Why most employee advocacy programs turn your team into parrots

Most employee advocacy programs fail because they turn employees into parrots, repeating the same product message over and over until no one wants to share anything. In this episode of Content Amplified, Matt Mullan, Director of Social Media at NinjaOne, explains how to fix that by positioning employees as thought leaders instead of megaphones. Matt walks through giving people industry content they actually want to share, using Mad Libs-style suggested copy with guardrails so posts sound human, and motivating adoption by shouting out every organic win across Slack rather than relying on prizes. He gets specific on measurement: why earned media value and potential impressions are made-up numbers, why UTM link tracking is the only honest metric, and why he holds his programs to a 50% monthly usage bar. He also makes the case that LinkedIn comments now out-earn reshares, and shares how his team built an in-house "social ambassador" tiger team to keep conversations going. If you run social and your advocacy program has stalled, this conversation gives you the playbook.

About Matt

Matt Mullan is the Director of Social Media at NinjaOne, an IT operations platform. He has spent roughly 13 years in social media, going back to experimenting with Google Plus and MySpace, and has worked across industries from an international toy manufacturer to HR and payroll software, cybersecurity, and IT management companies. Matt is focused on B2B social media as his day-to-day craft, and he believes the real audience for an advocacy program is not your followers, it is your own employees.

Show Notes

- Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mullanmatthew/