The connection between LinkedIn advocacy and shaping corporate reputation

LinkedIn is where corporate reputation is shaped in 2026. The key to building an effective strategy lies in how you influence what people say about you, not just what you push from increasingly sparsely distributed brand pages. 

Top performing organisations (those in the 90th percentile) are talked about 6.1x more than the average brand. Yet, the question of how to generate advocacy on LinkedIn remains a challenging one - our latest research uncovers why.

People discuss corporate brands as a vehicle to discuss themselves and build their brand. Key to any approach is creating opportunities for third-parties to talk positively about themselves, thereby creating a halo effect for your brand.

Thanks to its lack of anonymity, LinkedIn is one of the most trusted social platforms. We’ve analysed thousands of posts across industries, and identified the seven groups of third-parties that consistently talk about brands: MPs, SpAds, Campaigning Groups, Membership Groups, Analysts, Employees, and Customers. 

When defining a strategy for shaping corporate reputation on LinkedIn, there are three key things to bear in mind:  

1. Driving employee engagement and encouraging them to produce Employee Generated Content (EGC) is key - over 61% of all content came from employees 

2. Making physical events work digitally - over 2/3rd of all social posts were about a physical event or moment

3. Positivity first - people aren’t on LinkedIn to criticise, but to promote themselves. Almost 60% of posts were about the author themselves, but gave a positive halo effect to a company 

Read our report in full.