
7 Reasons Why Employee Advocacy Boosts Brand Reputation
Key takeaways
- Employee advocacy demonstrates a huge amount of credibility for your brand.
- It can also help dispel any reputational damage or misconceptions.
- Employees shouldn’t be forced into posting advocacy content; you should accept that not everyone is comfortable with this blurring of the personal-professional boundary.
Employee advocacy is the promotion of a company’s brand, products, or services by its employees through their personal channels, particularly on social media. This practice leverages employees as ambassadors who share content, insights, and positive experiences about their workplace. By doing so, they enhance the company’s visibility, trust, and reputation in an authentic and relatable way.
Organisations can choose to implement structured employee advocacy programs, providing tools, training, and pre-approved content to empower employees. They may also afford ample freedom to employees, who may feel comfortable creating advocacy content without templates.
Either way, the goal is to amplify marketing efforts, build a credible brand image, and reach audiences that traditional marketing might not. There are many benefits to businesses, but most revolve around boosting their reputation.
This blog will explore how employee advocacy can boost a brand’s reputation and also provide you with advice for implementing this strategy. Let’s dive in:
Examples of employee advocacy
To give an idea of what employee advocacy might look like, here are some examples:
The most common type is social media sharing. This may include posting company updates or achievements, job openings, or sharing blogs and articles from their personal accounts. Ideally, these posts should include some personal commentary so that they’re distinguished from typical promotional company content.
Referral programs are another type of advocacy. This is when employees recommend their workplace to potential hires when it’s looking to fill an open position. They may also leave positive reviews on platforms like Glassdoor, sharing why they like working for you.
Perhaps in conjunction with these advocacy types lies behind-the-scenes content. Employees might create their own videos or photo posts that showcase their work environment or moments of team camaraderie. These content types will bolster any promotional or insightful messages staff try to get across.
And our final type of employee advocacy involves public speaking. If your company participates in conferences, webinars, or panels, this is an easy opportunity for team members to represent the business. They may share insights about your industry or company culture.
But, how do these approaches work to effect meaningful reputational change?
7 reasons why employee advocacy boosts brand reputation
1. Authenticity and trust
Employees’ advocacy brings a level of authenticity that corporate messaging often cannot achieve. When employees share their genuine perspectives about a company, its values, or its products, their messages are perceived as more believable than official advertisements or branded posts. This is because individuals are seen as independent voices, not directly tied to the marketing department’s goals.
Authenticity builds trust by showing the public that employees genuinely stand behind the company and its offerings, and trust is a cornerstone of a strong brand reputation. When audiences see real people endorsing its mission or products, they are more likely to believe in the company’s reliability and integrity.
This enhances the company’s reputation as a trustworthy organisation that people can confidently support or engage with. For the company, this trust translates into higher credibility, better customer retention, and improved relationships with stakeholders.
2. Increased reach
When employees share company-related content, they extend the brand’s reach far beyond its existing audience. Each employee typically has their own unique network of friends, family, and professional connections. By advocating for the brand, employees tap into these networks, exposing the company to potential customers, partners, or collaborators who may not have encountered the brand otherwise.
This increased reach benefits the brand’s reputation by creating more opportunities for its values, expertise, and offerings to be seen in a positive light. Employee networks are often more engaged than the general audience targeted by corporate campaigns, meaning that the shared content garners more attention and interaction.
This word-of-mouth-like effect amplifies the brand’s visibility while reinforcing its credibility. With consistent advocacy from employees, the brand establishes a strong, widespread presence, improving its standing in marketplaces.
3. Improves public perception
Employee advocacy is a powerful tool for addressing and correcting misconceptions about a brand. Negative stereotypes or misunderstandings can arise due to outdated information, third-party criticism, or lack of visibility into the company’s true culture and operations. When employees share authentic stories and experiences, they provide an inside perspective that counters these inaccuracies.
For example, if a company is perceived as having a poor workplace culture, employees showcasing positive interactions, team achievements, or testimonials of job satisfaction can dispel such myths. Similarly, advocacy that highlights the company’s commitment to sustainability, innovation, or customer care reinforces its true values and priorities.
This proactive correction of misconceptions enhances the brand’s reputation by presenting a more accurate, relatable, and positive image. It helps rebuild trust with sceptical audiences, reduces the impact of negative narratives, and positions the company as transparent and credible in the public eye.
4. Humanising the brand
Employee advocacy puts a human face on your brand, moving beyond logos and corporate messaging to showcase the real people behind your organisation. When employees share their personal experiences, company culture, or stories about their work, they make your brand more relatable and approachable to the public.
This human connection helps the company build stronger relationships with its audience as people are more likely to trust and engage with a brand that feels authentic and empathetic, rather than faceless or overly corporate. By spotlighting employees’ stories, the company conveys its values, fosters emotional connections, and demonstrates that it cares about its people.
This relatability enhances the brand’s reputation as not just a business, but an organisation driven by real, passionate individuals. It builds goodwill with customers and stakeholders, who appreciate seeing a genuine, human side to the brand, leading to loyalty and stronger long-term relationships.
5. Demonstrates industry expertise
When employees share their knowledge, insights, or achievements through advocacy, they position both themselves and the company as credible authorities within the industry. For example, an engineer discussing an innovative project or a marketer sharing successful campaign strategies reflects the company’s expertise.
This demonstration of industry knowledge boosts the brand’s reputation by showing it as a leader in its field. Audiences respect brands that consistently contribute valuable insights or solutions, and employee advocacy makes this expertise more visible to a wider audience. It also reinforces trust, as it proves the brand’s competence and ability to deliver quality work.
For the company, this establishes a competitive edge, as potential customers, partners, or recruits are more likely to engage with a brand recognised for its expertise. Consistent, knowledgeable advocacy showcases the company as not only capable but also as an innovator driving the industry forward.
6. Builds employer credibility
When employees advocate for their workplace, they implicitly vouch for the company’s culture, values, and overall quality as an employer. Sharing positive experiences, workplace achievements, or participation in company events demonstrates that employees feel valued, engaged, and aligned with the business’s mission.
This advocacy boosts the brand’s reputation by portraying it as a desirable place to work, fostering credibility as an employer. Prospective talent is more likely to view the company as an attractive option, knowing that current employees genuinely support it. It also reassures clients, partners, and stakeholders that the brand is stable and operates in an environment that prioritises employee satisfaction.
7. Crisis management support
Employee advocacy during a crisis can play a crucial role in protecting and even enhancing a brand’s reputation. When challenges arise (whether due to external criticism or product issues) authentic, positive voices from employees can counterbalance negativity and provide reassurance to the public.
Employees who speak out in support of the company during difficult times demonstrate resilience and loyalty, which reflects positively on the brand. This advocacy shows that a company’s staff stand by its values and efforts to address whatever went wrong. It also reinforces transparency, as employee perspectives provide a behind-the-scenes view of how the company is responding.
For the brand, this advocacy strengthens public trust and mitigates reputational damage.
Asking your team to be advocates
Introducing the idea of employee advocacy to staff requires thoughtful communication. You should start by clearly explaining the concept: how employees can share their authentic perspectives about the company on their personal channels, and how you hope it will benefit the organisation.
You’ll need to address any concerns early on. Employees might worry about boundaries between personal and professional identities or feel unprepared to advocate publicly. Offer reassurance that participation is voluntary and provide clear guidelines about what to share. For example, encourage highlighting achievements, company milestones, or team successes, while avoiding sensitive or confidential information.
Training is key to building confidence. It may help to offer workshops on topics like social media best practices, crafting impactful posts, and understanding your brand’s voice. Your staff might prefer to receive pre-approved template content that they’re invited to adapt so that it takes the pressure off starting from scratch.
A slow launch might be best, where a pilot group of enthusiastic employees start first. When the impact of their efforts can be seen in analytics, show these off! This pilot can also reveal any areas where staff may need extra support, making it more attractive for other employees to get involved.
Common mistakes when implementing employee advocacy
If you decide you want to implement employee advocacy, there are some important things to bear in mind. Consider this list of common errors before you get started:
- Unclear guidelines may cause employees to unintentionally share off-brand or sensitive content.
- Rather than vanity metrics like the number of posts, focus on meaningful outcomes like engagement, reach, and brand sentiment.
- Employee advocacy should always be voluntary. If it’s forced, your team may feel resentful or publish half-hearted content.
- If employees are only sharing pre-approved content, it may come across as robotic. Authenticity is key here, so encourage personal and genuine output and go easy on the brand guidelines.
- Employees may not participate if they feel uncertain about using social media. You should provide training on content creation and how to adhere to your brand guidelines.
- Employee advocacy may feel like an infringement of personal boundaries for some staff. In these cases, you should respect the level of involvement they’re comfortable with.
- Participating staff will have insights from their activity. Make sure you listen to their feedback.
- Your team may feel demotivated if their efforts aren’t rewarded.
- The advocacy program may fizzle out if you don’t invest in continual content creation and support employees regularly.
These common areas for friction won’t pose problems if you’re well prepared. Get ready to have frank and compassionate conversations with employees. You should also keep an open mind as the strategy unfolds, as you’ll likely come across new ways of doing things.
Is it toxic to ask for employee advocacy?
Employee advocacy is definitely something that could be misused. In some companies, there is a toxic culture where ‘home life’ isn’t distinguished from work, and where employees are expected to go ‘above and beyond’ on a daily basis. These types of companies might label themselves as ‘families’… setting the scene for work relationships where boundaries do not exist.
With this in mind, we want to promote employee advocacy in a cautious way. This isn’t something everyone is going to be on board with. However, some people really do live for their job and have no problem promoting it online. Instead of seeing a problem with staff who don’t feel this way, it’s important to respect their boundaries and focus on creating a culture where advocacy is entirely voluntary. Employees shouldn’t feel pressured to merge their personal and professional lives or risk being judged for not participating.
Ultimately, employee advocacy should be a reflection of authentic pride and satisfaction, not an imposed expectation. By valuing individuality and respecting boundaries, companies can build trust with their teams and benefit from the organic reach and credibility that advocacy brings.
Final thoughts
We hope this article has given you a good idea of where to start and what to avoid doing when implementing employee advocacy. As always, you can reach out to us here at purpleplanet to get help with any of your marketing needs.