If your leaders want control and your employees want nothing to do with LinkedIn, you don’t have a content problem; you have an alignment problem. Michelle J Raymond explains why employee advocacy fails on LinkedIn and what actually gets teams confidently showing up.

Learn how Company Pages should lead strategy while employees scale trust, visibility and real B2B growth.

Key moments in this episode -

00:00 The Alignment Problem in Employee Advocacy

00:47 The Human Side of LinkedIn

01:26 Leadership Perspective on LinkedIn

05:31 Employee Perspective on LinkedIn

09:02 The Power of Communication

11:20 Alignment and Activation

14:25 Clarity and Confidence

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE J RAYMOND

1. Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn
2. Book a free intro call
3. https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
4. B2B Growth Co newsletter

Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days. https://metricool.com/michellejraymond/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=20260127_michelle-raymond_jan-sm-study_en&utm_content=audio&utm_term=q1

#LinkedIn #EmployeeAdvocacy #B2BMarketing

If your leaders want control and your employees want nothing to

do with LinkedIn, you don't have a content problem, you have an

alignment problem, and in today's episode, I'm gonna unpack that.

G'Day everyone.

I'm Michelle J Raymond, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast where in

the last two episodes we've been talking about resetting your LinkedIn marketing

strategy and company pages for 2026.

But this week, listeners, we're going to go into something which

I think is even more important and probably the secret to your success.

Or also what's probably causing the most friction, and that is people.

People and LinkedIn.

When we look at the human side of LinkedIn, it can often be pretty

tough to get sorted because we come up against trust versus control issues.

You've got fears that come up.

There are so many different things that are going on for people.

You've got the leaders of the business coming at it from one angle.

You've got employees potentially coming at it from another, and that

misalignment really can cause a lot of grief in your LinkedIn strategy.

And if you are responsible for trying to gain visibility and trust for your

brand on the platform, this is something that we really need to get sorted.

And in today's episode, I'm gonna go over where your leadership

team might be coming from.

And from the other side where your employees might be coming from and how

we can all work together to actually get better outcomes for everyone

when we bring things into alignment.

So we're gonna look into that right after this quick word from

our podcast sponsors, Metricool.

I recently got a DM on LinkedIn that was a help me.

I don't know how to fix this.

My leaders in my business only want the team to talk about the

business in their personal posts.

What do I do?

I know that this isn't right.

How can I get this fixed within my business?

Well, newsflash, it's not just happening in one business out there.

It happens regularly across the board.

It doesn't really matter about the type of business, the industry

they operate in, the size.

This issue comes up.

Why does this issue come up?

'cause we are dealing with people.

I think that when it comes to LinkedIn, the best way that we can

move forward is to have a look at things from everybody's point of view.

In this section of the podcast, we're gonna look at it from

leadership's point of view around what it means when we want to get

our employees active out on LinkedIn.

Quite often these leaders have been scarred because their best employees

were out there creating content and they got poached by competitors

and they lost a really great asset.

Now, if you've listened to me for a little while, I would argue that it

wasn't the posting on LinkedIn that caused the problem, but we're gonna

park that to one side right now and just understand that is a genuine

fear from people that run businesses.

What else do they fear?

Is this gonna generate some kind of ROI or is this just a distraction for my team?

Other things, is the brand reputation at risk?

If we just let our teams post whatever they want whenever they want, what

happens if somebody says the wrong thing?

If you start to think about it from the perspective of the leaders in

the business, you can understand why they wanna control things.

This is where conversations come up where they say, I only want our employees

posting on LinkedIn about the company.

Now we all know that that doesn't work, but to push back and say that that's

unreasonable without understanding what it's like for that leader

is not going to get you anywhere.

They are just gonna push even harder and it becomes a hot mess.

Leaders that might be listening to this and nodding their head

and saying, yes, Michelle.

I've been trying to tell my teams this.

That is exactly why I want to control what goes out on LinkedIn.

I have some words for you as well.

Where this breaks leaders, is when you try and control everything and put

in so many rules and roadblocks for your team, essentially what happens

is you're gonna kill authenticity.

We know that that works on LinkedIn.

You are having them now sound like robots, which is the complete

and utter opposite of what works.

You are also going to kill visibility because they are most likely with all

of the rules, gonna be so scared of actually posting and getting it wrong,

that they won't put themselves out there.

So visibility is now at zero, and we all know that corporate

content alone doesn't build trust.

So you can't build trust in the market if your team is invisible.

Think about that.

We know that LinkedIn is the platform where B2B business gets done.

If your team is invisible, not being authentically themselves,

we have a real problem.

You can't build trust in the market if you don't trust your own

people, but I understand that this is only one side of this tension.

So after this, let's have a look at what might be going on for your employees.

Now that we understand some of the things that might be guiding the thoughts and

actions of our business leaders, let's have a look at what's going on for

employees when it comes to LinkedIn.

And this is super important, just as much for you to understand.

Because when you understand people, then you can start to make small

changes that compound over time.

And that's really what we're trying to get out of today's episode is figuring

out what small actions can you take to support people in the business to

get your LinkedIn strategy enabled and moving forward so that you achieve those

business results that you're after.

So what's going on for employees?

Well, let's be clear.

Nobody ever went to school and learned about all things LinkedIn.

It just didn't happen.

And so this is something that is not usual for most people.

Quite often we're asking for people that don't sit within marketing

or social teams to get out there and start creating content.

They don't want to be content creators in, I'm going to say

nine times outta 10 cases.

And from that perspective, that visibility that you are asking

them to go after is something that actually feels really risky for them.

And you need to have empathy for what it's like and those

fears that happen for people.

So some of those fears are, what if I get it wrong?

What if I say the wrong thing and I lose my job?

Right, now, we just said that leaders want to control things and put up

lots of rules, so it makes total sense that employees are now freaking

out going, whoa, it's better for me to not post than mess this up and

have some kind of consequence on my career, which I've worked really hard.

And let's be clear, quite often the people that were asking to post

content on their personal profiles, aren't even getting paid for it.

They're just told, come on, that's not the spirit.

Come and help the team out.

It's, you know, part of what we are trying to do in the marketing team.

So when you think about that and you're trying to put so many rules and

roadblocks up for these individuals, no wonder that they're not doing it.

Forcing participation never works.

I'm gonna keep saying that one all year.

Just to remind people.

Giving people templates without context doesn't make sense either.

I was working with one client whose marketing team had gone off and

created all of this stuff that they were personally embarrassed and didn't

want to put out on their own account.

Not having that alignment between different teams is where

some of these problems start to bubble up to the surface.

And when you are policing that behaviour, coming up to someone and saying, you

should have said this, or don't do this, or your graphic needs to be

this, or you didn't get it approved.

It's no wonder people don't want to create content on LinkedIn as much

as you want them to, and as much as all the influencers out there say,

but if you post LinkedIn content personally, then everybody loves it.

They'll trust you more.

They'll like you more.

We get more reach than our company page.

Like you know the drill.

You've heard it all before.

But actual reality for employees, I don't think they ever asked to be

influencers as we are expecting them to do as part of employee advocacy.

So if both sides are acting from fear, what's the antidote

to get us moving forward?

Let's talk about that next.

I'm gonna tell you straight up that the way to get the teams moving forward

is not more tools and not more rules.

There I said it not more tools and not more rules.

It is time where we all have to actually start having a

conversation with each other.

Yay.

Who would've thought?

Strategies cannot be built separate in one small team without having

conversations with everybody else and understanding where they're coming from.

If you start strategy with communication between teams, when

you go to roll out the tactics, I promise you it is much, much easier.

And I often see this playing out when there's fierce competition

between global marketing teams and regional marketing teams.

Both are pulling the Company Page in different directions, and the

same goes between company pages and employee advocacy teams.

People, if you want your LinkedIn strategy to work, it has to be

holistic and have everybody involved.

We build that strategy and then we use communication to roll that out.

So we actually explain to people why we are doing things, so that they

can understand what's in it for them.

That is so often overlooked, and then we wonder why people don't wanna do it.

So you go to your colleague and say, can you post this on LinkedIn for me?

Posting on your personal account's really great.

We'll get more visibility, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And skip over the part where they don't even understand why they should do it.

'cause it's not their job.

They're so scared because there's so many restrictions.

And then it just becomes force.

And we have already spoken that force is not the way that we do this.

So activating people does not come with building in more rules.

That doesn't mean that I don't think it's a great idea to have guidelines to

help give people clarity and confidence.

That I'm a huge fan of.

So let's talk about how the Power of Two can bring everybody into alignment.

The Power of Two really is a great way to bring the business into alignment

and taking actions and getting that success and that return on investment

of all your time and resources that are going into this LinkedIn strategy.

And we're talking enablement over enforcement, right?

So important.

What does that look like in reality?

It could be that your company page is providing consistency, strategic

clarity, credibility, infrastructure.

While your employees are providing humanity, expertise, trust, or reach.

Together this is why I love it, is your compounding visibility and that really

signals strength to the algorithm.

It is gonna love you for it when everybody is working together, and that cultural

alignment internally will reflect so well on the business externally.

What does activation look like when we are talking about

LinkedIn for business in 2026?

Well, I obviously have a vested and biased interest in this,

and that is all about training.

Set your team up for success.

Do not assume that they know what they're doing.

We assume that people are out there and they know exactly what to do.

You can write a few sentences.

Of course you can.

So why can't you just post if only it was that easy.

It also comes from leadership modeling.

I firmly believe that if you want a successful LinkedIn company page strategy

and scaled with employee advocacy, then ultimately that comes from the top.

That comes from the leadership team showing that this is important to

the business and leading by example.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be the CEO or it has

to be the founder of the business.

Quite often, they're already stretched too thin and expecting them to be able

to do it is not always gonna be possible.

It doesn't mean I don't love it when they do it.

But also having systems and support.

Where does an employee go when they need help?

Who is gonna create those guidelines and the guardrails to keep everybody on track?

What is that feedback loop?

Have you created a social media policy that shows your employees where

they can go if something happens?

Trolling might happen, not as frequently on LinkedIn as it does

on other platforms, but that's not to mean that it doesn't exist.

And also experimentation.

I want you to figure out what are the different and unique ways

that as a team you can all work together as the Power of Two.

Company Page leading the way, employees supporting them and bringing those

results together that isn't possible on one side or the other by themselves.

As we wrap up the episode.

I'm gonna leave you with this one more time.

You don't activate people with rules.

You activate them with clarity and confidence.

And if this episode has given you the clarity and confidence to

try something different in your business, DM me over on LinkedIn, or

if you're watching this on YouTube, drop me a comment and let me know.

I'd love to hear the difference this is making.

So until next week, cheers.