<div class="gn-article"><div class="gn-hero gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-hero__image"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/69089aa44c4afa1b9e7f5d2a_651d7ecb65d2457ae63d680a_61841250f36a4109e63a1cf9_Blog%252520covers%252520(25).png" alt=""></div> <div class="gn-hero__head"> <span class="gn-kicker"><span class="dot"></span>Event · Expression</span> <h1 class="gn-title">Masterclass: Using Branded Content for you and your business</h1> <div class="gn-meta"> <strong>The GO Network</strong> <span class="pip"></span> <span>9 December 2021</span> <span class="pip"></span> <span>1 min read</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gn-event-meta gn-reveal"><div class="gn-event-meta__block"> <span class="gn-event-meta__label">When</span> <span class="gn-event-meta__value gn-date">Thu, 9 Dec 2021 · 09:00</span> </div><div class="gn-event-meta__block"> <span class="gn-event-meta__label">Where</span> <span class="gn-event-meta__value">Online</span> </div><div class="gn-event-meta__block"> <span class="gn-event-meta__label">Status</span> <span class="gn-event-status gn-event-status--recording">Past · Recording</span> </div></div> <div class="gn-body"> <h2>Why Employee-Generated Content Should Be Part of Every Agency's Growth Strategy</h2> <p>Most agencies spend considerable energy building their clients' brands while leaving their own largely dormant. The website gets updated sporadically, the LinkedIn page posts the occasional case study, and new business development falls back on cold outreach and referrals. Yet one of the most cost-effective growth channels available to agencies right now sits unused: the personal brands of the people already on the payroll.</p> <p>In a masterclass hosted by The GO Network, Greig Robertson, SEO and Content Lead at Cognism, walked through the core principles of branded content and employee-generated content, with a particular focus on how agencies can build an actionable strategy without overwhelming their teams. The session covered everything from making the business case internally to measuring what success actually looks like. The takeaways below apply directly to agency leaders and new-business teams looking to turn personal branding from a vague aspiration into a structured programme.</p> <h2>The Business Case for Personal Branding at an Agency Level</h2> <p>Before you can get your team involved, you need to be clear on why personal branding matters commercially. For agencies, the argument is straightforward. Buyers, whether procurement leads, marketing directors, or founders, consistently research the people behind a pitch before they respond to it. A strong individual presence on LinkedIn builds the kind of familiarity and trust that cold emails cannot replicate.</p> <p>Employee-generated content also extends an agency's organic reach without requiring additional paid media spend. When team members post consistently, they expose the agency's thinking, culture, and expertise to audiences that the company page will never reach on its own. For B2B agencies in particular, where sales cycles are long and relationships matter, this visibility compounds over time.</p> <p>Robertson's session framed the investment in personal branding not as a vanity exercise but as a pipeline activity. Agencies that treat it as such, and measure it accordingly, are far more likely to sustain it.</p> <h2>Getting Buy-In From Your Team</h2> <p>One of the most common blockers to agency-wide personal branding is internal resistance. Some team members feel that posting publicly is outside their remit. Others worry about saying the wrong thing, looking self-promotional, or simply do not know where to start. Overcoming imposter syndrome is not a soft problem; it is a practical one that leadership needs to address directly.</p> <p>A few approaches that work in practice:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Start with willing participants.</strong> Identify two or three people in your agency who are already active on LinkedIn or who have expressed interest. Build early case studies around their results and use those to bring others along.</li> <li><strong>Remove the blank page problem.</strong> Provide content prompts, post templates, or a simple content calendar. The barrier is rarely motivation; it is the friction of knowing what to write about.</li> <li><strong>Make it part of a defined role, not an add-on.</strong> If personal branding sits in the same category as "things we should probably do", it will not happen consistently. Assign it, resource it, and acknowledge it.</li> <li><strong>Lead from the top.</strong> Agency owners and directors who post regularly make it easier for the rest of the team to do the same. If leadership treats it as optional, the team will too.</li> </ul> <h2>Setting Goals and Mastering LinkedIn SEO</h2> <p>Sustainable personal branding programmes are built on manageable goals, not unrealistic posting frequencies. For most agency professionals, committing to two or three posts per week is more effective than a burst of daily content that collapses within a month. Consistency beats volume, and LinkedIn's algorithm rewards regular engagement over sporadic spikes.</p> <p>On the technical side, LinkedIn SEO is an underused lever. Robertson highlighted that most professionals leave their profiles poorly optimised, missing opportunities to appear in search results when buyers are actively looking for expertise. Key areas to address include:</p> <ul> <li><strong>The headline.</strong> Write it as a value statement rather than a job title. Include the terms your target audience would actually search for.</li> <li><strong>The about section.</strong> Use natural language that reflects how you describe what you do in a conversation. Keywords matter here, but readability matters more.</li> <li><strong>Post copy.</strong> LinkedIn indexes post content. Writing about specific disciplines, sectors, or problems your agency solves increases the chance of appearing in relevant searches.</li> <li><strong>Consistency of topic.</strong> Posting within a defined area of expertise signals to the algorithm, and to your audience, what you stand for. Scattered content dilutes that signal.</li> </ul> <h2>Measuring Whether It Is Working</h2> <p>Personal branding without measurement is just noise. Agencies should define what success looks like before they begin, and track it in a way that connects back to business outcomes rather than vanity metrics alone.</p> <p>Follower counts and impression numbers are a starting point, but the metrics that matter most to an agency are inbound connection requests from relevant prospects, direct messages referencing a post or piece of content, and, ultimately, conversations that trace back to LinkedIn visibility. Qualitative signals count too: being recognised at events, being asked to speak, or being referenced by peers as a voice on a particular topic.</p> <p>A simple monthly review, even a 30-minute check-in across the team members involved, is enough to identify what content is generating traction and adjust accordingly.</p> <h2>Where to Start</h2> <p>If your agency has not built a personal branding programme yet, the most practical first step is an audit. Look at the LinkedIn profiles of your senior team and assess them honestly against the criteria above. Then identify one or two people who are ready to post consistently, set a 90-day goal, and treat it as you would any other new-business initiative: with a brief, a timeline, and accountability. The compound returns from consistent, well-positioned employee content are real, and the agencies seeing the benefit now are the ones who started before it felt urgent.</p> </div></div> <aside class="gn-related gn-reveal" data-auto="related-reading"> <div class="gn-related__label">Related reading</div> <ul class="gn-related__list"> <li class="gn-related__item"> <a href="/articles/digital-transformation-at-scale-making-a-molehill-out-of-a-mountain" class="gn-related__link"> <span class="gn-related__category">Expression</span> <span class="gn-related__title">Upgrading your Digital Systems - Finding a Strategy that Works for You</span> <span class="gn-related__excerpt">Agency digital systems don&#39;t upgrade themselves. 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