Imagine employees sharing their stories and experiences about their workplace online, becoming advocates for their brand and expanding its reach. That’s exactly what employee ambassador programs do.

Brands often struggle to get noticed on social media, where algorithms prioritize posts from individuals over corporate accounts. Employee ambassador programs address this by encouraging employees to create content in their own voice that the brand can share. Incentives can include free swag or entries into gift card contests for posting under a specific hashtag or topic. For example, interns might share LinkedIn posts about their experiences to attract prospective hires, while other employees might share vacation photos highlighting a company’s paid time-off policies. 

As platforms like LinkedIn have become go-to hubs for professionals, employee advocacy has emerged as a crucial part of brands’ content strategies—and the numbers show why. LinkedIn reports that employee networks are, on average, 10 times larger than a company’s follower count. Beyond sheer reach, the Edelman Trust Barometer found that posts from employees are three times more trusted than content from a CEO, and  get twice as many clicks  when shared on an employee’s account rather than the company’s profile. 

Siobhan Dalgleish, Colliers Canada’s manager of employer brand, says that employee ambassador programs play a crucial role in engaging audiences. At the Toronto-based commercial real estate company, employee content generates far more reach and engagement than content shared from the company’s profile. For Dalgleish, who promotes Colliers’ employee culture and values externally through brand and recruitment marketing, these programs are also a key recruitment tool. “People are invaluable to spreading the word about your brand,” she says, noting that having real employees serve as the face of the company is essential for building relationships. 

Colliers launched its first employee ambassador program in 2019 in response to brokers who wanted to build their personal brands online but didn’t know where to start. The initial cohort included 600 brokers in Colliers’ Vancouver office, focusing on sharing better content and generating leads. Since then, Colliers has expanded its employee ambassador programs to nearly 70 countries, including initiatives like #OOOwithColliers on LinkedIn, which highlights how employees spend their paid time off, showcasing company policy while humanizing the staff beyond their work. 

Another initiative, the Accelerate Your Career campaign, featured recent graduates of the company’s career acceleration program sharing how it benefited their careers. This campaign was designed to showcase the career advancement programs at Colliers, attract new talent, and increase brand visibility among current and prospective clients, Dalgleish says. She explains the reason behind this approach: “In an era of declining institutional trust, a company’s greatest strategic asset isn’t necessarily its logo,” she says. “It’s the voice of its people.” She adds  that having employees acting as brand ambassadors is a win-win: they share  authentic stories that resonate with audiences, and employees get to highlight their own career journeys. 

To run a successful employee advocacy campaign, Dalgleish says companies should equip  employees with the tools they need to become brand ambassadors, and make participation easy, consistent, and authentic to their voice. That starts with selecting the right technology to support the effort. At Colliers, employees use Hootsuite Amplify, which allows managers to select employee-made content and share it on LinkedIn (Vancouver-based Hootsuite recently faced backlash over a contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Colliers says it works with multiple providers, emphasizing that these relationships “do not reflect endorsement of their clients” and that it “continuously reviews” its platforms to ensure they meet its needs).

Beyond having the right tools, a strong campaign is essential to driving participation. Dalgleish says her internal communications team at Colliers regularly tests new ideas and analyzes past campaigns to see what performs best. She has found that sharing stories about staff’s career journeys  resonate most, so her team created more opportunities for employees to share this type of content, helping Colliers grow its talent pool.  

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Finally, creating incentives for employees can help ensure a campaign’s success. Dalgleish says interested staff are trained on the tools to make opting in easy. Monthly email updates show active participants which content is performing well and guide them towards posts likely to succeed. To keep engagement high, teams sometimes hold friendly competitions to see who can share the most posts or generate the highest activity, with participants rewarded–for example, employees in the  #OOOwithColliers campaigns were entered in a draw to win a $50 gift card. 

For Dalgleish, a successful employee ambassador program often comes down to experimentation and repetition. “Finding what works and then finding ways to leverage those tactics  that are shareable and scalable is the key to success.”