How Companies Can Win the Brand Awareness Game and Save Big on LinkedIn Advertising Costs with Employee Advocacy

Introduction:

In today's digital-first world, LinkedIn has emerged as a key platform for brand awareness and networking. However, many companies continue to channel substantial budgets into creating & posting content on their Linkedin page that has very limited reach or into LinkedIn ads without realizing a more cost-effective and impactful strategy – harnessing the power of employee advocacy.

This article delves into the financial benefits of encouraging employees to be more active on LinkedIn, drawing stark comparisons with the costs of traditional LinkedIn advertising campaigns.

Understanding the Cost of LinkedIn Ads:

To set the stage, let’s consider the cost of running a LinkedIn advertising campaign.

The average CPM is $26.9 for Linkedin Ads (CPM: cost per thousand impressions)

The Untapped Potential of Employee Advocacy:

Now, let's explore the scenario where a company has some employees active on LinkedIn and generating some views of their content and their profiles.

And let’s calculate how much it would cost in Linkedin Awareness Ads to generate the same amount of views

Assumptions are based on known data insights or averages on Linkedin.

• about 10% of employees of a company are posting on Linkedin (☝️ check or request our rankings to know how your organization compare to peers)
• posts receive an average of 500 views each
• profiles receive an average of 300 visitors during 90 days
• average CPM for Linkedin ads: $26.9 per 1000 impressions, so in our calculations we will take $20 per 1000 impressions because:
• unlike ads, views of employees’ posts are not targeted
• but majority of people viewing posts of your employees are still relevant to your brand. they are likely to be in the same industry, more likely to engage and more likely to trust their content than content from brands. (more on this in Edelman’s Trust Barometer Global reports. here is 2024 report)
• profile views are equivalent to posts views. (in reality, visitors viewing your employees’ can be potential leads, talent or customers so they are higher quality visits)

Calculating the Earned Media $ Value for 10 employees posting on Linkedin

Profile visits

• 10 employees: 3,000 profile views during 3 months
• Annual profile visits: quarterly visits x 4 = 12,000 impressions

Posts impressions

• Weekly impressions: 10 employees x 500 impressions = 5,000 impressions.
• Monthly impressions (x4) = 20,000 impressions
• Annual impressions (x52) = 260,000 impressions.

Earn Media: $7,316 per year

• Earned media value for posts annually: (260,000 / 1,000) x 20 USD = $5,200
• Earned media value for profiles annually: (12,000 / 1,000) x 20 USD = $240

To keep things simple, we kept the same earned media value for profiles although we can agree that a buyer viewing a profile of an employee is a buying intent signal of greater importance.

For example, if 1 in 25 viewers is a good lead with potential and my salesperson closes a deal out of 4 leads and a deal is $10,000, then we can say that each viewer can be worth $100 on average. But to keep

Calculating the Earned Media Value for companies

Assume a company with 500 employees on Linkedin has 10% of its workforce actively posting on LinkedIn. If each employee’s post gets an average of 500 impressions and they post once a week, the cumulative reach is significant.

Here are 3 tables with a few scenarios from 3 types of companies with 2 competitors

• Competitor 1 has a bit more employees posting once a week
• Competitor 2 has a bit more employees posting AND they post twice a week instead of once resulting in 3 times more visibility and earned media savings for a business of similar size in the end.

Multinational with 5000 employees

Medium business with 500 employees

Small business with 100 employees

Comparison with LinkedIn Advertising:

The annual earned media value of employee advocacy significantly overshadows the cost of a traditional LinkedIn campaign aiming for similar impressions. This comparison highlights not just cost savings but also the added value of authenticity and personal engagement that employee posts bring.

Example of Asana

Employees on Linkedin

• 3000 “always on” employees profiles
• 10% of employees who post on LinkedIn exceeds $156k in earned media per year
• Viewed by network and extended network of peers, colleagues, customers

Ads on Linkedin

• Targeted but expensive

Other benefits…

For the employee:

A stronger personal brand By being active and visible on Linkedin, you will get more views on your content and your profile. If you do this consistently, you will build a reputation within your organization and externally with clients, prospects, peers within your industry.

As we call it now,adays, you will build a personal brand.

This will attract opportunities at scale, career, inbound leads, networking or business.

When starting to add value and be active online you will immediately:

• Build visibility, confidence and credibility
• Showcase your expertise
• Build and engage with a target audience
• Get more opportunities.

For the employer:

Inbound, Talent & an engaged workforce The more employees are active on Linkedin, the more views and traffic your brand will get. Also, people trust what other people say more than brands,

Brand awareness, consideration, thought leadership, employer branding, and being and staying top of mind within your company's target audiences are all ultra-important for marketers and communication executives.

Employee advocacy and earned media can come from interns, employees showing life at work, sales teams, recruiters, leaders or executives

The employee advocacy benefits for companies are multiple, and will ultimately lead to:

• A stronger and more trusted brand reputation
• A more engaged workforce
• A more attractive employer brand
• Increase inbound leads or sales or customer retention

Actionable Strategies for Maximizing Employee Engagement:

1. Implement a Structured Advocacy Program: Develop a program that encourages and rewards employee participation on LinkedIn.
2. Training and Resources: Provide training on creating engaging content and understanding LinkedIn analytics.
3. Content Calendars: Help employees with content ideas and scheduling to maintain consistent engagement.
4. Recognition and Incentives: Acknowledge active employees to foster a culture of participation and advocacy.

A well-structured employee advocacy program can not only match but exceed the reach of paid LinkedIn campaigns, at no additional advertising cost.

The financial savings, coupled with the authentic engagement that employee posts bring, make a compelling case for companies to invest more in their employees' LinkedIn activity rather than solely relying on paid advertising or posting corporate brand content on their company page and asking employees to like.

Conclusion:

By embracing and fostering employee advocacy on LinkedIn, companies can achieve substantial financial savings while simultaneously enhancing their brand's authenticity and reach.

This strategy represents a smart reallocation of resources, where investing in your employees' digital presence can yield better returns than traditional advertising expenditures. The time is ripe for businesses to harness this untapped potential and redefine their LinkedIn strategy to standout from competition and achieve greater results.