Your employees don’t care about your brand. They care about theirs.
Their reputation. Their visibility. Their career trajectory. Their personal brand.
And that’s not something to fix — it’s something to fuel.
If you’re trying to force employee participation in your brand story with generic toolkits, brand-templated content, and social guidelines, good luck. You’ll get dry posts, zero reach, and a compliance culture masquerading as employee advocacy.
But if you design an employee advocacy strategy that aligns brand goals with employee ambition? You win. They win. Everyone shows up differently.
We’ve lumped EGC (Employee-Generated Content) into the same conversation as UGC (User-Generated Content) and influencer marketing. But they live in different parts of the funnel and serve wildly different purposes.
- UGC is built to convert. It’s social proof from customers—authentic, often raw, and great for paid amplification. Think: “I tried this product and here’s what happened. Influencer content rents attention. It borrows credibility from creators with reach and gets your message in front of new audiences fast—but at a cost (and a risk to brand relevance).
- EGC lives at the top. It's built for brand awareness. It’s about narrative, not necessarily numbers—at least not right away. It humanizes your brand. Builds memory structures. Reinforces internal culture externally. It’s the stuff that makes people say, “Oh, I didn’t know that’s what they were about.” And here's the thing: EGC is scalable in a way that UGC and influencer content aren't. It’s infinitely repurposeable, and because it’s created within the walls of your company, it often hits closer to the truth. Which, let’s be real, is what audiences are craving right now.
Here’s the truth most executives don’t want to hear: Your employees aren’t trying to become brand mascots. They’re trying to build their careers – and that career might not be with your company long term. So if you want them to participate, stop pushing the company message and start showing them what’s in it for them.
⤷ Visibility = Currency People want to be seen. Internally and externally. I’ve run programs for exec teams where the only real motivator was a leaderboard. Once you add a competitive edge and make results visible, participation spikes.
⤷ Recognition > Requirements Don’t force it. Celebrate it. Public praise, internal spotlights, shoutouts in town halls—these cues tell the team that advocacy isn’t just allowed, it’s valued. That changes everything.
⤷ Dispel the myths around Personal Brand There's this perception that EGC and personal branding are just bragging about your accomplishments and it's just for executives, celebrities, and influencers. Help your employees break down these 10 common myths.
⤷ Help Employees Navigate Personal Brand Challenges Even highly successful leaders sometimes doubt their own expertise when stepping into the spotlight. There are many personal brand challenges employees face. For example: they may feel pressure to appear knowledgeable about every subject. But your role to help you find the subject matter that is within your zone of genius and focus on content related to that.
⤷ Career Growth Is the Real Incentive Make it clear: personal brand building can unlock bigger roles, speaker invites, industry credibility, and influence. Once that clicks, employees lean in.
⤷ Ambition, Not Compliance Too many companies confuse participation with alignment. True EGC programs reward those who push the narrative forward, not just repeat what’s on the slide deck. Give your people creative freedom and watch what happens.
How to Choose Your Brand Advocates
Hint: It’s not about the org chart.
You’ll always hear me say that Executive Social is the Future, But if that’s all you’re looking at, you’re missing the point.
Some of the most powerful brand advocates I’ve ever trained weren’t executives. They were individual contributors, mid-level managers, or specialists buried deep in the org chart — but they had the it factor.
Because true brand advocacy isn’t about job titles. It’s about behaviors. View some of the ways I identify brand advocates when creating clients' EGC strategies.
We’ve trained an entire generation of marketers to chase immediate ROI. Every campaign gets reduced to a spreadsheet:
- What’s the cost per lead?
- How many demo requests?
- Did it convert in 30 days?
But EGC (and brand marketing in general) doesn’t follow that timeline. Marketing isn’t just a conversion engine. It’s a memory machine. It’s what makes someone think of you before they even know they need you. The ROI of Brand Marketing doesn't fit on a dashboard The WARC study The Multiplier Effect found brands that invest in both brand and performance marketing see a 90% higher long-term uplift. But only if they stay the course for 12+ months.
It’s the same with EGC. You might not see an immediate spike in leads. But over time? You build:
- Awareness that doesn’t rely on ads
- A recruiting brand people want to work for
- Cultural credibility that can’t be faked
That’s the long game. But it’s the only game that builds real brand equity.
Look at brands like Poppi, Mejuri, Odd Muse, and even Curry’s. They’re not just showing their products. They’re showing their people. Employees filming lunch chats. Office walk-throughs. Behind-the-scenes of photo shoots. It’s not high production—and that’s exactly why it works. Some of their best-performing posts? Have nothing to do with the product. Because what they’re selling isn’t just the thing. It’s the feeling of being part of something.
Let's Talk Tech
Now let’s talk tech. Because no matter how strong your EGC strategy is, execution gets messy without infrastructure. Software is essential if you're trying to run a large strategy. At EY and with The Brand Audit Clients I'm a Hootsuite partner and use Hootsuite Amplify to help companies scale employee advocacy. Here’s what they do well:
- Pre-approved content at scale: Employees can easily select from a curated library of posts that already align with brand voice and goals so you keep control without killing creativity.
- Analytics built-in: Want to know who’s engaging, what’s working, and where the reach is coming from? Software gives you that visibility, so you’re not flying blind.
- Ease of use = higher adoption: The barrier to entry is low. Your team doesn’t have to become content strategists—they just have to show up and share.
- Built-in gamification features: One of Hootsuite's most underrated powers is its leaderboard system. It ranks participants by engagement, reach, or frequency which creates an instant feedback loop of motivation. Add in internal contests or quarterly shoutouts and you’ve got the fuel to turn casual contributors into consistent creators.
Think of it like training wheels for EGC: it gives structure and support, while you work on building a culture of contribution.
Final Thoughts
So...is your most trusted storyteller already on payroll?
Because here’s the truth: your next breakout content creator might not be a TikTok star or agency hire. It might be that thoughtful team lead who shares book recs on LinkedIn. The new hire who posts a “first week in the office” selfie. The product manager who’s quietly built a niche following.
The question isn’t can your employees become advocates. It’s: will you give them a reason to?
The brands getting this right aren’t pushing templated posts. They’re creating systems that reward originality, surface great voices, and build a culture where sharing is natural — not mandatory. This isn’t about turning everyone into a marketer. It’s about making it easy and meaningful for people to tell their stories. Because in a market oversaturated with noise, what breaks through isn’t polish. It’s people.
And when your people start showing up as themselves? That’s when the brand really starts to speak.
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Note: This blog is copyright of The Brand Audit. We would love you to share this content, but please always credit any ideas shared to Christina Minshull or The Brand Audit. Unauthorized copying is a violation of intellectual property law and may result in legal action.
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