ModumUp partnered with a boutique IT recruiting company to launch a brand ambassador program - running a series of hands-on workshops that coached employees to become LinkedIn thought leaders using Social Selling.

Here’s what made it work.

The client is a boutique IT recruiting agency with 15 years in the industry. Their core focus is talent acquisition for tech companies, though they also serve telecom clients and offer employer branding and early-career hiring services.

For years, referrals and personal networks were enough to keep the business growing. Clients came back because the work was good, and word-of-mouth took care of the rest. But as the HR services market got more competitive, it became clear that organic referrals alone weren’t going to cut it anymore.

Looking for a scalable way to build brand awareness and generate new business, the company brought in ModumUp to develop a brand ambassador program built around LinkedIn - using employees’ personal profiles as the primary channel.

The thinking behind this approach was: in professional services, credibility drives everything. When employees consistently show up on LinkedIn sharing real expertise and industry insights, it shapes how the market perceives the company and builds the kind of trust that turns into business.

Many B2B companies are experimenting with ambassador programs as an alternative or complement to paid advertising.

One thing we always tell companies: don’t pressure people into this. Forced participation rarely leads to authenticity. Instead, find the employees who are already curious about building their personal brand - those are the people who’ll still be posting six months after the program wraps up. In this case, that’s exactly what happened - the company kept the program running internally long after our engagement ended.

The client handled this well from the start. They ran an internal survey to gauge interest and motivation before doing anything else. Then we hosted a kickoff session to walk everyone through what the program would look like and what was in it for them.

What happened next was a good sign: several employees who showed up just to listen ended up asking to join.

The final group spanned recruiting, marketing, and sales - which turned out to be a real asset. Ambassadors from different parts of the business could speak to different aspects of the company’s work, giving the program more range and authenticity.

We ran everything through LinkedIn. The platform’s search and filtering capabilities - by job title, company, industry, location, and more - make it ideal for precisely targeting the right people and starting meaningful conversations.

Every session was built around doing, not just learning. Participants didn’t just listen to us talk about search filters - they set them up live and started building prospect lists on the spot. We drafted outreach message templates together during sessions and sent them out in real time. We helped people brainstorm and write their first posts while we were all in the room together.

We also helped two participants host LinkedIn Live events from scratch - handling everything from the event page and topic selection to speaker prep, audience invitations, and stream setup. One event pulled in 312 registrations; the other drew 290. Both audiences were highly engaged throughout.

We also kept the curriculum flexible. When it became clear that participants would benefit more from learning how to work with industry influencers than from a standard lead gen module, we swapped it in. That kind of real-time responsiveness made a big difference in how the program landed.

People usually have no trouble joining the first session. Keeping them engaged through the whole program - when they’ve got full-time jobs and packed calendars - is the real challenge. We built our engagement strategy around three things:

Personalized coaching. Every participant got one-on-one support tailored to their goals, their role, and their comfort level. No one-size-fits-all approach - people moved at their own pace.

A shared community space. We set up a group chat where participants posted their content, gave each other feedback, and swapped ideas. It created accountability and a sense of momentum that kept people going between sessions.

Friendly competition. Challenges and mini-contests with prizes gave people a reason to push a little harder and stay consistent.

We also designed the program so it fit into people’s lives rather than competing with everything else on their plates. Homework was kept light, and we got as much done as possible during our live sessions.

The proof that it worked: all 12 participants completed the program. Nobody dropped out.

The numbers tell the story. Across all participants, LinkedIn connections grew by 250 to 1,100 per person - totaling 6,767 new targeted connections over the course of the program.

Two participants closed inbound leads generated entirely through relationship-based outreach - no cold pitching. One of those led to a signed contract before the program even finished. In a space where deals typically take 9 to 18 months to close, that’s a standout result. Two others had prospects proactively reach out asking about services and pricing.

Several posts significantly outperformed the participants’ typical engagement levels. One post alone generated 50 inbound connection requests.

The company didn’t stop when the program ended - they kept it running internally. The results over the following 90 days: