de Jong & Laan Starts With Employee Advocacy to Boost Visibility and Connection

About de Jong & Laan

De Jong & Laan is an accounting and consulting organization with offices across the country. The organization supports clients in various sectors with financial, tax, and strategic issues. Their strength lies in their people: professionals who add value to clients every day, but who are not naturally focused on their online visibility.

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The Challenge: How Do You Make Knowledge and Personality Visible?

Marketing and communications managers Ilse and Nicolette saw an opportunity: colleagues have a wealth of knowledge, but often don’t know what to share or how to professionally profile themselves. de Jong & Laan focuses strongly on the client. Internally, employees are closely connected, but externally, the knowledge and culture are not yet fully showcased. The question was: how do we facilitate this in an appropriate and low-threshold way?

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The Experiment: Small-Scale, Non-Binding, and Strategically Valuable

In April, de Jong & Laan started an Apostle experiment: a two-month non-binding pilot with a small, diverse group of employees from various offices and business units.
The goal wasn’t to roll out on a large scale right away, but to explore: What content suits whom? Where is the need? And how does the platform work in practice?
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Participants received content suggestions they could personalize or skip. This freedom built trust. By using topics and groups, Ilse and Nicolette carefully selected which content matched which participants.

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The experiment was perceived as highly positive: clear guidance, short communication lines, and a kick-off session that quickly got everyone on board. This is exactly what made the experiment such a strong starting point: accessible, flexible, and strategically sound.

“What’s great about Apostle is that it doesn’t feel like ‘just another tool.’ It’s simple, accessible, and gets people thinking about their visibility in a low-threshold way.”
– Ilse & Nicolette, Marketing & Communication at de Jong & Laan

Employee involvement led to striking results: posts gained significant traction.
Even more surprisingly, the experiment also brought colleagues closer together internally. Through personalized posts, not only did clients ask more questions, but colleagues from different departments also started connecting better. The platform didn’t just work externally, it also created more internal connection between offices.

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Executive Profiling: Leadership by Example

A notable part of the experiment was the use of executive profiling. Managers also joined the onboarding process, something that rarely happened before. While management used to have little visibility on LinkedIn, Apostle now provided them with relevant content suggestions. And it worked:
Many of these suggested posts were shared one-on-one. The results? Posts from managers reached significantly more people, more than posts shared via the company’s corporate account. They received responses from clients and colleagues, which greatly boosted visibility and recognition.

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For Ilse and Nicolette, this is an important signal for the next rollout: when leaders are visible, it sets the tone for the rest of the organization. It strengthens leading by example and shows that employee advocacy isn’t “extra,” but rather a core part of leadership and company culture.

Future Plans: Scaling up Smartly

de Jong & Laan is now ready for the next phase: a step-by-step rollout within more business units and offices. This will be done in their own way, with a focus on quality and voluntary participation.

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New employees will now be introduced to the ambassador program during their onboarding sessions, giving a natural boost to their own professional visibility. Additionally, internal communication tools, on-site LinkedIn training sessions, and personal conversations are being used to encourage employees to create accounts and get involved.
A key focus for Ilse and Nicolette remains the personal aspect: encouraging employees to adapt posts so they truly reflect their personality.

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Conclusion: From Awareness to Action

The experiment has shown that employee advocacy works at de Jong & Laan, both for external visibility and internal connection. What began as a test with a small group has now become the foundation for a broader movement where employees take charge of their visibility while simultaneously contributing to de Jong & Laan’s brand positioning.