Lia Haberman is the author of the popular ICYMI newsletter sharing weekly platform updates and social content trends. She’s been tapped for social media insights by brands such as Google, Robert Half, and AT&T; led social branding and creator workshops for Disney's Creator Lab, Macy's Style Crew and YouTubers Colin and Samir’s Creator Startup, and teaches social media and influencer marketing at UCLA Extension. When she's not working, she's scrolling TikTok and Instagram looking for new places to eat in Los Angeles.
Employees are the new influencers. Seventy-four percent of people surveyed in a recent Harris poll say employees are more influential than traditional marketing influencers.
But encouraging EGC (employee generated content) or launching an employee advocacy program doesn't guarantee you're nurturing the next Staples Baddie. In case you're unfamiliar, Kaeden Rowland is a TikTok creator and Staples print specialist who went viral for her videos showcasing the company's office supplies and services.
According to the same Harris poll, 41% of employees say their company hasn't provided tools or training to help them represent the brand externally. The creative infrastructure — assets, templates, training — is missing. And without it, even the most enthusiastic employees don't know where to start.
Design is a motivational tool
The role of design in employee advocacy isn't just about what ends up on social media. It starts internally with how the program is communicated and felt.
"There's so much opportunity for creative assets," Chesson Duncan, a retail consultant and former ERG program lead at Gap Inc., told me. "It makes employees' jobs easier if they can synthesize something into a visual to send out. And it creates a sense of excitement, especially if it looks good."
A polished event invite. A well-designed digital flyer. A branded graphic in a Slack channel. These signals communicate that this program is worth showing up for.
- Express tip: Create polished graphics by starting with a template in Adobe Express. Just search for party invites or event fliers to get a head start on your design.
Cultural events inspire great content
If you want to know what actually makes employees post, look at what they're proud of.
During her time at Gap Inc., Duncan saw cultural activations become the most organically shared content the company produced. For Lunar New Year 2024, the API employee resource group hosted a dragon dance performed by someone from the community.
"There were so many people posting it on their own personal socials," she recalls. "And Gap Inc. also posted it on their socials."
Juneteenth looked similar. "We had a cookout, a spoken word artist, a band, a double dutch crew — and we were up on the roof. Those are the types of activations that you want people to share."
The common thread? These events had a strong visual identity — a logo, a branded asset, something worth screenshotting. "They always did better than just the random email of 'this is what we're doing,'" Duncan says.
- Express tip: Set up a brand kit with your company logo, colors, fonts, and templates so employees can easily align the content they create with your brand.
Empower employees to post in their own voice
The mistake most brands make after getting employees excited is handing them a script.
Gen Z is especially good at spotting inauthenticity immediately. "They can see through it when something feels forced," Duncan said. "When it feels like the company wants them to like them."
What works is giving employees the building blocks. "People need to be inspired, not coerced," says Betsy Hindman, founder of Hindman Company and LinkedIn strategist.
Liquid Death figured this out, according to Hindman. The company compiles assets — such as images and copy — for employees to post around launches and announcements. “The secret sauce is framing it as original content rather than sharing the company post, even if it's all based in the same creative assets and language.”
At the end of the day, people want to engage with other people on LinkedIn — they don't want to disappear into the abyss of a company page. That's what this strategy gets right.
- Express tip: Share the building blocks with employees as a Project in Adobe Express. You can include creative assets like templates, logos, and color palettes, but you can also include documentation like presentations and creative guidelines so everyone can find what they need in one place.
Tag the social team for training
Social media literacy is a real skill gap most companies ignore. The fix isn't more brand guidelines — it's practical training: lunch-and-learns hosted by the social team, short-form video coaching for executives, walkthroughs of what's working on LinkedIn or TikTok right now.
"We have a filming guide that outlines our specs, like how to shoot in 4K with the appropriate frames per second," shared Jamia Kenan, who leads Sprout Social's employee-user generated video program. "We have reminders like accounting for headroom, using a tripod, capturing audio, and, of course, lighting."
Employees — and especially executives — may have experience with public speaking, but that doesn't always translate to social-first video, according to Kenan. With so many different skill levels, different workflows are in place, from written SOPs to live support.
When it comes to what actually resonates, Kenan has found that leaning into personality beats polished production every time. She says a combination of skits, talking head videos, and edutainment-style clips perform best — whether videos are posted to the brand channel or shared to employees' own channels. "They're funny, they're memorable, and have some really good, authentic moments."
- Express tip: Show your employees how to make the best of their content, even if they don't have pro-level equipment. Brighten up poor lighting with Adjustments, record voiceover without leaving Adobe Express, and clean up background noise with Enhance Speech.
Good creative drives buy-In
The best employee advocacy programs don't feel like programs. They feel like a culture worth sharing — and the creative assets are what make people believe that.
- Create a culture that employees want to advocate for.
- Inspire, not coerce, people to participate.
- Make creative so good that it signals that something is worth showing up for.
- Give employees creative building blocks, then get out of the way.
- Provide social media training, whether it's live, recorded, or written.
