For years, brands have treated LinkedIn as another corporate communication channel. A place to share company news, announce milestones, celebrate achievements and occasionally post a team photo.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Company pages give organisations an official voice and a place where people can find out what they do.
But a company page can only tell part of the story. The people behind an organisation have their own experiences, expertise and perspectives to share. And those voices can often make a company more interesting to follow.
People connect with people, not just logos
Think about the LinkedIn posts that catch your attention. Alongside company announcements, you’ll probably find people sharing an interesting perspective, something they’ve learned at work or an experience worth talking about.
There’s a reason for that.
A colleague sharing an insight from an industry event, an expert explaining a development in their field or a team member offering a behind-the-scenes look at a project can bring something different to the conversation.
Not because the company behind the message is unimportant, but because the person sharing it adds context, personality and a point of view.
That’s particularly relevant in PR and communications, where credibility matters just as much as visibility.
Your employees have more to share than you might think
Every organisation has people with valuable knowledge. They work with clients, follow industry developments, solve problems and build expertise through their daily work.
Yet much of that knowledge never makes it beyond internal meetings or conversations with colleagues.
LinkedIn offers an opportunity to bring some of those perspectives into the open.
A consultant discussing a shift in the industry, a colleague sharing lessons from an event or a specialist making a complex topic easier to understand can all contribute to how an organisation is perceived.
But there’s an important distinction: employee advocacy shouldn’t mean turning employees into additional corporate channels.
Asking everyone to repost the same company update with an enthusiastic caption doesn’t automatically make the message more interesting. Neither does handing employees a ready-made post and expecting them to make it sound personal.
The challenge isn’t getting more employees to post. It’s helping them find something worth saying.
That starts with recognising the expertise people already have and giving them the freedom to share it in their own words.
Of course, not everyone wants to be active on LinkedIn. And that’s fine. Employee advocacy works best when it’s encouraged, not forced.
So, what happens to the company page?
It isn’t going anywhere.
Company pages remain valuable for official announcements, employer branding, company updates and providing a consistent picture of an organisation.
But they become more effective when they’re part of a broader communication approach.
A company page can announce that a team attended an industry event. An employee can share what surprised them during a particular session.
A company page can introduce a new project. Someone who worked on it can explain the challenges, decisions or lessons behind the scenes.
Both tell part of the same story, but from different angles.
And that’s where the opportunity lies. Rather than expecting every message to come from one corporate account, organisations can make room for different voices to contribute in ways that feel relevant and authentic.
The goal isn’t to choose between corporate and personal communication. It’s to make them complement each other.
Start with the audience, not the content calendar
Before deciding what to post, there’s a more fundamental question worth asking: who are we trying to reach?
Potential clients, journalists, industry peers, future colleagues and business partners don’t necessarily follow the same people or care about the same topics.
Understanding those audiences helps determine which stories are worth sharing, whose perspectives could add value and where those conversations should take place.It also changes how we approach content.
Instead of asking, “What can we post this week?”, a more useful question might be, “What do the people we want to reach actually want to know?”
Sometimes the answer will be a company announcement. Other times, it might be a practical insight, an opinion or a personal experience from someone within the organisation.
And sometimes, the most valuable contribution isn’t a new post at all, but joining an existing conversation.
Not every piece of expertise needs its own LinkedIn update. A thoughtful comment or a useful exchange with someone in your industry can be just as relevant.
Making room for different voices
For communication professionals, this means looking beyond the company page and recognising the expertise and experiences that already exist within an organisation.
It also means accepting that not every message needs to be perfectly polished or centrally controlled to be valuable.
That doesn’t mean abandoning a clear communication strategy. Quite the opposite.
Companies still need to think about what they want to be known for, which audiences matter to them and how different voices can contribute to that story.
But there’s a difference between helping people communicate with confidence and telling everyone exactly what to say.
The strongest approach gives employees enough direction to understand the bigger picture, while leaving room for their own personality, opinions and experiences.
Your company page gives your brand a voice. Your people give it a personality.
And on a platform built around professional connections, that difference matters.
Lode Symens
Lode Symens is a PR Consultant at Progress Communications, where he supports Technology companies with their communication and visabilityin the Benelux. His main focus is media relations, press communication, contentcreation and social media. With a broad interest in media, technology and communication he closely follows the newest developments and seeks ways to bring relevant stories to the right target audiences.