Your Most Important Partner on LinkedIn

A few editions ago, I introduced the concept of the Five Circles of LinkedIn, and the most enthusiastic users of the professional network among you likely remember the third circle: Employee Advocacy or simply put: engaged employees. If you ever feel like you’re alone in talking about the company, the industry, and the important details on LinkedIn, there’s a way to change that — your

team members are your most valuable partners

on the network.

If you look at the best performing company pages on LinkedIn, the analysis of their posts reveals a common factor. It’s not creativity or variety, nor large advertising budgets, and unfortunately, it’s not partnerships with notable LinkedIn influencers either. The key link is the active employees who are the first to react to posts, the most frequent content sharers, and certainly the most effective storytellers for the brands.

Of course, the journey from having employees registered on the platform to having dedicated brand ambassadors is not a short one. But there are things you can do, and the following suggestions will surely be of use to you.

Start with an internal guide

on your company’s LinkedIn policies. A few tips on building personal profiles and engaging with content from the company page are essential. If you also include guidelines on topics that are welcome or off-limits for posting, the result will be a job well done.

Another strong signal of the importance of the professional network for an organization is

internal training on how to use LinkedIn.

In just one or two hours, you can share the essential “laws” of the platform with a broad group of employees and explain how messages from the company page can reach a wider audience. Alternatively, you could dive deeper with training on social selling or recruitment for specific teams. If there are competitors whose activity impresses you, trust me—it’s all about structured work and aligning expectations through such educational formats.

Does your company like to set trends rather than follow them? Then it’s time for an internal LinkedIn academy. Its structure could include introductory training for the majority of employees, followed by more in-depth sessions for professionals who could achieve better results in sales, recruitment, brand recognition, partner network expansion, and more. Advanced training could last up to two days with a strong practical focus, where the best brand ambassadors will shine. Results won’t take long—I’ve seen it dozens of times!

And speaking of ambassadors, the cherry on top always comes last.

A mentoring program over a few months,

where experienced LinkedIn users within the organization help future stars gain confidence and improve their writing. That’s right—you don’t necessarily need external help for this, as there are always hidden talents “at home” who would be happy to share their personal tricks for success on the platform.

And even though LinkedIn recently introduced their Premium Pages concept to help companies enhance their presence, nothing beats the results from highly engaged employees and their interaction with content. After all, as the old LinkedIn saying goes,

“Happy employees attract happy employees.”

This article was first published on Forbes Bulgaria. Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter here!