as a one-time campaign. It isn’t. It’s a culture shift — and it requires the same strategic discipline as any other marketing initiative.
From my experience building and running programs, these are non-negotiable:
Leadership participation. Programs with C-suite involvement see a 24% higher adoption rate among staff.[1] When executives model the behavior, employees follow. One of the key internal partnerships in developing the program I led was with HR leadership. The director helped promote the program among her team and throughout the organization with other leadership.
Training and guidelines. Nearly a third of organizations still don’t provide social media training for their advocates — a significant missed opportunity.[7] Employees need to feel confident and clear on what to share.
A content mix that resonates. The most successful programs blend company news with culture-based and industry content. Authenticity matters — advocates sharing content that reflects their real perspectives will always outperform scripted messaging. The key to encouraging employees to share is letting them know the content shared in the program has been vetted and approved by leadership.
Consistent measurement. You can’t grow what you don’t track. Reach, engagement, CTR, and earned media value should be reported regularly to both advocates and leadership.
Is your organization ready?
Despite the evidence, only about 17% of firms have a fully formalized employee advocacy program.[1] That gap represents an enormous competitive opportunity for organizations willing to move now.
Whether you’re a healthcare system, a financial services firm, a tech company, or a growing small business — your employees are your most credible, most cost-effective, and most underutilized brand ambassadors. The only question is whether you’re going to activate them.
I’ve spent years helping organizations across industries build social media strategies that drive real results. Employee advocacy is one of the highest-impact investments I’ve ever seen — and I’ve seen the numbers to prove it.
SOURCES
[1] Gitnux — Employee Advocacy Statistics: Market Data Report 2025
[2] Sociabble — 12 Employee Advocacy Statistics You Need to Know in 2026
[3] Firstup — Top Employee Advocacy Statistics to Guide Your Strategy
[4] Peer to Peer Marketing — 21 Mind Blowing Employee Advocacy Stats
[5] GaggleAMP — Key Employee Advocacy Statistics That Prove Its Impact
What’s Brewing with 360Brew?
Based on conversations with a close contact who works with LinkedIn along with some research I’ve done using ChatGPT that includes information from an abstract found on arXiv.org and “The Unofficial LinkedIn Algorithm Guide, Fall 2025 Edition from https://www.trustinsights.ai , 360Brew is “the name LinkedIn researchers gave to a foundation-model approach to ranking and recommendations—the kind of system that decides what content, jobs, people, and other items LinkedIn is likely to show to a given member.”
However, I can’t confirm that LinkedIn has “fully replaced” the feed algorithm everywhere with 360Brew, on a specific date, for all members. Keeping that in mind, I think it’s safe to assume LinkedIn is moving toward more semantic, context-aware ranking.
What that means is you should optimize your profile and content for member value not just reactions. In other words, the volume of views and reactions don’t carry as much weight in determining the value of your profile or content you share. The things that matter are:
- Saves (strong “this was useful” indicator)
- Shares (value + identity)
- Meaningful comments (depth, not volume)
- Dwell time (people actually reading)
So you should publish things worth returning to—mini playbooks, checklists, “what we learned,” myth vs fact, templates. Additionally, according to the person I talked with, you need to “warm up” your audience by commenting on two or three posts with key words and information related to the content you intend to publish from your profile. Keep these things in mind:
- Ensure you have a clear topical identity across your profile + content + comments
- Publish high-utility posts people save/share
- Participate in thoughtful engagement that reinforces your expertise lanes
Here are some things to avoid doing:
- Engagement bait (“comment YES and I’ll send…”) without real value
- Over-templated AI-sounding posts (repetitive cadence, generic platitudes)
- Topic whiplash (posts unrelated to your stated expertise)
- Pods/reciprocal engagement patterns (short-term lift, long-term trust issues)
If it helps, think of it this way. Practice the Four B’s – Be Interesting, Be Relevant, Be Helpful and Be Human.
