1. Brand Messages Shared by Employees Get 561% More Reach than the Same Messages Shared by the Brand's Channels.
(Survey by MSL Group, quoted by Forbes)
Employee advocacy statistics create a measurable increase in a brand's social media engagement by leveraging employees' networks. When employees actively participate in sharing the company's posts, the reach significantly surpasses that of branded content distributed solely via corporate social media platforms.
Why This Matters: Increasing awareness through employee advocates enhances brand visibility organically. Employees’ social media accounts carry more trust and generate higher engagement, which in turn supports your marketing strategy with authentic, employee-generated content.
TeamOut Advice: Implement an employee advocacy platform that makes it easy for employees to find and share relevant company-related content. Provide social media training focused on motivating participation and creating thought leadership through personal brand-building. Measure employee advocacy metrics regularly to identify top advocates.
2. Nearly 31% of High-Growth Companies Have a Formal Employee Advocacy Program, More than Double the Average of All Other Firms.
(Research by Hinge Marketing: survey on Employee Advocacy)
High-growth companies are driving business benefits by encouraging employee advocacy through structured advocacy programs. Formal programs align employee engagement with company goals, amplifying social media presence.
Why This Matters: Effective advocacy programs contribute to enhancing brand visibility, attracting top talent, and improving the organization's reputation as a leading employer.
TeamOut Advice: Benchmark your firm against industry trends and design a formal employee advocacy program. Assign social media managers to drive adoption and integrate advocacy efforts with employer brand content and recruitment marketing. Promote success stories of employee advocates to motivate participation across departments.
3. More than 80% of Firms Do Not Have a Formal, Comprehensive Employee Advocacy Program.
(Research by Hinge Marketing: survey on Employee Advocacy)
The majority of firms are missing out on the tangible business benefits that come from employee advocacy programs. Without an organized platform or strategy, companies limit their ability to leverage their employees' networks.
Why This Matters: This gap signals an opportunity to increase brand awareness and social selling through employee advocates acting on their personal social media accounts.
TeamOut Advice: Start small by piloting an advocacy program in one business unit before expanding company-wide. Use KPIs, such as engagement rates and shares of company posts, to iterate and justify further investment. Provide incentives linked to advocacy efforts to consistently encourage employees to share company-generated content.
4. Nearly 40% of Employee-Advocates Indicated that They Spent 1 to 5 Hours per Week on Business-Related Social Media Activities.
(Research by Hinge Marketing: survey on Employee Advocacy)
Dedicated employee advocates contribute to advocacy efforts, enhancing the brand’s social media presence and thought leadership over time.
Why This Matters: Employee advocacy creates a culture of active participation, which increases the volume and authenticity of content shared about the company, strengthening employer brand and attracting top talent.
TeamOut Advice: Encourage social media training that empowers employees to spend meaningful time on advocacy. Regularly update company content to keep it relevant and interesting for sharing. Track advocacy efforts through employee advocacy metrics to recognize and reward consistently engaged users.
5. Over 96% of Respondents Identified Benefits that They See From Their Engagement on Social Media.
(Research by Hinge Marketing: survey on Employee Advocacy)
Employee advocates perceive clear value in their social media engagement, including career benefits such as enhanced personal brand and thought leadership.
Why This Matters: Advocacy efforts aligned with employee interests foster deeper engagement and promote a positive company culture centered on shared success.
TeamOut Advice: Highlight the beneficial nature of advocacy for both parties by showcasing how employee advocacy programs can develop personal brand and industry insights. Encourage employees to share success stories that link social media advocacy to purchasing decisions, recruitment wins, or sales growth.
6. 90% of Customers Are More Likely to trust a Product or Service Recommendation From Someone They Know.
(Research by Nielsen Global Online Customer Survey, quoted by Forbes)
Employee advocacy plays a key role in influencing purchasing decisions by using trusted employee networks rather than direct company messages.
Why This Matters: Leveraging employees as brand advocates enhances the credibility of company messages, resulting in higher conversion rates and stronger sales teams.
TeamOut Advice: Equip employee advocates with employer brand content that is easy to understand and share. Use an employee advocacy platform that integrates with social media channels to streamline sharing and track advocacy posts' impact on sales leads.
7. The Engagement Rates Tend to Be Twice as High in the Programs Where Employees Contribute Over 30% of the Content, Compared to the Ones Mainly Driven by Top-Down Communications.
(Research by Forbes)
Employee advocacy programs that empower workers to actively participate in content creation see much greater social media engagement compared to programs dominated by corporate messaging.
Why This Matters: Encouraging employee-generated content enhances engagement and produces more authentic and relatable company content, boosting brand visibility.
TeamOut Advice: Foster a culture where employees are empowered as thought leaders by inviting them to create and share original content or success stories. Provide social media training emphasizing content creation skills and monitor advocacy statistics to identify areas for improvement.
8. On Average, Your Employees Have a Collective Network that is 10 Times Larger than Your Company’s Following.
(Research by Forbes)
This massive collective network represents a tremendous opportunity for increasing brand awareness and enhancing the company's reputation through employee advocacy efforts.
Why This Matters: Employee networks exponentially expand the reach of company content beyond what a brand’s official social media platforms can achieve alone.
TeamOut Advice: Map employee social media networks and tailor content to align with their interests to motivate sharing. Develop an employee advocacy platform that simplifies sharing company-related content across personal social media accounts, increasing brand visibility and advocacy metrics.
9. Content Shared by Employees Typically Sees a Click-Through Rate that is 2x Higher than When Their Company Shares the Same Content.
(Research by LinkedIn)
Employee advocacy posts have stronger engagement and generate more measurable benefits like website traffic and lead generation compared to branded content alone.
Why This Matters: Brands benefit when employees act as authentic voices endorsing employer brand content, improving recruitment marketing.
TeamOut Advice: Curate high-quality company content that is easy for employees to personalize and share. Integrate key performance indicators focused on advocacy posts’ click-through and conversion rates for ongoing program optimization.
10. Companies with a Successful Employee Advocacy Program Are 58% More Likely to Attract, and 20% More Likely to Retain Top Talent.
(Research by LinkedIn, quoted by Forbes)
Employee advocacy programs improve employer brand and workplace culture, making firms more attractive to job applicants and better at retaining socially engaged employees.
Why This Matters: Encouraging employee advocacy helps build a competitive advantage in attracting top talent and reducing costly turnover.
TeamOut Advice: Align advocacy programs with talent acquisition and retention strategies by showcasing employee testimonials and brand stories. Use employee advocacy platforms to facilitate sharing of employer brand content during job search phases, and set advocacy metrics to measure impact on recruitment and retention.
11. For Your Employees to Become the Company's Advocates, You Need Quality Content that They Will Be Interested in Sharing: Only 25% of that Content Should be Company-Specific.
(Research by LinkedIn)
Effective employee advocacy programs depend on providing diverse, engaging content that resonates with employees’ interests. Balancing company related content with industry trends and broader topics encourages employees to share voluntarily and actively promote the brand.
Why This Matters: Employee engagement increases when quality content aligns with employees' social media activity and personal brand goals.
TeamOut Advice: Create a 75/25 content mix with mostly industry insights and some company-specific posts. Use an advocacy platform to simplify sharing and train employees on integrating company content naturally.
12. When Brand Messages Are Shared by Employees, They Have Eight Times More Engagement than Those Shared on the Brands’ Social Media Channels.
(Research by Forbes)
Employee advocacy statistics consistently show that employee-generated content delivers significantly higher social media engagement than identical branded content shared directly by companies.
Why This Matters: Employees act as trusted thought leaders who amplify the organization's reputation and increase brand visibility more effectively than corporate accounts alone, enhancing the company’s brand and social selling potential.
TeamOut Advice: Encourage employees to share company posts via personal profiles and highlight advocacy wins. Use recognition or gamification to motivate participation and track social media engagement.
13. Even Though Only Around 3% of Employees Share Content About Their Company, they’re Responsible for driving 30% of the Organization's Total Engagement.
(Research by LinkedIn)
A small subset of highly active employee advocates disproportionately impacts the company’s brand exposure and engagement on social media platforms.
Why This Matters: Identifying and empowering these brand advocates can supercharge advocacy programs, yielding outsized returns in terms of increasing brand awareness and driving employee engagement.
TeamOut Advice: Identify these top advocates using employee advocacy metrics and provide them with exclusive content and recognition to amplify their impact.
14. Salespeople Who Regularly Share on Social Media Are 45% More Likely to Exceed Quota.
(Research by LinkedIn)
Sales teams that actively participate in employee advocacy and social selling through personal social media accounts gain measurable business benefits.
Why This Matters: Employee advocacy is important to sales success, helping salespeople boost their credibility, generate qualified leads, and close deals by leveraging their trusted networks.
TeamOut Advice: Integrate advocacy into sales training. Equip sales teams with ready-to-share content and track their social selling results to encourage ongoing participation.
15. 77.5% of Content Shares Occur on "Dark Social" Channels (Private Messaging, Email) that Are Hard to Track but Highly Influential.
(Research by Forbes)
Much of employee advocacy happens in private social media environments, such as direct messages and email chains, making it difficult for firms to directly measure but critical to brand influence.
Why This Matters: Dark social shares significantly contribute to word-of-mouth marketing and enhance company culture by spreading advocacy messages organically among trusted networks.
TeamOut Advice: Encourage sharing company content in private channels and gather qualitative feedback on advocacy impact. Use employee surveys to estimate dark social influence.
16. Forbes reported that Sales Teams Using Their Social Networks Can Outsell Peers by Up to 76% and Convert Leads More Often.
(Research by Forbes)
Sales teams using their social media to share company related content, insights, and curiosities outperform their peers that don't do the same. Why? Because social media allows employees to establish a more personal relationship with a broad audience, which is something you can't achieve when you most on the company's behalf.
Why This Matters: This stat helps managers understand the importance of personal connections that can easily be achieved through employees' networks.
TeamOut Advice: Provide sales teams with ready-to-share content and social media training. Employees are more likely to share content that's already written/designed/curated for this purpose. Use an advocacy platform to track results and recognize top social sellers to boost engagement and sales.
17. In a Hinge Research Institute Survey, 45% of Advocates in a Formal Program Attribute New Revenue Streams to Employee Advocacy.
(Research by Hinge Research Institute, quoted by LinkedIn)
This employee advocacy statistics highlights the importance that formal programs have on advocates, making them aware of the positive impact they make in the organization.
Why This Matters: By acknowledging that their efforts bring results to the table, employees will be consistently motivated to keep advocating for their company on social media.
TeamOut Advice: Consider integrating employee advocacy into your revenue strategy by equipping advocates with targeted content that supports sales and marketing goals. Track new revenue streams linked to advocacy efforts and recognize advocates who drive growth to sustain engagement and maximize measurable business benefits.
18. Nearly 64% of Advocates Participating in a Formal Program Credited Advocacy Efforts with Attracting and Developing New Business Opportunities.
(Research by Hinge Research Institute, quoted by LinkedIn)
It's no surprise that employee advocacy spreads curated information about the company and its values, projects, and mission. These stats underscore that content sharing brings new business opportunities from diverse audiences the organization wouldn't probably have reached otherwise.
Why This Matters: This percentage showcases that advocate efforts are hardly replaced by other types of initiatives, including posts on company's social media channels. Employees reach new audiences that potentially became new targets, too.
TeamOut Advice: Make sure your formal employee advocacy program provides advocates with targeted content that supports business development. Remember to track new opportunities generated from advocacy efforts and recognize advocates driving growth.
19. Regular Users of LinkedIn Elevate Typically See Their Social Selling Index (SSI) Rise by 19% on Average and Experience a Fourfold Faster Growth in Their Networks than Before.
(Research by LinkedIn)
These employee advocacy statistics highlight that the more active someone is on social media, the better the chances are to see an increase on their Social Selling Index (SSI). Social media channels reward active voices, so don't miss the chance to encourage your employees to post and share company-related content.
Why This Matters: A growth is reach translates to a growth in potential clients. Employee advocacy goes beyond brand awareness: it's a way to share the insides of the company, from product/services to values, goals, and achievements.
TeamOut Advice: If you're familiar with LinkedIn Elevate, encourage regular LinkedIn Elevate use combined with social media training to improve employees' Social Selling Index (SSI). Support your employees in engaging with relevant content and actively expand their networks.
20. Leads from Employee Social Marketing Convert More Often, and Socially Engaged Companies Are 57% More Likely to Boost Sales Leads.
(Research by LinkedIn)
Again, employee social marketing helps establish a personal relationship with the target audience, reaching new potential buyers in the meantime. This personal side is something most companies can't easily achieve: the communication is corporate and posting is seen as a strategy to sell.
Why This Matters: These statistics help employers understand that social media can be a vehicle that help sales to increase. However, a thoughtful strategy is key, and employee advocacy can be a path to follow.
TeamOut Advice: Employees need to be empowered to share on social media: showing them the positive impact of advocacy programs can be a way to do it. Combine employee advocacy programs with social media training and track lead metrics to boost sales leads by leveraging socially engaged employee networks.
21. 86% of Employees in a Formal Employee Advocacy Program Said it Has Had a Positive Impact on Their Careers.
(Research by LinkedIn)
Having a voice on social media channels helps your employees' profiles to be looked at more often, increasing their network. A wider network often brings business opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist. Therefore, it's logical that 86% of employees see a positive impact on their careers.
Why This Matters: This is an important statistic to highlight the positive impact that advocacy programs have on employees' careers, not only company overall success.
TeamOut Advice: Regularly sharing other employee-advocates' vision and experience on the advocacy program can motivate other team members to join. When people understand that there are benefits for companies but also for workers, they are more likely to be encouraged to participate.
22. With a Strong Employer Brand, You Can Reduce the Cost Per Hire by 50% and Reduce Turnover by 28%, according to a LinkedIn Report.
(LinkedIn report shared by Forbes)
When employees share genuine, positive stories and brand-related content, it enhances the company's reputation and trustworthiness in the eyes of potential job seekers. This sentiment helps create a stronger employer brand.
Why This Matters: This LinkedIn report stat highlights how much these programs amplify and humanize the employer brand through authentic employees' voices.
TeamOut Advice: Leverage employee advocacy programs to amplify the employer brand authentically through your workers' social media networks. Share targeted content and social media training with your employees for better results.
23. Organizations within the IT Services Industry See More than 30% of Their Employees Sharing Content.
(Research by Forbes)
This is an exceptional engagement rate in terms of employee advocacy results. This level of participation enhances the brand's social media engagement and overall visibility, positioning employees as influential brand advocates.
Why This Matters: These firms show that creating a culture of socially engaged employees can amplify the company's reputation and improve engagement. Benefits include: stronger employer brand, increased talent attraction, and better position in the industry.
TeamOut Advice: Share these firms' statistics with your team and benchmark your IT services firm’s employee advocacy participation and aim to engage at least 30% of your workforce in social sharing. Recognize top employee advocates.
24. 79% of Organizations Reported More Visibility After Implementing a Formal Employee Advocacy Program.
(Research by Hinge Marketing: survey on Employee Advocacy)
Employee advocacy programs help companies share their achievements, projects, values, and mission with a wider audience. The best part? Your employees' networks are keen on hearing from them, leading to highly engaged posts and brand visibility.
Why This Matters: This proves the efficiency of employee advocacy programs. If you're skeptical at fist, these numbers will make you rethink your decision. Wider audiences mean higher possibilities for business.
TeamOut Advice: Implement an employee advocacy program with the sole goal of sharing consistently to boost brand visibility. Use advocacy platforms and metrics to track progress and recognize top advocates to sustain engagement and maximize social media impact.
25. 65% of Companies Reported Increased Brand Recognition After Implementing a Formal Employee Advocacy Program.
(Research by Hinge Marketing: survey on Employee Advocacy)
Employee advocacy programs boost brand recognition by enabling employees to share authentic company content on their social media networks, increasing reach and trust.
Why This Matters: Greater brand recogniton leads to higher brand awareness and improves reputation, helping attract new talents and customers.
TeamOut Advice: Launch a formal advocacy program with relevant content and social media training. Track and reward top advocates to sustain engagement and visibility.
26. 44.9% of Organizations Report Increased Web Traffic Due to Employee Advocacy, and 32.4% Report Better Search Engine Rankings.
(Research by Hinge Marketing: survey on Employee Advocacy)
Employee advocacy boosts web traffic and search engine rankings by encouraging employees to share SEO-friendly company content on their personal social media accounts.
Why This Matters: More traffic and better search rankings enhance online brand visibility and attract customers and talent.
TeamOut Advice: Share optimized content (SEO) and use advocacy platforms to track impact. Recognize top advocates to sustain engagement and growth.
Wrapping Up
These 26 employee advocacy statistics highlight a brand new business imperative. In the last few years, structured employee advocacy programs have become game-changers for companies aiming to boost their brand’s social media engagement, attract top job applicants, and establish authentic thought leadership.
With 65% of companies reporting increased brand recognition after implementing a formal program, the benefits of encouraging employee advocacy across every level of the workforce become clear. Social media managers and leaders who actively promote advocacy empower employees to become trusted brand ambassadors, enhancing employee ratings and the organization’s reputation.
At TeamOut, with our track record of organizing over 1,000 corporate events and retreats and a 95% satisfaction rate, we know how to tailor experiences that inspire your team to embrace advocacy and collaboration fully. Investing in employee advocacy elevates your company culture but also drives tangible business growth. It's a win-win that every forward-thinking organization should prioritize. Contact us today and learn how working together can elevate your company to new heights.
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