Tribal Impact

Executive A: “I love this employee advocacy idea… but there’s no budget for it.” Sound familiar? It’s not that leaders don’t believe in the power of employees on LinkedIn. They do. They just need a case that connects their priorities: growth, efficiency, and trust. Marketing budgets are tighter and AI has changed how buyers find and evaluate brands. The brands winning today aren’t the ones shouting the loudest, they’re the ones activating their people. That’s what our next webinar is all about. On October 28th, join me and Aly Grenyer as we unpack how to get your executives to say “yes” to advocacy budgets: 💭 How to start the right conversation using data and benchmarks 💭 How to link advocacy to what your execs actually care about 💭 How to build a low-risk, high-impact investment case Even if you can’t join live, register to get the recording. I promise it’ll make your next budget conversation a lot easier. 🔗 Link in the comments.

I'm feeling inspired after the World Employer Branding Day 2025! Here are my top three insights. 1. People are your powerhouse - the brands that truly stand out are those that bring their employees into the spotlight. But during the event I had several conversations with people who still don’t have permission from leadership to activate employees on social media. Some are quietly testing things to prove it works. 2. Data is everything - the more evidence we have, the easier it becomes to show that employer branding is an engine for business growth. The more evidence you can show that your efforts drives revenue or reduces cost the better. 3. Leadership advocacy is the driver - when leaders show up online in non traditional unscripted ways, they give everyone else permission to do the same. It’s also the way to drive sustained buy-in and budget for your programmes. And speaking of activating employees and leaders on social media. We’re hosting a Tribal Impact webinar that dives right into this. We’ll show you how to get budget buy-in for your employee and leadership advocacy programme -> how to start the right conversations, define the investment you need, and build a strong business case for long-term success. If this is of interest, sign up to join us live or leave your email to receive a recording. #WEBD25 #WorldEmployerBrandingDay2025

You launched an employee advocacy programme. You helped employees that signed up start posting on LinkedIn. You also persuaded some of the leaders to get active too. The increase in reach and engagement followed. On paper, the programme was working. And yet the budget got cut. Why? Because sales didn't follow. There were a few 'wow' moments along the way. "Look! One of our prospects liked Dave's post!!" Lovely. But a handful of likes didn't give sales what they needed. So marketing ran it alone. Sales didn't trust it. And every quarterly review became a fight over whether to keep the budget. Until one quarter, it wasn't a fight anymore. Here's what was missing. Impressions, reach, engagement, followers. Those matter. They tell you the content is landing. But on their own, they won't bring sales on board. You need to connect it to business results. And the easiest way to do that is by tracking results using LinkedIn Sales Navigator. When your employees and executives get activated, two metrics move there: - buyer intent per target account - the people inside your ICP accounts start viewing, engaging, showing intent signals. Sales Navigator tracks all of it. - target connections - your employees' networks fill with the decision-makers your sales team is trying to reach. Sales can see who, at which accounts, and plan accordingly. Both are early signals of pipeline forming. They heat up before a deal closes. They tell sales the accounts are warming up before the first outreach is made. But! Seeing the signals isn't the whole job. If a prospect at one of your target accounts likes Dave's post, you don't want a rep in their inbox the next minute firing off cold outreach. That could burn Dave's credibility and the relationship. You need a playbook for what to do with the signals. Who picks them up, when and how. You can't align sales and marketing on outcomes they can't both see. Shared measurement is the starting point. Fix the measurement. Build the playbook. Train the teams to run it. Measure the outcomes. Analyse what worked. Adjust the strategy. This is the way to run a successful employee advocacy programme in 2026. P.S. Speaking of signals. Sales Navigator currently shows the Mayor of London's office at 'High' buyer intent on our LinkedIn activation work. Who knew 😄 For weekly content on this subject, follow my profile or click on the hashtag #ModernSmarketing and bookmark the page.

Whenever a company asks us to activate their employees on LinkedIn™, or take existing activation up a level, one of the first things we do is audit their current social maturity. Our Social Maturity Matrix™ maps employees across two axes - the size of their network and their level of activity. That gives us 9 stages, from Inactive to Influencer. Here is a typical example. A company comes to us wanting to activate a group of their subject matter experts. Instead of offering the same enablement to all of them, we map them first. That usually surfaces a smaller group who already have a decent network and are active enough to build on. That becomes the pilot. We then design an enablement path built specifically for that selected group. A focused pilot like this is much easier to measure, quicker to learn from and the participants themselves become the proof point that makes the case for scaling across the rest. Map first and you stop wasting budget on people who aren't ready. I'll be unpacking the full framework at #BrightonSEO on 1st May. See you there?

Most of the conversation about AI and B2B marketing focuses on why the trust landscape is changing. If trust now determines discovery, buyability and growth, we need to get more honest about what scales it and where brands get it wrong. In my latest article, I explore the four mistakes (and fixes) I see brands make when trying to scale reputational trust via employee influence. Happy Friday!

By now you’ve probably seen the news. Profound published research this week showing LinkedIn is the most cited domain for professional queries across six major AI platforms. LinkedIn’s own leadership, including Inna Meklin, Director of Marketing at LinkedIn, amplified the research by writing about it here on the platform and inviting the SEO community to weigh in. Seven years ago I made a career switch from search marketing to social media marketing, and I’ve been fascinated by how much the two worlds have been merging ever since. LinkedIn posts have been ranking in Google search results for several years now, something most social media marketers still don’t fully appreciate. So when this research landed, I went and asked the person I consider the most critically rigorous voice in the search space: Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz and SparkToro. His reply sent me down a rabbit hole. And honestly? I’m glad it did, because what I learned matters more than the original headline.