Activating your brand's greatest potential advocates

Welcome to Spark, a newsletter from Vivace. We curate and publish the most interesting thinking and ideas from our community on themes ranging from business and finance to culture and creativity. Send pitches and feedback to [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

Hello Spark reader,

Ready or not, we are now living in the era of the personal brand, with big implications for both businesses and professionals:

• 91% of UK hiring managers prefer a candidate with a strong digital professional brand (Canva)

• 89% of consumers trust personal recommendations above all other advertising channels (Statista)

• Brand messages are re-shared 24x more frequently when distributed by employees vs brand (MSLGroup)

• 82% of people are more likely to trust a company when their senior executives are active on social media (Weber Shandwick & KRC Research)

And if that wasn’t enough to convince you, recent research into LinkedIn has shown that company pages are averaging just 1–2% organic reach (Algorithm Insights Report 2025). So how should brands pivot to succeed in this new era?

Lauren Harbury, Head of Social and Paid Media at Broadridge, has the answer: employee brand advocacy. Yes, it’s time to activate your biggest reserve of sleeper assets—your people. Done right, it can be a win-win for everyone, and Lauren has 5 tips from her many years of running successful programs at Broadridge and beyond on how to do just that.

Lastly, if you’re a Thomson Reuters employee or contractor past or present based in MN, you’re invited to our unofficial reunion at Vivace’s Saint Paul office tomorrow! All the details are on LinkedIn.

—joel

P.S. Our Spark Reader Survey is still open and we’d love a few more responses if you haven’t yet had your say.

5 keys to nailing the delivery of your brand advocacy program

Guest article by Lauren Harbury

Employee advocacy has been a hot topic for the past few years, as an increasing number of employees become spokespeople for the brands they work for, particularly on channels like LinkedIn. We’ve seen a rise in individuals speaking about their work, company culture, and more, which raises both their personal profiles and those of their employers.

These employees are bringing their own networks into the conversation about your brand and shaping the way that it is seen by potential clients. Knowing that, if you aren’t thinking about an advocacy program, now is a great time to start. The key question to answer is:

I’ve been part of building advocacy programs over the course of my career, some better received than others, and with that experience—and the experience of launching our advocacy program at Broadridge—I think I’ve cracked the nut on how to make these programs engaging and valuable.

What we’re after: authentic engagement from employees across the business. It’s not magic. It’s strategy, structure, clarity, and a little bit of influencer dust.