Employee advocacy without the cringe.
Most employee advocacy programmes fail the same way: a tool, a Slack reminder, an awkward all-hands push to "engage with our content". The team posts twice, the founder gets uncomfortable, the programme dies. We run advocacy as a function with the people who actually want to be involved, and ignore the ones who do not.
Why most advocacy programmes fail
They treat humans like distribution channels.
The standard playbook: buy a tool (Hootsuite Amplify, Bambu, EveryoneSocial), upload pre-written posts, ping employees on Slack to share. The reach numbers look great in the dashboard. The reality is that nobody trusts those posts because they read like a press release everyone is forced to share.
The fix is not a better tool. It is a smaller, more deliberate group of advocates writing in their own voices about things they actually care about, supported by a system that makes it easier rather than mandatory.
How we run it
Five pieces.
Identify the willing
We start by interviewing 15-25 employees. About a third will genuinely want to be on LinkedIn, a third will tolerate it, a third should be left alone. We focus only on the first group.
Voice training
Group workshop and 1:1 coaching for the willing. We help each advocate find their angle (their specialism, their POV, the thing they want to be known for). No templates.
Content support
Drafts, editing, ideas. Not pre-written posts they share verbatim. The content has to come from them, we just remove the friction.
Cadence and accountability
Weekly group thread with prompts and ideas. Monthly check-ins. Quarterly review. Treat it like a community, not a campaign.
Reporting that matters
Reach, inbound DMs, pipeline-attributed conversations from advocate posts. Not "shares per employee per month" (the metric that produces forced engagement).
Realistic outcomes
What this actually produces over 12 months.
Five to ten active advocates posting weekly in their own voices. Combined reach in the hundreds of thousands per month. Inbound DMs to the company across 3-5 named team members. Recruitment becomes easier (your team page becomes a magnet). Sales calls become warmer (prospects already recognise multiple people from the team).
It will not produce 50 active employee advocates posting daily. That number is a vanity metric and the people who hit it are usually faking it.
When this fits
And when to skip it.
This fits when
- You have 15+ employees with at least 5 who genuinely want to be in public.
- Your team has expertise that is interesting to your buyers (most B2B does).
- You can commit for 12+ months. Advocacy is slower than founder-led.
- You are willing to invest in voice training and content support, not just a tool.
Skip when
- You have fewer than 15 employees (founder-led is higher leverage at that stage).
- Your team does not want to be on LinkedIn. Forcing them backfires.
- You expect this to drive primary pipeline. It is amplification, not lead gen.
- You think a tool will solve it. It will not.
FAQ
No. We have used the tools, they are not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is content quality and willingness, neither of which a tool fixes. We use Notion for content briefs and a private Slack channel for the cohort.
5-12 active advocates is the sweet spot. Below 5 the impact is marginal. Above 12 the coordination tax kills the programme. Quality over quantity.
No, they compound. Founder-led drives the brand voice. Employee advocacy multiplies the reach. We typically run them together.
60-90 minutes including writing 1-2 posts, replying to comments, and engaging with each other. Less than the time most teams already spend in the LinkedIn feed scrolling.
Standalone advocacy programmes from £2,500/month with 12-month minimum. Often bundled with founder-led for an integrated programme from £4,500/month.
Yes, and you should at some point. Most clients run our programme for 12-18 months, then internalise once the system is proven and the team has the muscle. We are not trying to keep you forever.
Want to talk through your situation?
Thirty minutes with the team. We will pressure test your numbers, not pitch.
Book a strategy call →